O Brien's War Stories

When reading the first chapter of The Things They Carried, it is quickly understood that the soldiers mentioned are burdened to carry a great deal of baggage. This baggage does not only consist of guns, ammunition, protection gear, survival materials, and personal items—this baggage also includes the numerous emotions of grief, longing, guilt, shame, and fear of dying. In complete, soldiers from Vietnam were constrained to carry material baggage as well as mental baggage that varied from each individual. The outcome of this constraint seems to play a huge role in being a soldier, however, not each soldier may handle this constraint the same way. Some soldiers may drive their vehicle around aimlessly, like Norman Bowker, trying to forget the war. Others may decide the burden is too tough to carry and hang themselves, like Bowker eventually did (p.154).

     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

Have you ever been hesitant to share a true story because you suspected that it would appear as a fabricated anecdote to your audience? Well, most of the time we add bunch of things or change a true story to make it sound genuine to our audience. We live in a judgmental and complex world where lying has become a part of our daily lives. Because of this habit, it is hard to differentiate the truth from a fabricated lie. Since I was a child, my parents always talked about battle of Adwa and many events that took place centuries ago. It is always amusing to listen to those stories because it is about heroic act that most of the kings of Ethiopia accomplished. Although I heard different versions of these stories, I always tend to believe my parents’ version. The reason is not simply the credibility of my parents’, but the way it was presented. According to the short story, “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’ Brien, a true war story is hard to accept as true because some of the most agonizing parts are true, while some of the natural parts are not. Tim O’Brien’s narrative shows that a storyteller has the power to shape listeners’ views. We can change our perception because of the story teller, and neglect the fact that we are avoiding the actuality. Therefore by listening to different versions of a story, it will actually help the reader find greater truth of the story.

Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old

The “Baby Boom” era occurred between the years of the late 1950s thru the 19970s and shaped America and its culture into the type of country it is today. It helps to understand these times to prevent history from repeating itself while better understanding how people were feeling during that time. Also, to better understand what was happening during that time by reading the literature that was written during that time period. Through Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, they reflect the cultural, economic, political, and intellectual upheavals the United States was experiencing. These stories affect your way of thinking about these times, especially the war.

In O'Brien's novel the author exposes the fear, or thrill many men and women felt during war. This can be explained by the low morals these men set for themselves during war. Though not every man is corrupted, the ones that are

Tim O’Brien reminds us that true war stories are never moral. A war story is true if it is obscene and evil, with no virtue. A true war story will have no examples of the way humans should behave (514). The contributing authors absolutely influence the perception of the war, their works are meaningful, powerful. Further, we have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight and a PBS documentary that took 10 years to complete to consider when forming our opinion. Personally, I am grateful for the influence media and writings have on perceptions of warfare. I am coming to understand my grandfather who served in the Navy and the biases he brought home from the war. While I disagree with them, I am beginning to see where they originate from and why even at the

How to Tell a True War Story – The Irony of Truth in Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story"

It is a known fact that soldiers endure experiences that can only be felt by seeing through one’s own eyes. The Vietnam War was especially one of the wars that had a major impact on soldiers, as their lives became significantly more difficult and dangerous. The soldiers were young and thrown into war, not knowing who they were fighting. Tim O’Brien was one of the soldiers that was placed into Vietnam’s danger. O’Brien stated that he still carries “the memories or the ghosts of a place called Vietnam, the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers. More importantly [he carries] the weight of responsibility and a sense of abiding guilt. [He carries] joyful memories, too, friends [he] made and the conversations at foxholes

In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien looks for the relationships in between the events during a war and also the art of telling those events. O’Brien doesn’t have a clear idea of what a true war story. He talks about his buddy that was in Vietnam. His buddy`s name was Bob Kiley but everyone called him Rat. O'Brien talks about his friend Rat`s friend gets killed, So Rat sits down and writes a letter to the guy's sister.

Wars and armed conflicts have a great impact on both the physical and mental health of soldiers. Armed conflicts have maimed thousands of soldiers and claimed the lives of many. Surviving soldiers have had to live a life of distress and mental torture resulting from post traumatic stress they suffer on their return to their country. Ernest Hemingway through fictional characters has shared the struggles of attempting to cope and re-adjust to life after fighting in a battle. His post-war civilian experience, his coping ability and life after war shows that it is not always easy for a soldier to cope with the civilian life after war. The society is less concerned with what happens to the surviving soldiers and much attention is drawn to the

Why has he written the book - because he feels the weight of the necessary things or because he is overwhelmed with those emotions and wants to share them? The most unbearable is to carry the emotional weight caused by killing human beings. Physical pains stop sooner or later, but Tim O’Brien cannot forgive himself the killing. He has written the book to get free of his emotions, to leave the Vietnam War and its terrible consequences behind. He knows that, unlike physical weight, emotional weight of pain, burden and sense of guilt will never leave. He cannot reach the state of unbearable lightness of

Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge

Forty-two years after the Fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War remains an affliction for Vietnam War Veterans and their families. Millions of our youth were forced to leave their home and carry inconceivable burdens. Thus, as a Veteran, Tim O’Brien can depict thoroughly their burdens in “The Things They Carried”. His story brings us back to war-torn Vietnam and First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his platoon. Cross is the commanding officer; however, he does not concentrate on the war but on his unrequited love. As a result, a Viet Cong kills one of his subordinates, Ted Lavender. His death traumatizes the platoon, especially its commander. Furthermore, the narrator also depicts the burden of not only their equipment but also their psychological

It was a war that O’Brien did not believe in, but by the possibility of feeling the shame of embarrassing his father or the community, he could not stand by his own beliefs and back down. This false courage was worn like a badge by characters like Curt Lemon who would have died sooner than to be called a yellow