O Brien War Quotes Analysis

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

He assumed, well educated people should not have been sent to war to fight for something they do not agree with. In fact, he believes that only those who agree with the Vietnam War should be the ones forming the military lines.

“They carried the soldier’s greatest fear which was the fear of blushing. Men killed and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.” (O’Brien pg. 20)

     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

“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. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (80)

Significance: While O’Brien is saying that his personal belief is that generalizations cannot be made about war, this idea is major throughout the entire novel. No generalizations can be made about any situation in a war. Everyone will have a story from the war all their own. The book begins with a great example of this, by listing all the things the men have brought with them and the reasons behind this. Various chapters throughout the book document the way the soldiers are coping with the horrors they’re seeing. O’Brien used his writing. Kiowa had his bible and his religion. Bowker found no way to cope that he could find on this planet. There is no one way to generalize the effects a war will have on a person.

The idea of war has been around for centuries and yet humanity is still doubtful as to what causes us to be so engaged in war. Could it possibly have anything to do with the feelings and emotions that come along when dealing with an actual war? In “The Ecstasy of War”, Barbara Ehreneich argues that war brings such powerful and uplifting feeling that it seems to resemble a religious experience. War exposes a lot about human nature and why despite the destruction caused by war, we still manage to participate. It is important to understand the origins by acknowledging the repetitive and compulsive behavior that arises in human beings at war. By changing the perspective on war, humanity can begin to take the first step to freedom. I will examine

This quote in the first chapter of the book sets the overall tone. The author Tim O’Brien uses his language through out the book in an extremely straightforward manner. He does not sugar coat the way going to war and being in a war is. He does not use stories of heroes,

As you have read war is a very different type of world everything is turned around and it confuses people. The author of the book The Things They Carried and the writer of the quote "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories. Wrote about war so people could have a better understanding of

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing…They carried the soldier’s greatest fear which was the fear of blushing…It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. (O’Brien 333)

War is not one of the most pleasant images this world has seen. Usually it is regarded as one of the most

War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and

This certainly comes out in the fragging incident, when the squad kills Lieutenant Sidney Martin. But there's something more. Another time, O'Brien was quoted as saying, "My concerns have to do with the abstractions: ... How does one do right in an evil situation?" (Bates 263). That is the big question, of course, that this novel deals with. See, the point that O'Brien is making is not that war is an evil situation. He's trying to take that for granted and move beyond. Now that you've got this evil situation, what do you do?

Throughout human existence war has been a glorified way of settling disputes and asserting dominance, a place where powerful men have proven themselves, a place where glory and honor were achieved and a place where noble heroes died. Continuously through history humans looked past the horrors of war and misleadingly saw it as a glorious manner. This glorious view on war went unchallenged for centuries when finally the general William Tecumseh Sherman spoke out about the horrors of war and famously quoted that “war is hell”. In All Quiet On The Western Front William Tecumseh Sherman’s words can been seen in Remarque’s portrayal of the First World War by making display of the close similarities that war and hell have. Remarque exposes how truly horrendous the conditions at the front were displaying similarities between the conditions at war and to conditions described of hell. Remarque shows how the weapons used in the war turned man into ashes and countrysides into dead zones creating a real hell like environment. Lastly Remarque manifests that the horrors that war brought were so deep that the suffering would become eternal just as the suffering of hell. Therefore in the novel All Quiet On The Western Front Remarque brings life to William Tecumseh Sherman's famous quote “War is hell” by exposing how alike war and hell are by virtue of their similarities: How the conditions at the front were so horrendous they resembled conditions of hell; How new warfare technology turned

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a