Preview

A Literary Analysis of How to Tell a True War Story

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1803 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Literary Analysis of How to Tell a True War Story
A Literary Analysis of How to Tell a True War Story The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction, and by proposing why this story has withstood the test of time and is worthy of inclusion in an anthology. The writing techniques used within this short story will be discussed first. O’Brien uses various writing techniques for the construction of the language. He uses informal diction and colloquial diction. Meyer states that informal diction “represents the plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many simple, common words,” and that colloquial “refers to a type of informal diction that reflects casual, conversational language and often includes slang expressions” (1619-1620). The characters in O’Brien’s story speak with an extremely conversational style, and O’Brien uses lots of military slang. He uses informal diction whenever he is telling the war stories or paraphrasing his friends’ stories, and an example of the colloquialism within this story is when O’Brien has Mitchell Sanders say, “They bring in the Cobras, and F-4s, they use Willie Peter and HE and incendiaries” (476). In addition, O’Brien uses middle diction, which Meyer states “maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction” (1620). O’Brien’s narration in between war stories and


Cited: Meyer, Michael. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. O’Brien, Tim. “How to Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 473-481. SparkNotes LLC. “The Things They Carried: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols.” 2008. 8 Nov. 2008.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    If I Die In A Combat Zone By Tim O Brien
    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page

    If I Die In A Combat Zone By Tim O Brien

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 1684 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    Tim O’Brien is a very gifted author, but he is also a veteran of the Vietnam War and fought with the United States in that controversial war. Tim O’Brien was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1968. He served as an infantryman, and obtained the rank of sergeant and won a Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel. He was discharged from the Vietnam War in 1970. I believe that O’Brien’s own images and past experiences he encountered in the Vietnam War gave him inspiration to write the story “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien tells the story in third person narrative form about Lt. Jimmy Cross and his platoon of young American men in the Vietnam War. In “The Things They Carried” we can see differences and similarities between the characters…

    • 1684 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tim O'Brien
    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Tim O'Brien

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    War and Experiences of a Soldier in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 1416 Words
    • 6 Pages

    War and Experiences of a Soldier in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

    Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, provides an incredible realization of what life was like for an American soldier who fought in Vietnam from perspectives before, during, and after the war. The story’s power draws you in. It makes the events in the story seem real and provides the reader with a sense of what it feels like to be one of the soldiers. O’Brien’s talent as a writer made a fictional story more than believable to the reader. When reading this book, the reader struggles with depicting what is factual and what is fictional. O’Brien provides this effect by blurring the line between reality and fantasy. The book recollects many stories from O’Brien’s own experiences as a soldier and includes fictional aspects to enhance the story and to help O’Brien get his point across. O’Brien teaches us in all of these stories that there is no difference between what is factual and what is fictional in war. By doing this, the reader experiences the feelings that O’Brien and his comrades felt. The Things They Carried describes what those men carried to battle and back home, both tangible and intangible. The novel questions what war is and what the individual soldiers received out of it. This novel is an eye opener. Any person’s perspectives on the war and its soldiers are most certainly to change after reading this book. The Things They Carried brings the Vietnam War to life like no civilian could have ever imagined.…

    • 1416 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tim O'Brien's, the Things They Carried Critical Essay on Ptsd
    • 1344 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Tim O'Brien's, the Things They Carried Critical Essay on Ptsd

    Thoughts of sorrow and loss overwhelm the Vietnam veterans upon their return back home. Crushed from the horror of war, they come back to even bigger disappointments and sadness. Instead…

    • 1344 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Theme Of Metafiction In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Theme Of Metafiction In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    Although O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is considered fiction in many ways it is Metafiction. "Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (Waugh 2.) Once in an interview O’Brien admitted to his conscious blurring of fact and fiction by way of using Metafiction to generate stories that are “more real” (Sawyer 117-126.) O’Brien’s practice of using Metafiction indisputably makes the events and stories conceivable for the reader. The reality of O’Brien’s description of the intangible items each man carried has been noted to have long-term implications for those who have had to lug around the psychological affects of war. According to an article in BMC Psychiatry, “Combat exposure is the factor most consistently associated with mental disorders and symptomatology. Research with Vietnam veterans demonstrated substantial associations between combat exposure and PTSD” (Kewley 1). In another article findings that suggest, “...Vietnam veterans are much more likely to report problems associated with posttraumatic stress disorder including ‘‘nightmares, loss of control of behavior, emotional numbing, withdrawal from the external environment, hyper alertness, anxiety, and depression”(Card 7). The way in which Tim O’Brien represents each character with both the physical and emotional baggage that he carries lends itself to constructing characters that become personal. The characters by way of these items that they carry have become believable. It is because of this believability that the reader can visualize the weight of each character. O’Brien’s ability to blur the lines between fiction and fact with the items carried in war ensures…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 1894 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    Tim O’Brien constructs a meticulous narrative in order to portray a true representation of war through his writing. It is well known however that truth always becomes a casualty through war resulting in a challenging approach for O’Brien. Although deemed a work of fiction, many of the stories within The Things They Carried reflect an almost autobiographical outlook through the characters combined with metafiction. O’Brien does well to create a distinction between the truth of the narrative and that of the truth of the events taking place. Therefore it is this conciliation of truth that he uses to recreate his discourse of Vietnam using fictional form combined with a clear exhibition of facts and figures such as in “The Things They Carried” (O’Brien, 3-21). Nevertheless O’Brien still faces an infinite obstacle in regards to trauma. Herman states that ‘The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.’ (Herman, 2) In effect the survivors of such ordeals retell their stories in a heavily distorted account due to emotional stress often controverting…

    • 1894 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay
    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses many short stories to describe his experience in Vietnam. The story that captured many aspects of writing was “How to Tell a True War Story” because it acts as a guide to writing a true story. O’Brien uses many different rhetorical strategies, narrative techniques, and establishes a theme in this story to help develop his characters and story line.…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    When one thinks of war, the general thought is that it inspires acts of patriotism and heroism. No one really looks deeper into the topic to find that along with patriotism and heroism there are often feelings of shame and loneliness. In The Things They Carried it is clear that most of the soldiers in the war do not come back with a sense of pride or honor. Most come back wishing they had never gone at all. Tim O'Brien reveals that because Vietnam precipitated such traumatic experiences, his storytelling is a great way to cope with his shame and loneliness, emphasizing that the war experience is not one of patriotism and heroism, but one of loneliness and guilt.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Tim O Brien's Wartime Stories
    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Tim O Brien's Wartime Stories

    Throughout the three chapters, “Good Form”, “How to Tell a True War Story”, and “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, O’Brien highlights the effectiveness of interspersing the mundane and ordinary, as well as telling the truth as it seems, in storytelling. Emotion in a story can help the story in immense ways, by being more relatable, but having personal commentary or analysis is not. These two tenants are the cornerstone that O’Brien builds his thesis on for a proper war story. These concepts help to avoid issues such as a story not being believed and a story not flowing very well. O’Brien’s outlook on storytelling is to tell the story in its entirety, whether it be outrageous or plain. By doing as O’Brien describes the issues that crop up during storytelling can be resolved in their…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Figurative and Imagery Essay-How to Tell a True War Story
    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Figurative and Imagery Essay-How to Tell a True War Story

    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…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Argumentative Synthesis "The Things They Carried"
    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Argumentative Synthesis "The Things They Carried"

    Tim O’ Brien, having the memories of war engraved in his mind, recalls the memories of his youth during battle in “The Things They Carried,” an intriguing collection of military accounts that symbolize his attempt to resist closure from past experiences. O’ Brien’s story reflects the difficult choices people have to make in their struggle to confront the war waging inside their bodies as well as on the ground they tread. In Steven Kaplan’s criticism, “The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried,” he explores the uncertainty and inevitability that lies in the path of each soldier through their military conquest of Than Khe. In context to O’ Brien’s story, author Tina Chen in her literary criticism, “Unraveling the Deeper Meaning: Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried,” captivates O’ Brien’s primary motive of telling a “true” war story. These stories and journals can be synthesized together through paralleling ideas such as the concept of imagination versus reality, O’ Brien’s credibility to his story without outside sourcing, and the lingering uncertainty dividing the men’s sanctity of what lies beyond, both literally and figuratively. Tim O’Brien’s short story, “The Things They Carried,” contemplates the value of reality versus personal relevance, and through Kaplan’s “The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried,” and Chen’s “Unraveling the Deeper Meaning: Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried,” the two authors argue within the scheme of the imaginative American dream the hidden angst of the valiant; when faced with adversity, the weight of ones pride surpasses the weight of ones fear.…

    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    How to Tell a True War Story
    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages

    How to Tell a True War Story

    The story by Tim O’Brien shows how the soldiers are themselves and can also be serious. O’Brien also sees how Vietnam changes the soldiers and how they see the world now. There will be people that will ask if it’s true or not true they can asks what happened. There can be different ways to tell a story but they can ask what happen. O’Brien would know which story he really believes. O’Brien will give use by looking at Rat’s point of view, and Sanders point of view of Lemon death and how Rat copes with a letter. Here are three points’ that will go with O’Brien story the history, biography and literary criticism.…

    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Young Man in Vietnam
    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Young Man in Vietnam

    “Young Man in Vietnam” by Charles Coe goes against the 1980 patriotic views of Vietnam veterans, as he positions readers to be sympathetic towards veterans. Through the use of characterisation and symbolism Coe has positioned readers to be sympathetic towards the young man in Vietnam.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    In the Lake of the Woods
    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the Lake of the Woods

    The common phrase, "Don 't judge a man until you 've walked a mile in his shoes”, tells the world to never put a label on an individual before you have truly experienced what they have gone through. Tim O Brien 's work, In the Lake of the Woods, shows how men who have all experienced war, truly have walked in each other’s shoes. These traumatizing experiences impact the human spirit dramatically because once back from the war, veterans struggle to live normal lives. Only men and women who have experienced this brutality can begin to understand why veterans from every war are left traumatized and haunted by the terrifying scene called war. O’Brien’s novel shows the journey of a narrator trying to heal from his own war experience by living vicariously through John Wade. Through his reconstruction of John Wade’s life, the narrator is able to come to terms with his identity. He realizes that his own experiences have affected him tremendously, and through his research he can slowly begin to heal.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics