Stories are told through a seemingly limitless number of vessels: oral traditions date back thousands of years, literature revolutionized the way information is carried, and in the more recent years film broke through barriers and revolutionized modern media. What all all of these forms have in common is a medium, a method in which to tell their story. Though there are some exceptions, the traditional format includes a narrator of sorts, who will illustrate the events of a story from their own personal perspective. As one can imagine, a story is vastly influenced by the narrator that tells it. Details, opinions, even whole events are included or left out at the discretion of the individual or individuals sharing it. A brilliant example of the power narration holds lies when comparing Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, a film based off of the previously mentioned novel. The novel’s aspiring seaman, Charles Marlow, is a stark contrast to Benjamin Willard, the movie’s special operations officer. Though both pieces of art tell similar stories, the way each tale is told changes the way they story is told.
Marlow and Willard are fundamentally different people, even though they both represent the same character. Marlow shows time and time again to be an independent thinker, his tone when regarding his fellow European men implying that he does not feel like he is one of them. Originally he worked very hard to make his way to Africa, but his journey leaves him disappointed with the reality he could not have known about. While he does harbor some prejudices towards the Africans, Marlow allows his perspective to change over time with everything he observes. Wilson, on the other hand, reveals far...
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...nces; the fact that he was not fully willing to go to Vietnam separates him from the other soldiers who are all very excited to be there. The narrative styles of each character change the way themes are emphasized.
Each method of narration brings a particular point of view to focus, creating a different overall effect for the readers and viewers. Narrators have the power to take one story and paint it in their own light, making some parts shine while others hide neglected in the shadows. Wilson brought the savage nature of his fellow soldiers sparkle in the spotlight, while the morality of the American’s purpose in the land needed not be addressed. Marlow showed readers the evil behind the European invasion, while gazing over important sections of the story. Though both pieces of media tell virtually the same story, the narration changed the way each piece was seen.
They tug and pull at the reader questioning his truthfulness as a narrator by mixing fact with fiction. On one side, he brings the readers into trusting him by appealing to ethos throughout, throwing into the mix factual details such as, “I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now” (O’Brien 31). Certainly the reader will connect with those statements in which he reveals a little about his personal side, which are surely believable. To further the persuasive rhetoric, he then starts throwing in anecdote after anecdote all starting with the phrase “I remember” which occurs seventy-five times throughout the novel as a way to appeal, not only emotionally through nostalgia, but also by setting in stone the ethos that he is a veteran of the Vietnam War looking back at his personal experiences. He finally appeals to logic throughout, once again establishing his supposed truthfulness through rhetoric. This is evinced with his detailed descriptions of weaponry like “The M-60, M-16 and M-79...Chi-Coms and RPGs and Simonov carbines and black market Uzis...Claymore antipersonnel mine-3.5 pounds” (Page 7). He includes a laundry list of weaponry, through his colloquial language of weapons as an intentional way of proving to the readers his personal knowledge of the war, and in a broader sense, he proves that the reader can trust him with facts.
participation as a soldier in the Vietnam War. The narrator offers different tales in which he
He was a young man in his twenties, pressured by his family and peers to fight for his country despite not wanting to. The use of imagery allows the reader to see through his eyes. Though untrue, the fact is it could have happened. This gives the reader a “taste...
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.
Last but not least, O’Connor confirms that even a short story is a multi-layer compound that on the surface may deter even the most enthusiastic reader, but when handled with more care, it conveys universal truths by means of straightforward or violent situations. She herself wished her message to appeal to the readers who, if careful enough, “(…)will come to see it as something more than an account of a family murdered on the way to Florida.”
The change from differing mediums, novel and film, reveal characteristics and possibilities of narratives. Through the advancement of technology, modern writers
In the twentieth century many young adults and many other men were chosen/ drafted to enter the war. The Vietnam War started during the time period of 1959 and this brutal war ended on 1975. It started with the United States sending aid and military advisors to the Southern part Vietnam. The U.S helped the southerners of Vietnam because the northern part of Viet was a communist state so the south wanted to end Communism up in the north. Also, this war was said to be one of the bloodiest wars that took place in the twentieth century. It was a very bloody war because more than 58,000 American soldiers had perished in combat. Also, during the decade of direct U.S Military participation in Vietnam, during early time of the year, 1964 the U.S treasury spent over 140 billion dollars on this war. “This was enough money to fund urban projects in every major American city” (history.com). As this war effected the American’s, it affected the Vietnamese people to. This war affected both the American’s and the Vietnamese, because in the year of 1973 the United States began withdrawing troops. This caused the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon to fall to the Northern Vietnamese forces. Just like how the war was long and bloody many characters from the novel The Things They Carried experienced many things that were relatable to people who in reality dealt with the war. The very brutality of war cause indelible psychological and emotional changes in most of its
In “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien, Orwell’s ideas are questioned and the competition between the truth and the underlying meaning of a story is discussed. O’Brien’s story depicts that the truth isn’t always a simple concept; and that not every piece of literature or story told can follow Orwell’s list of rules (Orwell 285). The story is told through an unnamed narrator as he re-encounters memories from his past as a soldier in the Vietnam War. With his recollection of past encounters, the narrator also offers us segments of didactic explanation about what a “true war story” is and the power it has on the human body (O’Brien 65). O’Brien uses fictional literature and the narration of past experiences to raise a question; to what extent should the lack of precision, under all circumstances, be allowed? In reality, no story is ever really truthful, and even if it is, we have no proof of it. The reader never feels secure in what they are being told. The reliability of the source, the author, and the narrator are always being questioned, but the importance of a story isn’t about the truth or the accuracy in which it is told, but about the “sunlight” it carries (O’Brien 81).
O’Brien, Tim. How to Tell a True War Story. Literature and Ourselves. Sixth Edition. Eds.
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.
Throughout Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, a plethora of stories are told concerning the lives of a select number of soldiers in and out of the Vietnam War. In his writing, O’Brien also conveys his own thoughts on the art of storytelling and the nature of stories themselves. In these passages, O’Brien provides a detailed analysis of the challenges of storytelling, the effects of time on memory, the role of imagination in storytelling, the reason for retelling a story, and a story’s purpose and process for the reader.
Some of the characteristics of Modernism are: a desire to break conventions and established traditions, reject history, experiment, remove relativity, remove any literal meaning, and create an identity that is fluid. The rejection of history sought to provide a narrative that could be completely up for interpretation. Any literal meaning no longer existed nor was it easily given; essence became synonymous. Narrative was transformed. Epic stories, like “Hills Like White Elephants”, could occur in the sequence of a day. Stories became pushed by a flow of thoughts. The narrative became skeptical of linear plots, preferring to function in fragments. These fragments often led to open unresolved inconclusive endings. This echoes in the short story’s format. The short story functions in fragmented dialogue. Focusing on subjectivity rather than objectivity. Creating characters with unfixed, mixed views to challenge readers.
In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting, and circumstances of the film are totally different from those of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in each respective work.
Without personal access to authors, readers are left to themselves to interpret literature. This can become challenging with more difficult texts, such as Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Fortunately, literary audiences are not abandoned to flounder in pieces such as this; active readers may look through many different lenses to see possible meanings in a work. For example, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may be deciphered with a post-colonial, feminist, or archetypal mindset, or analyzed with Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The latter two would effectively reveal the greater roles of Kurtz and Marlow as the id and the ego, respectively, and offer the opportunity to draw a conclusion about the work as a whole.
Both Conrad’s, “Heart of Darkness”, and Coppola’s, “Apocalypse Now”, profoundly illustrate the journey of man into their inner self and man’s encounters with their insanity, fears and demise. The novella and film are comprised of numerous pivotal themes that facilitate the understanding of the deeper meaning of both works. Fundamentally, theme is an extensive message or idea expressed by an author and is a crucial element of literature since it sheds light on universal concepts. The most striking parallels that can be formulated when comparing themes in both the novella and the film are associated with human nature. Specifically, Conrad and Coppola incorporate theme of hypocrisy in order to portray man’s incredible potential for evil.