When discussing the issue of fact versus truth in The Things They Carried (i.e. does it matter if O'brien "makes stuff up" if what he makes up conveys general truths about the war? Is doing so disrespectful, & c.?), a secondary question that presents itself to us is: how does the author's (artist's) background affect our perception of his or her work?
This question seems to be particularly important when considering pieces of art that feature intense struggle, whether that's a work that involves serious depression (e.g. Plath's The Bell Jar or Waters' The Wall), addiction (Mathers' Relapse or Wallace's Infinite Jest), war (O'brien's The Things They Carried), or any other mental or physical state that is held as very painful and difficult to overcome. For most people, I think there is a much greater culture-wide sense of wrongness when, say, someone who has never stepped foot in a combat zone writes war stories or a middle-class suburban white person writes songs about racial injustice. Even if you do not view this as particularly wrong, it's hard to deny that, in general, non-vet war stories or suburban race songs are going to have a lot more people questioning their... right to make such pieces of art. Is that the right word, "right"?
Do we read The Bell Jar or Infinite Jest differently when we know the two authors' backgrounds? (Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace both committed suicide.)
Are the demonic voices and intense lyrics on Relapse scarier when know that Mathers is drawing from his own personal, up-front battle with pain-killer addiction?
Do the battles and deaths in The Things They Carried hit us harder than, say, a battle scene from a historical fiction novel written by a well-researched college grad who has never been outside the country, let alone in a war zone?
I would venture that the nearly unanimous answer to the above questions would be "yes". But why?
Is this because (1) having the experience is necessary to obtain a certain degree of truth? or because (2) only by undergoing "the experience" does one obtain the "right" to create art that depicts their experience? Both? Are there other possibilities?
The first choice is interesting because it is empirically testable (we can easily imagine a scenario in which test participants are asked to evaluate different pieces of literature written by artists from polar backgrounds), whereas the second is more of a matter of opinion (and is quite nuanced).
Right now, my opinion is that, while undergoing "the experience" can certainly help make writing about it easier and more familiar, I don't think it's impossible for someone who has never been to war to write a great and accurate portrayal of war. I also don't think that only those who have experienced "the experience" have the "right" to write (produce art) about it. That seems like a weird form of censorship. Statistically I would expect war stories written by veterans to be more accurate and "truthful" than war stories written by non-veterans, but I would never eliminate a non-veteran from contention simply based on his lack of war experience.
