According to the author, Tim O’Brien many a true war story consists of many factors that are unknown to most people. For instance, Tim describes a true war story as that which is not moral. Tim claims that true war stories are not there to encourage ad that if you feel uplifted at the end of war story then that is not a true war story. He gives the example of a soldier named Rat. Rat’s fellow soldier and best friend died while they were playing in the forest on duty and Rat underwent much devastation and shock. In an attempt to seek solace at the death of his best friend he writes to the deceased’s only sister. The author tells us that rat poured his heart out in that letter and nearly broke down while writing it. He tells us how Rat described …show more content…
Tim claims that the normal stuff undergoes inclusion out of necessity since if a war story undergoes narration without the normal stuff then the listeners will find it hard to believe it. Tim then gives an instance of when one soldier tells him of an instance they had in the jungle. The soldier who narrates the story first starts with the normal stuff like how they had a mission to go out to the jungle and just listen. Then as the soldier is about to start telling the true war story he warns Tim that he just might not believe what he is about to tell him next. Then he explains how once while just listening out for any enemy activity in the jungle they heard some kind of cocktail party going on in the Jungle. They claim that it confused them since what they heard were not human voices but more of rocks that were talking. This was clearly an example of how crazy war stories were and how most people do not believe them. Tim further explains that they at times sound so unreal that one cannot tell them and one opts to keep it to themselves. This is clear when after the troops return their senior officer demands to know what really transpired out there but the soldiers could not
To write a true war story that causes the readers to feel the way the author felt during the war, one must utilize happening-truth as well as story-truth. The chapter “Good Form” begins with Tim O’Brien telling the audience that he’s forty-three years old, and he was once a soldier in the Vietnam War. He continues by informing the readers that everything else within The Things They Carried is made up, but immediately after this declaration he tells the readers that even that statement is false. As the chapter continues O’Brien further describes the difference between happening-truth and story-truth and why he chooses to utilize story-truth throughout the novel. He utilizes logical, ethical, and emotional appeals throughout the novel to demonstrate the importance of each type of truth. By focusing on the use of emotional appeals, O’Brien highlights the differences between story-truth and happening-truth and how story-truth can be more important and truer than the happening-truth.
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
Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction the narrator of the story uses language and acts of violence that may be offensive to some. However some readers agree that Tim O" Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story" would lack authenticity and power without the use of crude language and violence.
Capturing the realities of war is not everyone's cup of tea. One has to be feel the emotions that inspire vivid imagery in words. True war stories can be written based off of true events that have occurred and bring out emotions in the poets who witness them. Brian Turner, author of 2000 lbs, stated in an interview that while in Iraq, he felt “very isolated from the relevance of what felt like a prior life”(poemoftheweek.com). Its seems like a split from life at home to a warzone with conflicting feelings. He began capturing his experiences of the war in the form of poetry. Brian Turner turned his Iraq war experience and his masters degree in literature and poetry into an opportunity to oppose the resolution of conflict through war. Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam Warr veteran who struggled with PTSD and Turner’s opinions in his story, “2000 lbs,” share similarities with “How To Tell A True War Story”. Turner’s poem 2000 lbs describes a suicide
For young people, the Vietnam War is a thing of the past and they can
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 of 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 time.
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
...n amnesiac nation into “working through” its troubled past.” (Bly ,189) Story telling was the soldier’s salvation, their survival method. Being able to tell their stories let them express everything they were feeling and ultimately cope with the horrors of war and the guilt the carried.
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried has readers and critics alike scratching their heads with wonder about the meaning of “story-truth” and “happening-truth.” Although, he served in the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1970, he fabricates the events of the war throughout The Things They Carried. At the same time, he insists that the truth lies at the heart of the emotion in the story, an idea that many readers question. Furthermore, it is pointless for the reader to attempt to sort through the stories and differentiate between the “story-truth” and “happening-truth,” because it is nearly impossible. This tactic is one of O’Brien’s more ingenious writing methods. He does not want the reader to know the difference between the two because in his opinion that fact is irrelevant. O’Brien obviously thinks outside the box and has everyone questioning reality. However, this fact is truly ironic, because the point is not to care what type of “truth” it is, but to instead feel the raw beauty of the emotion and to accept it as the truth. While trying to define “story-truth” and “happening-truth,” a couple chapters in particular focus on the idea of truth, “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Man I Killed” and “Good Form.” O’Brien believes that the most important thing for a reader is to experience the emotion of the story, be it “story-truth” or “happening-truth,” as long as the real emotion is conveyed and understood by the reader, then it is as true as it could possibly be.
1. When O'Brien writes that "story-truth is truer sometimes than happening truth," he is claiming that the nature of truth is subjective. This applies to war stories, which he claims that if they have a moral, it is untrue. O'Brien states "It's a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn't, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness" (O'Brien 68), meaning even true stories will throw in lies to make it more believable. O'Brien encourages skepticism of war stories, saying at the end it comes down to gut instinct on whether believing a story is true or not. War stories with morals are the most likely to be untrue, because war is hell and should not encourage virtue or models of human behavior. O'Brien tells an example
Leo Tolstoy once said, “There is only one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth (Vethuizen 19). Although there is a great deal out of our control, understanding and speaking the truth is one that is entirely in control of each other. Expressing the truth is something that most humans feel the need to confess and express. Truth is the accurate depiction of events as they happened. In Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story,” the narrator throughout the story goes through the different steps on how to tell a “true” war story. Throughout the story, he continuously finds difficulty in how war stories are told and because of that
War is a stage. Hamlet by William Shakespeare can be seen as the literary center of the universe because it draws upon themes of identity and morality, which are central themes in many succeeding works. War can have a metatheatrical power like Hamlet does because war can draw challenge the idea that war is simply realistic. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, O’Brien writes of the experience of several members of a platoon during the Vietnam War. Various characters and stories reappear throughout the novel. Some of his stories are intangible and are dramatizations of what a reader would deem as realistic. O’Brien uses these themes as a statement that there is not one single truth in war. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien uses paradox
O’Brien’s definition of truth is that truth can change and isn’t always what exactly happened, but as long as the message of the story stays the same, then it’s true. When people tell stories they often embellish to make it sound interesting but when soldiers talk about war they often make up things that seem normal so that the story will seem believable. The things that seem like they are false or too outrageously unrealistic to be true, are often the only truth in the story. Because, things happen so quickly and often unexpected in a war “it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen”( O’brien 19). When stories about an occurrence are told, little details about certain things are more of a guess to what happened in
The Struggles in life is something everyone is faced with whether it is physical, emotional mental or personal struggles. These struggles are capable of shaping an individual’s personality and outlook on life. Timothy Findley’s novel The Wars, shows that struggles lead to the character’s ultimate inner struggles, outer struggles and self-discovery. War exists in a person’s physical and psychological aspects. In The Wars, Robert Ross goes to war and fights a personal and physical battle.
After reading this story you could easily draw parallels to famous poets such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sasson, Rupert Brooke and John Mccrae. All of these famous poets all wrote about the horrible brutal consequences of the war. Some of them even experienced the war. Some of them war scared because of the war. But they all wanted to show the genuine version of the war and not the glorified version that was used as propaganda.