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stiualtional irony in the most dangerous game
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Natural Empathy: Duty and Responsibility in "Guests of the Nation"
Frank O'Connor uses character surnames in his story "Guests of the Nation" to help develop the characters of the English and Irish soldiers. The characters engage in a struggle between hidden powers of empathy and duty, and O'Connor displays their first-person point of view about the irony of war similar to Thomas Hardy's poem, "The Man He Killed":
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.
Behind the murderous "duty" that lies at the center of the story, O'Connor has chosen a particular set of names to represent his characters who are all humanized in a way that shocks the reader powerfully. Further investigation will show how the use of the particular surnames is possibly significant in O'Connor's "Guests of the Nation."
In the opening paragraph a big Englishman is introduced by the name of Belcher. O'Connor immediately establishes a sense of comradeship between the English prisoner-of-war and the Irish soldiers holding Belcher and Hawkins captive by using the expression "chums" during a friendly game of poker. Although Belcher is portrayed as a "short" man, or "
should I say lack?of speech
,"(DiYanni, 46) the meaning of his name is "good cheer" or "fine entertainment." So, even though these men are being held as prisoners of war, or hostage in the case of "Guests of the Nation," their captors have made the choice to become acquainted with and befriend them.
Being held captive along with Belcher is another Englishman by the name of Hawkins. The name coming from the patronymic name "Hawk," illustrates Hawkins as a keen and intelligent individual. During the second ...
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...l killing and is almost successful in stopping Jeremiah Donovan from killing Belcher at the end of the story by readying to strike Donovan.
Throughout the story, O'Connor repeatedly drops hints on how cruel and ironic war can be. By reading the story from Bonaparte's point of view, one is able to understand the feelings of the situation that O'Connor has created. Even though the Irish soldiers have a natural empathy for their prisoners, or hostages of war, they continue to carry out their duty and responsibilities to avoid being punished and possibly shot themselves for neglecting duty or aiding the enemy. O'Connor chooses names that have more meaning than is directly evident upon the surface content of the story. By choosing these names one can find a deeper meaning behind each character's duty and personal responsibility that affect their actions in the story.
O Brien 's point of view is an accurate one as he himself because he is a Vietnam veteran. The title of the short story is meaningful because it describes each soldier’s personality and how he handles conflict within the mind and outside of the body during times of strife. The title fits the life as a soldier perfectly because it shows the reality that war is more than just strategy and attacking of forces. O’Brien narrates the story from two points of view: as the author and the view of the characters. His style keeps the reader informed on both the background of things and the story itself at the same
After reading chapters 17-22, a main theme I felt was guilt among the soldiers due to the death's they caused. Tim O'Brien expresses his sense of guilt many years later, when he tells the reader of his experience with death. "For instance, I want to tell you this: twenty years ago I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough." His sense of guilt is so intense, he feels it twenty years later in the safety of his own home. He feels so guilty, he makes up a war story, because earlier in the book, he actually describes how he contributed to this same man's death. His friend, Kiowa, has to keep reassuring O'Brien that his actions
In this chapter O’Brien talks about a young Vietnamese soldier who he had killed with a grenade. He mentions the weight of guilt he carried with him after the event that to took place the day he killed his first man. He opens the chapter with describing the dead corps by saying, “He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole.” Throughout the text it is implied that O’Brien cannot stop staring at the dead body as he continues to think of how the dead Vietnamese soldier lay and what the young man’s life was like and what it could have been before he had become the soldier he was. He states, in one of the interpretation of the young Vietnamese man’s life, “He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics.” O’Brien Talks about the Vietnamese soldier as if he knew him and experienced the soldier’s life himself. It’s possible that O’Brien could have talked about the dead Vietnamese life as a reference or to fantasize about his own life, and how he wish his life could’ve been if he didn’t go into war himself. O’Brien could have also thought of the young soldier’s life because of the guilt and the regret he was feeling from killing him, and
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
The literary journey that Collins takes his readers when they read his poetry instills an assortment of powerful emotions. While acting as the poet laureate for the United States of America in 2001, he was asked by congress to write a poem recognizing the attacks on 9/11. The name of the poem is called “The Names” and it provokes a sense patriotism, sadness, a...
The names that O’Connor used throughout the story “Good Country People” gives the reader a quick glimpse into the character’s personality and their purpose in the story. From Mrs. Freeman as free to Mrs. Hopewell as hope, O’Connor placed a great deal of thought into each of the character’s names that were used in story. Her ultimate purpose for choosing each of the names was to a affirm Christian values, while at the same time lowering the view of the nonspiritual way of
O’Brien has many characters in his book, some change throughout the book and others +are introduced briefly and change dramatically during their time in war and the transition to back home after the war. The way the characters change emphasises the effect of war on the body and the mind. The things the boys have to do in the act of war and “the things men did or felt they had to do” 24 conflict with their morals burning the meaning of their morals with the duties they to carry out blindly. The war tears away the young’s innocence, “where a boy in a man 's body is forced to become an adult” before he is ready; with abrupt definiteness that no one could even comprehend and to fully recover from that is impossible.
Two men, Reuben Bourne and Roger Malvin, have survived the battle and are trying to make their way back home. Both are wounded. As they stop in a forest by “…a young and vigorous sapling stood…,” Malvin entreats Bourne to abandon him and save himself (20). The men are familiar with one another and, at fir...
In the story Dubliners by James Joyce, he writes about a few different themes, some of these being autonomy, responsibility, light, and dark. The most important of the themes though must be the individual character in the story against the community and the way they see it. I have chosen to take a closer look at “Araby,” “Eveline,” and “The Dead” because the great display of these themes I feel is fascinating. Many things affect the way the individual characters see the community, for example their family, friends, fellow citizens, or even new places. In Dubliners, the way the characters see the community affects them and other people around them.
I will focus on the surname Grayson for the purpose of this essay. I will focus on the two siblings that were the offspring from the coupling of the Scotsman, Rober...
Although the soldiers were united and served for the same goal, each of the men had a different motivation. For O’Brien, his motivation to join the war was the shame of running away. Almost all of the characters were afraid of being ashamed, and that served as a drive for them to do acts of heroism and similarly acts of stupidity. For example, in the story “On the Rainy River”, shame drove O’Brien to do an act of heroism as a fear of being ashamed. O’Brien wrote “For more than twenty years I 've had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to
But then again, maybe the names have nothing at all to do with the story. Perhaps, O'Connor simply picked the names randomly out of a hat. It's not an impossible idea. But the chance of the names fitting so superbly to each character of the story, just by happenstance, is one in a million. In conclusion, readers should start to focus more on the names of the characters, because the names might give more insight that what is seen on the surface. Besides, Hulga Hopewell doesn't sound like that bad of a name.
In the poem “The Names,” by Billy Collins, the speaker is calmly recalling people’s last names alphabetically as he notices them wherever he goes. At first it seems as though he is playing a game to see how many names he can think of. After reading the whole poem several times, it becomes clear that he is referring to people who died on September 11th. Collins uses imagery, a serious tone, and similes throughout the poem to show appreciation for the memory of the victims that died that tragic day.
The detailed descriptions of the dead man’s body show the terrible costs of the war in a physical aspect. O’Brien’s guilt almost takes on its own rhythm in the repetition of ideas, phrases, and observations about the man’s body. Some of the ideas here, especially the notion of the victim being a “slim, young, dainty man,” help emphasize O’Brien’s fixation on the effects of his action—that he killed someone who was innocent and not meant to be fighting in the war. At the same time, his focus on these physical characteristics, rather than on his own feelings, betrays his attempt to keep some distance in order to dull the pain. The long, unending sentences force the reader to read the deta...
Thus, in "Guests of the Nation," Frank O'Connor uses irony to illustrate the conflict that soldiers feel when they recognize the humanity of their enemies and yet they are compelled to kill them. O'Connor suggests the soul destroying impact of the conflict in his final words: "And anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again" (598).