More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of how to tell a true war story by tim o'brien
Literary analysis O'Brien How to tell a true war story
Literary analysis O'Brien How to tell a true war story
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Throughout the history of literature, the quest for a goal has always been evident in an assortment of writing styles. A hero normally tries to obtain something or someone; whether it would fill a void in his life or if it was stolen from him, they would always try their hardest. However, in Going After Cacciato by Tim O’brien, Paul Berlin’s goal was aspiration and bravery. To many readers it was more than just a war story, it was a look into the minds of the soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War, and how some of the soldiers dealt with the things happening around them. Thomas Hardy said it best with this statement,“ A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary …show more content…
experience of every average man and woman.” Basically this quote is saying that in order for a story to be worth telling, it must be about an experience that not every person can relate to. I completely support Hardy with his statement; people read books to open up their imagination and explore new possibilities. You can not do that if you read everyday material. This book follows the same story line of Homer’s The Odyssey, and in a way it helps give the story a deeper meaning to it. In this book the author takes you on a journey from the jungle of Indochina to the streets of Paris. Not everyone gets to experience these places or the spots in between; and everyone did not witness the Vietnam War from a soldiers perspective. We are in the mind of Paul Berlin, a soldier who is sick and tired of the evil going on around him. He remembered what his dad had told him before he left for the war, “You'll see some terrible stuff, I guess. That's how it goes. But try to look for the good things, too. They'll be there if you look. So watch for them.” (O'Brien 58). He took his dads advice literally and created all these “possibilities” of a better reality. Paul Berlin is not your ordinary soldier in Vietnam, he is not impulsive nor is he brave. He can not handle what is actually going on in reality so he creates an imaginary scenario of going to Paris in chase of Cacciato when he went AWOL one night. Cacciato decided to try and escape the war to go to Paris for a better life. Paul Berlin and his squad did chase after Cacciato but they stopped at the border of Laos in fear of deserting the war. This is when Paul Berlin really starts going into this “fantasy world” of following Cacciato all the way to his destination. Berlin truly experienced everything on his trip to Paris, even though it was all in his head.
For example, Doc Peret states, “What you remember is determined by what you see...where did it tilt from fact to imagination?” (O'Brien 206). All of Paul Berlin's unusual and exotic imaginations came directly from his experiences and what he saw previously in his explorations throughout Indochina. One of the most prominent encounters he made was when he was residing in the village of Quang Ngai. Paul Berlin recalls meeting a Vietnamese girl with gold hoops in her ears and ugly scabs on her brow (262). This girl makes him rethink his appearance and personality, and he wonders what she thinks of him. This contrast of two completely dissimilar characters represents Berlin's sub-conscious behavior. Even though he has never met her, or much less even talked to her for that matter, Berlin has an interest in how she views him. For Paul Berlin, it is heartbreaking to meet someone who he desires very dearly, but just can't acknowledge. Astonishingly however, he does see her again, but this time in his mind. The girl with the golden hoops is equivalent with Sarkin Aung Wan, the girl he falls in love with on his excursion to Paris. This deep longing for love tells us that Paul Berlin most likely had never had a girlfriend and the way that she, “... licks his wounds” whenever gets hurt makes me wonder if Paul Berlin doesn’t understand the difference between imagery and what's
real. Going After Cacciato is so different than our everyday lives. Tim O’Brien doesn’t just tell the story, he allows the readers to be apart of the action to. A lot of the information is left out in his books for his readers to decipher and to decide what he really means for the story to be about.
This year’s last word in speeches was first presented in 1790. In August of 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical Hamilton (as in founding father Alexander) opened on Broadway. One of the musical’s most memorable moments, “Cabinet Battle #1,” includes arguments from both Hamilton — then Secretary of the Treasury — and his frequent political rival, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, persuading Congress to vote for or against Hamilton’s proposal of a national bank. For its presentation to an assembly and consideration of the most advantageous course of action, “Cabinet Battle #1” is a pair of deliberative speeches. They’re also, by the way, a rap battle. Though the speeches’ content is rooted in centuries past and the delivery is timestamped with today, the rhetorical strategies defined by Aristotle are as present in Miranda’s lyrics as they would have been in Jefferson
In the story, “Your Move”, by James Ransome, James, the protagonist, admires family more than friends. This is because, he cares for Isaac during dangerous times, keeps Isaac entertained by doing activities, and did not join the “K-Bones” club his friends were in.
Most war novels center on themes of valor and heroism. Some concentrate on the opposites of these virtues in an attempt to display raw realism. Harrison, right from the beginning of his novel, shows us both. The narrator of this first-person narrative paints a picture of a totally un-heroic bunch of soldiers preparing for debarkation. The drinking and debauchery are followed the next morning by a parade that the suffering soldiers must march through, while the people watch their ‘heroes’ leaving to bravely fight the good fight. While this clearly demarcates the innocent civilians from the savvy soldiers, it also shows the reader that the narrator is going to try to tell the real story.
Victor Martinez’s “Parrot in the Oven” is a novel that reflects the protagonist’s school days, his athletic activities, and family life. Victor Martinez experiences as a Mexican-American are the influences that induce him to produce such a literary work with figurative language that he receives naturally from his family. In his life, Martinez’s high school days and his teachers take important role as they motivate his to find opportunities that he can get as a son of a migrant worker. He presents his feeling and emotion for finding his identity and belongingness in his novel. As “Parrot in the Oven” is a coming-of-age story of a boy, the high school days and family life of the protagonist is explicitly presented. Everyone has unforgettable school days that made a great impact on the mind of the person. I can never forget about my school days and the sports activities I have participated, got victory, and met failures. I have learnt not only education, but also life, as does the protagonist of the novel. I would like to describe the high school days, athletic contests, and family matters of the protagonist, Manny Hernandez that is concentrated mostly on the chapters 7 and 8 of the “Parrot in the Oven.”
As O'Brien's third novel, Going After Cacciato is one of his most acclaimed works. The book brings to the reader many chilling aspects of war while developing a connection between the reader and the narrator. After many years, Going After Cacciato still dominates over more recent war novels by providing a unique glimpse into the soldiers mind. O'Brien reflects upon his wartime experiences in Vietnam while successfully blending reality and fantasy in an original war story.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
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...
In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming was drawn to enlist by his boyhood dreams. His highly romanticized notion of war was eclectic, borrowing from various classical and medieval sources. Nevertheless, his exalted, almost deified, conception of the life of a soldier at rest and in combat began to deflate before the even the ink had dried on his enlistment signature. Soon the army ceased to possess any personal characteristics Henry had once envisioned, becoming an unthinking, dispas...
Today, we have a lot of veterans who are coming home from war that are being displaced. In this chapter it talks about a Vietnam War soldier named Norman Bowker who arrives home from the war. In the chapter, Speaking of Courage from the book ‘The Things They Carried’ written by Tim O’Brien, Norman feels displaced from the world and everyone there. A returning soldier from the Vietnam War is driving around a lake on the 4th of July in his fathers big chevrolet, but then realizes he has nowhere to go. He starts to reminisce about his father, ex-girlfriend, and his childhood friend. Norman talks about all the medals he had won. He starts to think about his fathers pride in those badges and he starts to have a recollection about how he had almost own the silver star but blew his chance. He continues to drive around the lake again and again. He continues to imagine telling his father about the story of how he almost won the silver star, but failed to do so. This paper will analyze Speaking of Courage with the new criticism/formalism lens.
In “Interpreter of Maladies,” lonely Mr. Kapasi acts a guide for the Das family of tourists. His intrigue in Mrs. Das is not due to her particular beauty, but rather from the minimal attention she gives him. The car rides from one tourist attraction to another represent both Mr. Kapasi’s and Mrs. Das’s subtle desire for control in their lives, he with his need for passion and she with her selfish secrets. Additionally, the car ride in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” also in some way represents control, as exhibited in Arnold Friend’s sway over young Connie. The flashy gold paint on the old model car is representative of Arnold himself and the persona he is wishing to portray. Furthermore, the sexual energy of the car rides is presented in the two stories as both pathetic (a married man’s lust), and nefarious (Arnold’s fetishization of fifteen-year-old Connie). The commonality of specious appearances is what really links the two works, with both Mrs. Das and Mr Kapasi not being quite what they seem, and Connie and Arnold’s desire to play a different character than their own, despite the contrast of innocence and
The most important part in writing a novel is to enable the audience to understand what is being communicated. Krakauer did so by clearly communicating his message to his audience. He wanted to share the story of McCandless, a young man who dreamt of conquering the wilderness alone. This conquest ultimately ended in failure and cast a feeling of sorrow upon his family and friends. With the exception of a slight difficulty to understand the story during certain chapters, Krakauer’s novel was full of thrill of emotion and life-lessons.
In the literary work, Speaking of Courage, Tim O’Brien highlights the trying struggle of a post-war solider attempting desperately to integrate himself back into American society. Paul Berlin’s trials and tribulations exemplify the “dominance of a citizen culture in the United States,” as mentioned by Dr. Decker in class. American society does not allow for the soldiers we have sent off to fight to return as warriors.
When we are first getting introduced to O’Brien we see this constant thought of double standards and cliches in American culture. One way he addresses his issue with American war stories is when he states “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done.” (O’Brien, pg.65) As we are introduced to each character in the novel we are forced to see their shortcomings beyond the title of bravery we grant them. This ideas leads to questioning how we choose to romanticize war stories and how this
The reading “Stranger Than True” by Barry Winston is not familiar to me, yet an intriguing and fascinating story. The principal point of the writer, who specializes in criminal law tried to convey was that everything isn't so black and white. Everybody is honest until demonstrated blameworthy despite all proof points against them.
In the play he takes on the role of a character as well as taking on