Analysis Of A True War Story By Tim O Brien

Within the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes about a story that Mitchell Sanders recounts to be true. The surrealist part is when Sanders talks about how they heard noises within the forests of Nam. Sanders says, “...but after a while they start hearing -you won’t believe this- they hear chamber music… Then after a while they hear gook opera and a glee club…” (Pg. 71). When he says this he is really adding details to pad the story up. Like when Sanders say, “The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam - it truly talks.” (Pg. 71). He means to say that he added those things that they heard because there were sounds they heard that couldn’t be explained. Later on he says that those things they heard

In “how to tell a true war story” Tim o Brien tells some stories of war and tries to explain why and how these stories are true. O Brien come up with his own guidelines for what a true war story should contain for it to be true if it contains other things that what he mentions it is not true even if it happened. According to O Brien “a true war story is never moral” (Brien 1), “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue” (Brien 1), does not restrain men from doing the things they have always done” (Brien 1) in addition O Brien continues to unfold the requirements for labeling a story true and he even says “ if you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth” (Brien 2) meaning that a true story could contain some type of obscenity

War. This word stirs up an abundance of different emotions. Feelings such as fear, pain and frustration are brought to the surface. But there is also contrasting views to this topic. When someone else hears the word “war,” they may feel power, opportunity or victory. In his novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien highlights the array of emotions that war encompasses. “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 thrilling; war is drudgery” (O’Brien 76). This quote perfectly illustrates how many different feelings one goes through when faced with this topic. It can be concluded

“War stories” are shared by people all over the world, describing exhilarating experiences one encompasses during a war. However, these stories have been known for hyperbolizing details of the story, deeming it a “lie.” Tim O’Brien, the author of “How to Tell a True War Story,” examines the complex relationship between war experience and storytelling. The tale is told partly from O’Brien’s role as a soldier, as a reprise of several Vietnam stories, and half of his role as a storyteller, as a discussion on the art of storytelling. O’Brien provides detailed commentary on storytelling and blurs the division between truth and fiction through a series of paradoxical commentaries.

Beginning my love of reading an early age, I was never the type of child who was drawn to fictional stories. As an 8 year-old child in West Virginia, I was recognized by the local library for my love of biographies, autobiographies and recollections of world events. This love has continued throughout my adult life, desiring to read novels such as “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young” by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore rather than watch the major motion picture “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson. Even though the motion picture received multiple awards, when reading the recollection of Mr. Moore’s accounts, the feeling of loss, distress, anxiety and fear can be felt in each word that he has written while reliving this horrendous war.

     According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According

Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp

Throughout Tim O'Brien's short work "How to tell a true war story" O'Brien has two reoccurring themes. One is of the desensitization of the troops during their hardship regarding the events of the Vietnam War, and the other is of the concept of truth. Truth may seem simple enough to explain, but is in fact endowed with many layers. The story is chalked full of contradictions, as well as lies, and embellishments, and yet O'Brien claims that these are the truth. The truth, whether it be war or society's, is in fact a concept that can be conveyed many times and in many ways. Whereas each is independently untrue, the combined collaboration of these half-truths is in essence the only real truth.

In David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Finklel details different versions of the war in Iraq. Over the years, the image of war portrayed through literature has changed. Looking at non-fiction wartime novels of the past, the image of war was completely different. The novels of the past focused much more on the aftermath of war and the survivors of war, rather than the actual war it’s self like in today’s novels. When novels of the past did feature scenes of war, the details used to describe the scenes were not as vivid as they are today. I attribute this change to the change of style in which narrative pieces of non-fiction are written. After Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was published in 1966, the landscape of the non-fiction narrative completely changed, thus the wartime books published after this also changed. In addition to that, the advancement in technology has also changed the way wartime novels are written. Today, society can go on YouTube and watch videos of the war. There is also more media present on the battlefield than there was in the past. Having access to actual footage of the ongoing war, the public knows what the war looks like. With that in mind, authors can portray the realities of war because they already know the public has some sense of what the battlefield already looks like.

The Things They Carried is a book written by Tim O’Brien. It features many different stories from many different people who fought or participated in the Vietnam War. There are two particular stories, “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” that stand out because they use surrealism. Surrealism is the word to describe what most people may perceive as “unreal”. These stories use surrealism by creating elements in the story that almost sound impossible, but the author insists that they are true. Throughout the story, we are constantly asking what is real and not real. But, if we use examples from the book, it may be easier to define what is real and unreal.

However, the soldiers who take part in the war voice differing opinions and thoughts of what war means. The onlookers and the ones involved have different perceptions. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried included gruesome images and stories that bring real-life examples of how soldiers encounter the war to life, which disrupts and challenges the common assumptions that people may have of war. The fact that the Americans who think war is great cannot listen to a true war story seems counterproductive in that the opposite of what they believe is the reality of these soldiers. It suggests that people do not want to hear a true war story for several reasons. No one wants to hear a true war story that could be too much for them to bear, or not to bear, since they are not the ones constantly in battle. No one wants to listen to the truth being told while they are too busy trying to “make America great” by sending these soldiers to war. The quote, “As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute

In “How to Tell a True War Story, the author, through his fictional personality Tim O’Brien, attempts to define the truth in war stories, but instead concluded that none were completely factual. Supported by the paradox from the beginning and end of this chapter, he presented this information in the form of a realization in front of the readers, first claiming that his stories were “true” but later agreeing that “none of them happened.” One of the most notable examples he used was his account of Curt Lemon’s death, a game of catch with a grenade resulting in an accident. As O’Brien recalled the event, Lemon seemed as if he was lifted away through the trees, his face glistening in the sunlight. Therefore, in my mind, I imagined a graceful departure

''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 things men have always done. Why is it so hard to tell a war story? The answer to that will be there is never a moral. There is really nothing to say about a true war story, beside probably ''oh''. A war story does not indulge in abstraction or analysis. If a war story is true your stomach will make you believe. It is almost impossible to tell a true war story

The trees had suddenly enveloped me as the wind seemed to flow everywhere but near my mouth. The bodies were nearing closer to me as my feet struggled to pull my body along the ground, my head spinning and my brows furrowed. The smirking and grinning and continued, laughing joining in as the fingers prodded my sides.

We went up into the trees and arrived at the concentration camps right on time. I am just hoping our parents are here this is the 7th concentration camp we have invaded.