How to Tell a True War Story The Irony of Truth in Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story"…
O’Brien uses his rule of how to tell a true war story to make the reader think. By engaging the reader, he is able to better tell the stories he wants to tell. He created his rules to have readers think and question the truth behind every story in The Things They Carried, and that's how it should be with stories. You should never be able to just know the truth of the story, the best stories are the stories that engage the reader to think. When O’Brien breaks his rule, he is showing other authors how unique storytelling is and there are no set rules when crafting a…
Almost everyone has lied at one point in their lives. Some lies may be big and others small but they still tell the lie. Most people only lie to make their stories sound better. For example, war veterans love to tell their stories and the stories they tell are usually exciting and wouldn’t need to lie when they are telling their stories or at least one would believe they are not lying about the stories they are telling. According to Tim O’Brien in one of his many stories he clearly states that to tell a true war story you have to lie. O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, who after the war becomes a writer and writes stories about his experiences he had during the war. Most of the times he writes stories that are mostly lies just so he can make the truth in those…
This novel is very different from the others that I have read. Tim O’Brien wrote this book to show how it was at Vietnam and what soldiers have to go thru. However he wrote this book under the genre of fiction because this way he could write things that were not true and still make it billable to the reader. Rather than him just saying things as they are. Perhaps if he told things as they really happen then the reader might not be interested of what was going on. Now the author wrote this book for two reasons.…
Tim O’Brien uses several rhetorical strategies in this story. A strategy that is easily found in the story is imagery. He uses a lot of sensory details to help the reader know what it feels like in a certain situation. “Except for the laughter things were quiet,” (67) and “You hear stuff nobody should ever hear,” (69) are some quotes that describes the sounds the soldiers are hearing. O’Brien uses sight as a big component for setting up the setting and describing what the soldiers saw. “A handsome kid, really. Sharp grey eyes, lean and narrow-waisted…”(67), “A deep pinkish red spilled out on the river, which moved with no sound…(68). Another rhetorical strategy that O’Brien uses is motif. The motif that he uses is “…true war story…” He uses this phrase throughout the story to help the reader understand how to write a story. “A true war story is never moral.”(65). This quote is basically saying that a true war story tells it how it is; it doesn’t try to make things easier for the reader to digest. “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you.”(65) This quote is saying if you don’t want the offensive words or phrases then you don’t want the truth of the story. “In many cases a true war story cannot be believed.”(68) The last strategy that O’Brien uses in this story is irony. There are many places in this story when O’Brien’s ideas contradict themselves. When Curt Lemon dies, O’Brien describes it as beautiful. “…when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up…”…
In this book the author Tim O' Brien uses many different little stories to sum of the big picture of war. He focuses in on many different characters, stories, and their specific feelings to help the reader get an actual feel of what he felt. Which he states on pg. 171 " I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth". While O' Briens main connection to the title focus's in on what each soldier physically carried, deeper than that is the soldiers own feelings, doubts, and fears.…
Significance: When looking at the entire platoon of men, it’s evident that this quote, which Rat was using to describe Mary Anne’s transformation over the course of her trip to Vietnam, is actually reflective the way all the men have been affected. All of the men came in as good old All-American boys. Through their months in the war, they were all changed to some degree. O’Brien shows characters such as his fictional self, who, though somewhat haunted by the war stories, has found ways to…
The story is told by an omniscient narrator focusing mainly on the character First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Lieutenant Cross is in charge of a company of men who go on daily marches through Vietnam in search for the enemy, their sympathizers and supplies. He often daydreams of a college girl he is fond of back in New Jersey. Mitchell Sanders is the radio and telephone operator and known for being the ladies’ man. Kiowa is a Native American Baptist who carries an Illustrated New Testament with him. He also carries his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet given to him by his father and his grandmother’s distrust for the white man. Dan Jensen practices field hygiene by having with him a toothbrush, dental floss and bars of soap stolen from a hotel while on R&R. Henry Dobbins is a large man who carried extra rations and was excused from searching tunnels due to the size of his frame. He carries the M60, is especially fond of canned peaches, and wears his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck as god luck. Rat Kiley is the medic, carrying a canvas satchel containing morphine, plasma, malaria pills and various medical supplies and comic books. Norman Bowker is a gentle guy, he keeps a diary with him and carries a thumb from a VC corpse that Mitchell Sanders had cut off and presented to him. Lee Strunk has a…
I am sitting by the fireplace and just thinking about life in general when memories from elementary school come flooding back. I am writing this letter to you, because I feel very guilty when thoughts of your son cross my mind. To this day I wish I knew better and stood up for your son when I needed to, because I could have saved an innocent life. Not trying to make excuses, but when I was in elementary school I knew nothing better, except the fact that, you go with the flow or else you become an outcast. I could still clearly remember the first day Matthew started going to my elementary school, and just because he looked different all of us decided he did not belong. He would come to the kids and ask them in such a nice and polite way if they wanted to play with him, and in response kids would say something nasty, no elementary kid should ever say. I remember boys throwing rocks at him during recess, and a bunch of girls standing by and laughing. Yes, I also did stand by and watched, but I never encouraged the boys on or laughed, because I was thought better by my parents. My parents tell me all the time no matter how the person you come in contact with acts, you show your best side to them, because at the end of the day were all the same and no one person is better than another. One day in particular, I remember Matthew needed to go to the bathroom during recess, and the immature boys decided to take advantage of this situation. They ran to the bathroom, and blocked him from going in. He begged so much, I can still hear his voice so clearly in my head to let him go. Not being able to hold it in any longer he did it his pants, and the situation became even worse. There…
FALLING ACTION • After he returns from war, O’Brien grapples with his memories by telling stories about Vietnam.…
What Tim O’Brien is trying to make the listeners to understand about war is that many soldiers are terrified. There is always a few that are putting a lot of effort into trying to survive. Most of the soldiers that are afraid are the new recruits who are new to the battlefield. Very few men survive a war which means if there was another war, they would be less afraid due to that they know what they are doing. Overall, every single soldier is brave enough to risk their lives to serve, as well as help their country.…
Another interesting, yet powerful way O’Brien shows the non-reality of war’s truths is the fact that a combat situation can reveal who someone is, right down to their core. For example, Dave Jensen is a…
Have you ever been through a traumatic experience? How did you explain your feelings during it? Did you want the other person to feel the same way you did? A few years ago, a drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into my vehicle. Surviving the accident with no marks, bruises, or scrapes, I had no visible proof of what I had been through. But mentally, I was hysterical, frantic, and upset. My family did not understand my reason for being distraught since I had not sustained any injuries. Wanting them to understand what I had gone through and how I felt, I exaggerated and gave extra details in an attempt to prove that my experience was detrimental and distressing. Tim O’Brien, the author of the short story How to Tell a True War Story, used symbolism and polysyndeton to convey that people often exaggerate after experiencing something profound, emotional, or traumatic in order to communicate unthinkable sensations and feelings.…
It showed me how people may have a manipulated thought about how tragic war is because of the inability we have as humans to believe such tragedy is possible. It made me wonder if people who were in the war don’t only tell stories from their experience not because it’s painful for them but because they worry about people not believing them. O’Brien made a very good point in saying that in some way for people that lived through a tragic situation they can only tell what seemed to happen, and how in some way telling these stories is…
War can be defined as "an active struggle between competing entities. It's truly hard to tell who is right or wrong during a war. Both sides are fighting for what they believe in and what is true to their heart. In the end there is always two things promised destruction and death. These two objects can explain the result in every facet of war from the physical to emotional.…