Learning that Tim did not have a child named Kathleen, let alone a daughter, was a shock. I had become attached to the character of Kathleen from this quote of Tim's, "I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war
stories. My daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession, that I should
write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a
Shetland pony."
I can relate to Kathleen when she says that Tim writes too much about war, but maybe that's because I'm biased as I dislike war stories and movies. The sentiment of a daughter telling her father to write about a girl who gets a pony resonated with my younger self's wishes. Then there's the cute father-daughter trip to Vietnam in the story "Field Trip." Kathleen's curiosity with the culture and land of Vietnam but disinterest of the significance of the Vietnam War is innocent.
After doing some research on Tim to figure out what else he had made up, I found a piece of work he published for the New York Times in 1994 called "The Vietnam in Me." He as a 40-something year-old takes his much younger girlfriend who is in her 20s to Vietnam. Her name was Kate. The character of Tim's daughter Kathleen is not entirely made up; she's most likely based off of his young girlfriend at the time. It's weird to think of translating a real love interest into a familial character, but it makes sense. The age differences between 10 year-old Kathleen and 43-year-old Tim is reflected in the wide age gap of Tim and Kate. Tim mentions that Kate was just three years old when he went off to fight in the Vietnam War to emphasize how different their pasts are. Just like Kathleen doesn't understand why Tim can never move past Vietnam, Kate doesn't seem to able to either in "The Vietnam in Me." Tim also preserves Kate's curiosity and adventurousness in Vietnam in Kathleen's character during "Field Trip.: If Tim wrote about bringing his much younger girlfriend to Vietnam in "Field Trip," the story wouldn't have conveyed as well to readers. This special father-daughter dynamic that Tim is choosing to present to us is the story-truth, and just like he's mentioned, sometimes the story-truth conveys more truth than the happening-truth.
I can relate to Kathleen when she says that Tim writes too much about war, but maybe that's because I'm biased as I dislike war stories and movies. The sentiment of a daughter telling her father to write about a girl who gets a pony resonated with my younger self's wishes. Then there's the cute father-daughter trip to Vietnam in the story "Field Trip." Kathleen's curiosity with the culture and land of Vietnam but disinterest of the significance of the Vietnam War is innocent.
After doing some research on Tim to figure out what else he had made up, I found a piece of work he published for the New York Times in 1994 called "The Vietnam in Me." He as a 40-something year-old takes his much younger girlfriend who is in her 20s to Vietnam. Her name was Kate. The character of Tim's daughter Kathleen is not entirely made up; she's most likely based off of his young girlfriend at the time. It's weird to think of translating a real love interest into a familial character, but it makes sense. The age differences between 10 year-old Kathleen and 43-year-old Tim is reflected in the wide age gap of Tim and Kate. Tim mentions that Kate was just three years old when he went off to fight in the Vietnam War to emphasize how different their pasts are. Just like Kathleen doesn't understand why Tim can never move past Vietnam, Kate doesn't seem to able to either in "The Vietnam in Me." Tim also preserves Kate's curiosity and adventurousness in Vietnam in Kathleen's character during "Field Trip.: If Tim wrote about bringing his much younger girlfriend to Vietnam in "Field Trip," the story wouldn't have conveyed as well to readers. This special father-daughter dynamic that Tim is choosing to present to us is the story-truth, and just like he's mentioned, sometimes the story-truth conveys more truth than the happening-truth.
Good detective work! This connection makes a lot of sense, reinforced by the fact that the name is basically the same in the "fictional" story and the nonfiction essay (which, apparently, we believe the details of without questioning them). It definitely could seem weird (to Kate, at least!) to blur a younger girlfriend with a fictional daughter, but as we discussed in class, the father-son/daughter dynamic works well for the kind of deeper "truth" O'Brien is aiming for here, with a middle-aged writer trying to account for things he's done and seen in a time that the next generation has no experience of. They return to the "scene of the crime," and it looks totally different, offers no real clues or closure--the "shit field" only exists now in stories. And the younger girlfriend/daughter figure remains impatient of those stories, convinced that the author is "weird" and obsessed.
ReplyDeleteI was very disappointed when we found out the Kathleen didn't exist. I felt like we could accept that a lot of the events in the stories were made up but that they should at least be grounded in some reality. Kathleen and the emotions she brought to the stories seemed very real and it felt like a huge betrayal when we found out she was made up. I think that if she is based on Kate, it is a better way of giving us something that is almost true than if she was made up completely.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I had started to understand that some of the events and characters might not be true and embraced it, I definitely did not expect him to be lying about his daughter. It just didn't really make sense to me (although like someone said in class it might be to avoid the father-to-son "war story"). I can see how replacing his daughter with his girlfriend in Field Trip would have conveyed differently.
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting and yeah a bit odd I guess, but I think you're right that it is important to acknowledge that by not being 100% factual, Tim O'Brien wasn't necessarily lying flat-out. Perhaps his other interactions with his daughter were actually interactions with one of his sons. Would that really change their meaning a huge amount? Maybe using the real-life example of talking to his sons would have been problematic given the archetypal father-passing-down-war-to-son thing. In any case I think it's interesting that you looked into what exactly was behind his Kathleen character.
ReplyDeleteI was really curious about this and I'm happy you were able to find some answers! Kathleen never bothered me as much as the smugness of him telling us he was lying all the time, but nonetheless I was always confused about why he made the change. This makes sense and I agree I would've been put-off if Kathleen had been a younger girlfriend. Good post!
ReplyDeleteAw I like that you did some research to show that Tim included some actual semi-true things in "The Things They Carried". Also yeah, I would've been really weirded-out if he like narrated himself bringing his 20+ year younger girlfriend, so I guess Kathleen is necessary here. I wonder if Kate is reflected anywhere in "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Ba"– even though Tim didn't bring her during the war.
ReplyDeleteI was really confused and betrayed when we found out that Kathleen was fake. I couldn't understand why he would create a daughter figure when he only had sons, but now that I know about Kate (thanks to you!), everything makes a little more sense. I do see the resemblance between Kate and Kathleen. It's even in their names, but it's still a bit weird knowing that he portrays his ex-girlfriend as a daughter even though I get the generational gap O'Brien might be trying to convey. In the end, I'm just glad that he didn't make up a fake daughter for nothing.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, I'm surprised that you went through the trouble to research this, especially knowing that it may ruin some other aspects of the story. This detail is a bit comforting, though, since Kathleen isn't completely made up, in that she does represent a young person who went with Tim to Vietnam. I was never really upset by Kathleen's fictionality, but I did find it odd that he chose to make her, a trivial character, a fake one as well.
ReplyDeleteOh my god! This post makes this story even more wild! I agree that a young girlfriend might have made us less sympathetic. Even the name is probably the same! This makes the story a whole new level of weird, since he is comparing his young girlfriend to a daughter... Odd! I however disagree that O'Brien writes too much about war. O'Brien writes about what he knows, and what he wants to make a point on. O'Brien is both an author and an activist, and I think it is almost his obligation to write these stories to make us understand why we shouldn't go to war.
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