Aryana Smith
Mrs. Brown
12 Contemporary literature
28 March, 2014
Fiction vs. Nonfiction
Blood here and blood there! Shots are being fired from every direction and screams begin to emerge from deep within the forest. They become louder and louder and seem to come closer with every step taken. Then there is an eerie silence and as everything seems to calm down, a grenade goes off in the distance. Does this seem real? Could this be real? The way war is portrayed in movies is not always the honest truth. Most of the times the way war is depicted very action packed and heroic. Although this is true in some cases, there are sides of war that some do not see. There are days in war where nothing extremely dangerous happens. There are also sides of soldiers, emotionally, that one does not see. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, war and the soldiers are portrayed in way that is rarely seen. The same can be said for a poem by Wilfred Owen titled Dulce et Decorum Est. O'Brien and Owen both portray the reality of war, however O'Brien goes deeper into the truth behind the reality or war.
The reality of war is commonly misunderstood by most people. O'Brien and Owen try to shed some light on what they believe to be the reality of war. Both authors are very blunt when it comes to talking about war, as well as sarcastic in tone and nature. The imagery of the war scenes are gruesome, violent, graphic and very detailed. In Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen describes a scene where one of his fellow soldiers have been killed, "...watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin. If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs" (Owen). The diction that Owen ha...
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...ry a soldier tells is the truth. It also contradicts what is portrayed in movies. O'Brien makes the reader question the truth behind war in a way that Owen is not able to. In fact his entire book is dedicated to unraveling a true war stories.
The similarities and differences between O'Brien's book and Owen's poem help convey a single message. War is not what everyone believes it to be. War is gruesome, violent, and emotionally tiring. The stories soldiers tell are so elaborate and outrageous because they don't want to tell people what really happens. Also because the way war is portrayed in movies people expect amazing war stories. O'Brien and Owen both portray the reality of war, however O'Brien goes deeper into the truth behind the reality or war. Although they both are written in two different time periods, they both portray a sense of war that most do not see.
When the quote says “that part of the story is my own” it must mean O’Brien had taken some true details from personal stories. Could O’Brien taken true information but tried to throw the readers off to keep some privacy for the men the stories were based off? Some of the stories present within the book are completely out of the water. How could O’Brien imagine those ideas up without a base of what actually happened? I believe O’Brien switched the names of the soldiers but kept the stories. If he did the name switching it could emphasize on how the reader could focus on the ideas and situations, not the people. O’Brien would showcase how these situations can affect everyone. Another challenging aspect for me is if the stories are partly true why not honor those written about. Do the soldiers feel shame reading about their failures? O’Brien wrote his novel upon the hopes of helping his PTSD and it could have helped the veterans read and receive help. Along with help the vets it could supply the vets with the honor they
An interesting combination of recalled events and editorial commentary, the story is not set up like a traditional short story. One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of “How to Tell a True War Story” is O’Brien’s choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who might just as well be the author himself. Because “How to Tell a True War Story” is told from a first-person perspective and O’Brien is an actual Vietnam veteran, a certain authenticity to this story is added. He, as the “expert” of war leads the reader through the story. Since O’Brien has experienced the actual war from a soldier’s point of view, he should be able to present the truth about war...
To contrast truth and fiction, the author inserts reminders that the stories are not fact, but are mere representations of human emotion incommunicable as fact. O'Brien's most direct discussion of truth appears in Good Form. He begins with, "It's time to be blunt," and goes on to say that everything in the book but the very premise of a foot soldier in Vietnam is invented. This comes as a shock after reading what seems to be a stylized presentation of fact. In the sequence of Speaking of Courage, followed by Notes, O'Brien adds a second dimension of truth to a story so vivid that the reader may have already accepted it as the original truth.
The truth behind stories is not always what happened, with each person’s perspective is where their truth lies. At the beginning of the novel, you start to think that it is going to be the same old war stories you read in the past, but it changes direction early. It is not about how the hero saves the day, but how each experience is different and how it stays with you. From his story about Martha, to how he killed a man, each one is so different, but has its own meaning that makes people who have not been in war, understand what it is like. Tim O’Brien can tell a fake story and make you believe it with no doubt in your mind.
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
“It’s time to be blunt… I want you to feel what I felt” (O’Brien 171). There are two sides to every war and throughout the novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien creates a war in the reader’s mind centered on trust. O’Brien forces the reader to realize the impact of a true war story where, instead of giving an accurate account, he blurs the lines about the importance of trust and gives an emotionally driven anecdote. The author establishes ethos in a unique way by impacting the credibility of a story rarely with facts and forcing the reader to focus on what is more important to him: evoking emotion. These emotions envelop the entirety of Tim O 'Brien 's short stories, showing his clear intentions to make the reader feel what
Through these comments, he modestly provides hints to his desired interpretation of the novel. There are many sections such as “How to Tell a True War Story” where O’Brien breaks the fourth wall, comments on the truthfulness of his stories, and whether or not the truth is relevant to his message. He states, “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen… the angles of vision are skewed” (O’Brien, 71). His input here suggests that there may not be one whole truth to any story, especially a true one, because one man’s truth may not be another’s. Stories are built by many perspectives, and the result is that storytellers have a “tendency to stop now and then, interrupting the flow, inserting little clarifications or bits of analysis and personal opinion. It [is] a bad habit… because all that matters is raw material, the stuff itself, and you can’t clutter it up with your own half-baked commentary” (O’Brien,
...rtist and just like any artist O’Brien wants to change your mind. He wants you to see the world the way he sees the world. This is his intent to have the reader believe that this collection of memories, feelings, and actions is actually real and in some parts of the story he has the reader believing that they themselves were once a solider in the Vietnam War. Life itself is a lot like how O’Brien describes war. He says “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is drudgery. War makes you a man; makes you dead” (O’Brien 76). Any well written novel will intrigue a reader because when an author is able to bend in emotions of a real life event with a fictional standpoint of things a story has been written.
Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried challenges the reader to question what they are reading. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien claims that the story is true, and then continues to tell the story of Curt’s death and Rat Kiley’s struggle to cope with the loss of his best friend. As O’Brien is telling the story, he breaks up the story and adds in fragments about how the reader should challenge the validity of every war story. For example, O’Brien writes “you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (69), “in many cases a true war story cannot be believed” (71), “almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true” (81), and “a thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth (83). All of those examples are ways in which O’Brien hinted that his novel is a work of fiction, and even though the events never actually happened – their effects are much more meaningful. When O’Brien says that true war stories are never about war, he means that true war stories are about all the factors that contribute to the life of the soldiers like “love and memory” (85) rather than the actual war. Happening truth is the current time in which the story was being told, when O’Brien’s daughter asked him if he ever killed anyone, he answered no in happening truth because it has been 22 years since he was in war and he is a different person when his daughter asked him. Story truth
...es many things that might seem untraditional or inappropriate for a war story. The fact that he uses no war heroes is a big difference from most of the books that talk about war. Also, he doesn’t try to make war to look honorable. His stories aren’t uplifting, but they’re not really sad either. Most of the time they seem kind of unsettling which, in fact, makes them more believable. O’Brien’s stories don’t happen just during war and aren’t only about war because “To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace.” (77) There isn’t just one certain type of story that could be called a war story, as well as there’s not just one specific way to tell a war story. The fact that O’Brien’s characters aren’t the typical heroes people expect, actually makes it somehow easier to empathize with their feelings and helps understand what the war’s really like.
In the novel The Things They Carried, the lines between reality and fiction are blurred by human perspective, facts, and an insatiable need to appear courageous. In war stories, there are moments where the one telling the story gets lost between fact and fiction because of the circumstances of the events. The more calamitous the event is, and the more challenging it is to talk about, the harder it is to allow the truth to peek through. Human perspective changes the way stories are told, and how they are received.
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
Tim O’Brien’s ultimate purpose is to detract the fine line between fiction and reality. In order to fully grasp what a true war story consists of, the definition of true must be deciphered. O’Brien seems to believe that it does not need to be pure facts. Instead, it is mostly found in the imagination of the individual. Readers need to receive a story based on the truth in its overall purpose and meaning. It just needs to feel true. The author implies that it is not important whether the event actually occurred or not, because if the reader wants to believe it that badly, the feeling of truth will always be present.
Several stories into the novel, in the section, “How to tell a true war story”, O’Brien begins to warn readers of the lies and exaggerations that may occur when veterans tell war stories.
Owen’s poem uses symbolism to bring home the harsh reality of war the speaker has experienced and forces the reader to think about the reality presented in romanticized poetry that treats war gently. He utilizes language that imparts the speakers experiences, as well as what he, his companions, and the dying man feels. People really die and suffer and live through nightmares during a war; Owen forcefully demonstrates this in “Dulce et Decorum Est”. He examines the horrific quality of World War I and transports the reader into the intense imagery of the emotion and experience of the speaker.