Preview

Tim O Brien's If I Die In A Combat Zone

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
413 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Tim O Brien's If I Die In A Combat Zone
US History
Analytical Summary If I Die in a Combat Zone If I Die in a Combat Zone is an intense personal account of Tim O'Brien's tour of duty in Vietnam. He absolutely hated the fact of going to war. He starts off as a cocky college student, and through the course of the book, he changes. O'Brien uses very vivid descriptions of the terrain, weather and of the conflicts in which his Company is involved.
O'Brien is drafted to go to Vietnam in the summer of 1968. When he is drafted, he is confused and contemplates many ways in which to avoid going to the war. He does not feel that he is a fighter. O'Brien goes through basic training at Ft. Lewis, Washington. While at Ft. Lewis, he meets a friend named Erik. Erik is also opposed to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone…, Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran, gives us his raw, personal story on what it was like to be a soldier in a controversial war. O’Brien was/is a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and yet he completed his one-year service. He does not shy away from his negative opinions about the war and how in a way the government had let him down. O’Brien leads his story from the beginning in 1968 where he is drafted in Minnesota through 1969 with his homecoming. Throughout the book he is keen on the recognition of his comrades’ deaths, the Vietnamese residents, his daily internal/external battles, and the contemplation of what is bravery/courage.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He pictures his victim’s whole life, and imagines he was a young student that had just entered the university in Saigon in 1964, avoided politics, didn’t like to fight, and just hoped the Americans would go away. Though out the whole story, O’Brien both, consolidates and tortures himself, by picturing the life of this young dead soldier. He imagines it in such a way, that the Vietnamese soldier ends up being very similar to himself, and by relating to his victim this way, O’Brien grapples with and tries to understand the unpredictability of his own mortality, and is better aware of the horrible nature of the killing. He contemplates the fact of life and death. How the death of this poor soldier will not change one thing and life will go on, leaving him in the past, making his death look irrelevant and…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tim O'Brien

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages

    On October 1, 1946 the author William Timothy O’Brien was born. Born and raised until he was ten, O’Brien lived in Austin Minnesota. Conceived by insurance salesman and an elementary school teacher who were both in combat themselves would soon reckon with Tim later in life. Then when he was ten years old he and his family moved to the “Turkey Capital” (0 of the United States, Worthington, Minnesota. O’Brien lived the classic, stereotypical Midwestern childhood. He played three sports; one of which was baseball where his father was the coach. After his high school career he attended Macalester College where he majored in political science and was also the Student Body President his senior year. Two weeks after graduation and life seems to be going well and then O’Brien gets his draft notice stating that he must fight in the war no one wanted to be part of, Vietnam. “I went to my room in the basement and started pounding the typewriter”. (0…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The war officially began in 1939. Americans were not searching out to become involved in the war, but were brought into it by the attacks of other countries. Perhaps men were more honored to die for their country because they were defending it, and they were trying to avenge the lives of the people who were killed in the Pearl Harbor bombing. They had a deep rooted, intrinsic motivation to fight for the country. Their country and their people were wronged, and so the soldiers who went to fight were determined to make it right for their fellow countrymen and women. Now, in the Vietnam War, O’Brien writes that “The war, I thought, was wrongly conceived and poorly justified” (18). In the case of the Vietnam war, no one had that intrinsic motivation. They were not defending their country, they were attacking another one. People were more motivated by fear than honor. Erik, a friend of O’Brien says early in the memoir, “All this not because of conviction, not for ideology; rather it’s from fear of our society’s censure […] Fear of weakness. Fear that to avoid war is to avoid manhood” (38). For O’Brien and many other men, this war was a pressure, not an…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Facing fear, danger, or adversity in the physical or moral realm shapes a person’s identity and core values and often influences the psychological effects of a person. Courage, bravery, and responsibility often define the results of fear relative to the situation a person has overcome or failed. Military personnel experience a substantial amount of diverse situations which forces dynamic impacts of emotions with fear and courage the prime focus on the spectrum. To include war in the lives of military society adds an intense stress to address courage and fear in order for self-preservation of mind in those affected. In Tim Obrien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone, fear and courage are often relayed as a constant struggle frequently pushing the soldier’s…

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In After the Bomb, composers not only critique personal and political values but also manipulate textual forms and features in response to their times.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In If I Die in a Combat Zone, the end is O’Brien going home from Vietnam. He says that there is no joy in leaving Vietnam. He says that he thought of the friends he gained and the friends he lost. He reminisced what he learned, and realized that he did not learn a lot.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ben Quilty brings his highly regarded exhibition, After Afghanistan, to Griffith University Art Gallery from the 11th of April to the 7th of June. The painter travelled to Afghanistan in 2011 as the Australian War Memorial’s official war artist and his exhibition reflects his time there. Strong masculinity is a common theme explored by Quilty; this is in contrasts to this exhibition which contains large canvases which are plastered with chaotic, fleshy impasto oil paint to create portraits of soldiers who are vulnerable in the landscape of war.…

    • 340 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato might be set during the Vietnam war, but at its core it is a novel about fear. The main character, soldier Paul Berlin, is completely motivated, controlled, and surrounded by fear. When Paul Berlin first arrives at the war he feels annoyed by the derision he receives from his superiors but at the same time admits that “...the war scared him silly, but this was something he hoped to bring under control” (O'Brein 38). This statement sets in motion the events and thoughts that dominate the entirety of the book. Paul Berlin realizes that in order to be happy he must control his fear. However, his fears do not simply extend to the natural fears of war and dying. As he gushes out in the final pages of the book, Paul Berlin fears running away, going into exile, the thoughts of those he loves, the loss of reputation, and most of all cowardice. Paralyzed by fear, Paul Berlin can do little more than go through the motions of the war; walking from place to place, playing basketball, observing the other soldiers. While floating through his tour, he struggles with the sense that his actions have no affect on his world and life. Finally, in one action, Paul Berlin manages to affect the outcome of his time in Vietnam by killing is commanding officer, a good man by the name of Sidney Martin. Haunted by the memory of these actions, he can barely come to describe the events, going up to the point where he agrees to kill the lieutenant before skipping away to another topic. Torn apart by the knowledge of what he has done he ponders over what his duty entails and how he can be happy. To answer these questions, Paul Berlin imagines a fantasy in which he and his squad mates travel the world chasing down Cacciato, essential deserting the war and going to Paris. Paul Berlin uses his fantasy of going after Cacciato to discover for himself how to deal with his own fear and find inner peace by exploring his own sense…

    • 1444 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Johnny was six, he stated that God was "what's good in me," and his drive to do good stays with him through his short life. What makes this inherent goodness more exceptional is his abundance of other supreme qualities. He is exceptionally intelligent, devoting himself to the sciences with both his mind and heart; his wit is pointed yet gentle; and he is mature beyond his years. He combines the best of childhood and adulthood—a child's endless curiosity about the world and an adult's maturity in understanding what to do with that curiosity. But two other qualities shine through in Johnny, and they often connect: his selflessness and his courage.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    (5)Near the end of the story, the theme becomes apparent, that is because even with the losses and Martin, (one of the only few that made it back from no mans land who managed to crawl back into the trenches)the regiment did not reach their objective but instead just got mowed down.(6) As wounded Martin attempted to get back inside his trench, he describes that he sees on the way back “Again and again he passed…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    How to Tell a True War Story

    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages

    O’Brien tells his story when he was in the Vietnam War though books that he has written. For example in “The Things They Carried” there is a character named Tim. One of the interviews from Library of Congress Tim O’Brien states that “he goes back and forth about Vietnam and also about his first girlfriend.” He was in 4th grade when he was in love and that using his girlfriend as an example that Vietnam was not that easy like losing his girlfriend at nine years old. In the story Bob Kiley was known as Rat. O’ Brien points out that Rat that had a good friend with him in the Vietnam War. They both were good soldiers and when Lemon would volunteer Rat would volunteer as well. He lets people know that his friend and he were goofing around like always. Lemon showed Rat that the war can be fun but also very serious. There will be times to goof around and there will be times to be services during the war. He tells people that when they were goofing around they felt like kids again. Lemon and Rat “were giggling and calling each other motherfucker”. They would go a nature hike in the woods and started messing around. They heard a noise and next thing a bomb killed his friend. Rat had taken his friend back with the other soldiers. Hs friend named was Curt Lemon. He told Sander and the other soldiers what happen to Lemon.…

    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Is There a Duty to Die?” the philosopher John Hardwig contends that, given certain criteria, one MAY have a duty to kill oneself, or be assisted in doing so (33-42)! He argues, for example, that if someone sickly and family dependent becomes a heavy burden for their family to bear (Harwig 33-42), then it may cause this family to suffer unnecessarily (i.e. money, stress, and time are all factors that may lead to family suffering). And so, prolonging the life of this sickly family member may cause more suffering than happiness (Hardwig 34-42). Alternatively, the death of said family member could remove this suffering, this burden; it could relieve the family of stress, financial trouble, et cetera (Hardwig 34-42). I am wondering, then: do…

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Michael Ondaantje, author of The English Patient, and author Ernest Hemingway, who wrote A Farewell to Arms take the readers on a whole new journey set in the tragic time of war filled with stories of love and pain and loyalty which all of these feelings play an important role in the characters' lives. The English Patient is the story of four mentally and physically injured characters living in an Italian monastery as World War II was coming to an end at the time. One by one, Ondaatje reveals the stories of their past and how they came to be. A Farewell to Arms is a heartbreaking love story between a driver and a nurse who fall in love and how they deal with being separated during war. Ondaatje and Hemingway use their different styles of writing to capture their readers and to take them back to life of the World War I and World War II. Both use different types of themes, symbols, and views on how their novels to reflect on…

    • 3887 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever made disastrous decisions? You might think the reason why you made a disastrous decision without any thought about the consequences is because you lacked prior experiences of making such disastrous decisions. When I was a child, I usually played with a coin to amuse myself. One day, I envisioned the coin was a shining, delicious cookie, and then I swallowed it like a cookie, resulting in the coin getting stuck in my throat. Fortunately, my mom noticed in time and patted my back heavily until the coin came out. Although I was saved, my throat was injured because the coin scratched my throat. As a result, I could not eat any hard food for a month, such as my favorite fries and sausage. Gerald Diamond,…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics