Examples Of How To Tell A True War Story Rhetorical Analysis

As stated in the thesis, Timothy O’Brien also writes his short story, “How to tell a True War Story,” in the first person narrative, although the style in which he narrates is quite different than from the style in “A & P.’’ O’Brien, who was an actual soldier in the Vietnam War takes on more of an autobiographical approach to telling his “true war story.”

Throughout the book, O’Brien repeatedly states his struggles in telling “a true war story.” One of the obstacle he faces in telling “a true war story” is the readers’ misconception that “truth” must be an event and not an emotion. To begin, O’Brien claims “A true war story is never moral… If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted… then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie… you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (68-69) and “All of us… like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth” (38). In these two statements, O’Brien has shown us that people want not a

The items the soldiers carry hold a substantial amount of credibility throughout each personal story; however, within O’Brien’s story, he lacks credibility aside from the obvious tangible elements of the items held, questioning where the truth lies within these evidential fragments of the soldiers’ lives. These personal accounts of exact measurements attest the reader’s knowledge of war as well as the mental ability to calculate the exact weight upon each person’s hump through a fiction of mental and emotional agility. O’Brien quotes within Chen’s criticism stating, “A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (Chen 77). This background knowledge of O’Brien’s theory that an “absolute occurrence is irrelevant because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth,”(Chen 77) places the credibility of the information upon the emotional accounts that O’Brien’s writing bestows upon the personalities of the soldiers. The “academic tone that at times makes the narrative sound like a government report (Kaplan 45),” adds documentation like analysis of these compilations of war endeavors as told by the narrator. Kaplan continues that the “transitional phrases such as “for instance” and “in addition,”’ (Kaplan 45) as well as “whole paragraphs dominated by sentences that begin with “because,”” (Kaplan 45) convince certainty of the

The first three words of the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” are, “This is true” (67). Although Tim O’Brien begins this chapter with such a bold and clear statement, throughout the chapter he has the reader thinking and confused when he contradicts himself by stating things such as, “In many cases a true war story cannot

Tim O’Brien uses two narrative techniques in “How to Tell a True War Story”. First he splits the story into three different sections. The first part being Rat Kiley writing his letter to Curt Lemon’s sister about the relationship they had. The next section is describing the correct way of writing a “true war story”. And the last is O’Brien looking back on stories and his story telling techniques. O’Brien separates the story into three different parts to give the reader an example of a story that is “true”. The next section would about the truth about writing a true story and the last section is his personal reflection on the whole situation. The other narrative technique is that O’Brien retells certain events. He retells how Curt Lemon died, he retells Mitchell Sanders telling a story, and he retells how women react when you tell them stories about the war. Tim O’Brien retells stories and

     In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien explores the relationship between the events during a war and the art of telling those events. O’Brien doesn’t come to a conclusion on what is a true war story. He writes that one can’t generalize the story as well. According to O’Brien, war can be anything from love and beauty to the most horrid

O’Brien’s unification of fact and fiction is to illustrate the idea in which the real accuracy of a war story is less significant than storytelling. The subjective truth about what the war meant and what it did to change the soldiers is more meaningful than the technical details of the

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses the art of fabricating stories as a coping mechanism. Trying to distinguish the difference between fictional and factual stories is a challenge in this book, but literal truth cannot capture the real violence that the soldiers dealt with in Vietnam, only “story truth” can. He explains, “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made victim of a very old and terrible lie.” (O’Brien 65). The novel illustrates that storytelling is a way to keep the dead alive, even if it may not be a true story.

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

Our introduction stated that in “The Things They Carried,” author Tim O’Brien tells us not directly of the soldiers of Vietnam, or the situations they find themselves in, but about the things they carry on their shoulders and in their pockets. These “things” identify the characters and bring them to life."  I find that to be true as the author unfolds the stories about war and the uncommon things one carries in to war both inadvertently and on purpose.   As it was noted: "Stories about war – especially today – usually emphasize heroism and supporting our troops. Yet, these are completely absent in “The Things They Carried,” again I find this to be true also.  In attempting to Analyze why there is an absence of heroism and heroic acts in “The Things They Carried” I discovered that the author comes at his stories from a completely different view point and it is complex.  Example: he names himself as a fictional character and a Protagonist.  Although this is a fictional story it reads like a biography or a set of memory 's from the war in Vietnam, in which all the stories connect.  An unnamed narrator describes in third person the thoughts and actions of Lt. Jimmy Cross, a lieutenant in the Army.  Lt. Cross thoughts are of a woman named Martha, who he dated, her letters seem to serve somewhat as torture as he wonders if she feel the same way about him as he does about her, the letter give him no clue and make him wonder even more.   Lt. Cross is a inexperienced, somewhat

Telling a war story will be changed for everyone depending on their experience and the different wars they been to. In The Thing They Carried telling a true war story is different because O’Brien says that it needs to be a heroic and noble and very specific “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seems to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed” (pg.67-68) it shows how O’Brien wants to impress the audience with his stories that makes one wonder if it is real or not. He wants to sound heroic which makes part of the purpose of the story, his side

First, the reader must understand just what makes a good "war story". The protagonist of the novel, Tim O'Brien, gives us his

Almost like in a manual for story writing, O’Brien starts out every part of this short story by giving away a supposedly important feature of a “true war story” and then giving a matching example to help the reader visualize his lesson.

The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,

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.