Story Truth Vs. Happening Truth Using Tim Obrien's work Essay

O’Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the story to let you experience what the war felt like for him. When him and his fellow soldiers would sit around the campfire telling stories some where obviously made up for entertainment while others actually were authentic. This is how you have to view the book as like you are there with the troops listening to these war stories and deciding for yourself whether or not you believe them. The underlying theme isn’t really the vietnam war in itself, its the act of storytelling.

1. According to O'Brien, how do you tell a true war story? What does he mean when he says that true war stories are never about war? In what sense is a “true” war story actually true? That is, in O’Brien’s terms, what is the relationship between historical truth and fictional truth?

In the chapter “Rainy River” O’Brien addresses the theme of storytelling and memory. In “Rainy River” O’Brien is trying to decide whether to go to war or to go and escape to Canada. He chose to go to war but he feels as though he's choosing for his country and not for himself. He felt like he had no option, no choice and his future was already set. “I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing as if they were hurling down a huge black funnel, the world squeezing in tight” (O’Brien 41). He didn't agree with the reasons for the war, and he did not want to go. The choices between war and living his life were close. He tells the story to portray his feelings to the war, he knows he's not cut out for the war. He felt as though he would be letting his country down by not going. Looking back onto his decision through memories he knows how hard the decision wah but he's glad he made it because he felt like he helped the country in a big

However, as the reader is to realize soon, by having his fictional characters tell stories and then recant the truth of those stories, O’Brien certainly calls into question the possibility of ever telling a true war story. The result of

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.

O’Brien culminates The Things They Carried with “The Lives of the Dead,” which includes a story about a girl named Linda that is at first seemingly unrelated to the overall plot. O’Brien discusses the story of Linda, a girl who he fell in love with in elementary school who succumbed to cancer. He had a deep connection with her, and found himself relishing sleep so he could dream endlessly about Linda. O’Brien then connects this story to those revolving the occurrences of Vietnam. He reveals yet another purpose of telling war stories: not to simply show readers what war in Vietnam was like, but to “revive…that which is absolute and unchanging” (O’Brien 224). Telling war stories serves as a way of “making the dead seem not quite so dead” (O’Brien

The author did not hide behind a fictional character to tell his own version of events. Tim O’Brien described the setting with great details, and each chapter had depth and emotions from the supporting characters. My favorite chapter included “On the Rainy River” and “Ambush.” I believe the novel does tell the truth to an extent. Some of the stories may have been “spiced up”, but they sound like the war stories that other veterans also experienced. I interviewed a Vietnam veteran for a school project and his versions of the war were similar to Tim O’Brien’s story.

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.

When O’Brien recounts his tales in the Vietnam War, he uses vivid descriptions to help convey the situation he intends to retell. In the novel, O’Brien reminisces a story about a man he had killed during the war. He describes the aftermath by detailing the corpse of the fallen soldier, expressing,“He lay face-up in the center of the trail, a slim, dead, almost dainty young man. He had bony legs, a narrow waist, long shapely fingers.” (O’Brien 118). When describing the body, the fact of

However, O’Brien did not leave his comments out of the book. In the Chapter “How to tell a true war story”, O'Brien is about to tell one of his real war stories after he just told us a fictionalized story by Mitchell Sanders. O’Brien says, “This one does it for me. I've told it before—many times, many versions—but here's what actually happened” (74). He begins to describe what he and his fellow soldiers did to a baby buffalo, and it was awful. They brutalized the poor buffalo until it died. The story would make any person upset, if it actually happened. After O’Brien explains what they do to the animal and a few more gruesome stories he says, “None of it happened. None of it” (81). All the stories O’Brien just told us were made up. Everyone knows the clique that “war is hell” and most people would have believed the stories he just told us, if they were true. By saying that there was no Mitchell Sanders or buffalo, the whole chapter seems to mean less to the reader because it did not happen. Also, it makes the reader upset with the author for making something that did not happen seem true. Another passage which shows how O’Brien is an unreliable narrator is during the chapter called “Good Form”. Previous to this chapter, O’Brien has just told the reader, in vivid detail,

I think the entire experience of leading the class in a discussion about this short story was really fun and interesting. We not only were able to help guide the class with the questions but also were able to explore other unique viewpoints to analyze the theme and literary techniques used in the story. In the process of preparing for the lesson, we decided it was important to mention O’Brien’s history and experience in the Vietnam War and connect it to key events from United States involvement in the war. However, during the presentation, I felt that we focused too much on somewhat unrelated specific details about the history and almost ran out of time in the end. This prevented us from completely analyzing the tone and multiple themes of

The factor that influenced the author in his decision to publish this novel was his desire to share his stories with the world. Stories can be told different ways, depending on how a person chooses to remember it. Each chapter refers to a different soldier and time period in the war and is not told in chronological order. O’Brien had a lot of regrets about the war that still haunt him and are the things that he “carried” all the way to today. He has faith that storytelling is the best way for him to negotiate the pain of death and war.

I think that the reason that O'Brien keeps writing war stories is because war is a very prominent in his mind and writing about it is his way of expressing his thoughts rather than keeping it all to himself. In the exposing of his many jumbled thoughts translated into an art form of a novel, O'Brien has found a way to endorse the well known label to war experiences amongst millions of people who have read his stories. His many different stories have complicated the connection between his actual experiences and the book. His purpose in the book was to evoke the emotions that the soldiers had encountered in their experiences, and he did so

In doing so, he is breaking the fourth wall and interrupting the flow of the story in order emphasize to the reader that writing is important in helping him deal with these experiences and in conveying what he felt to the reader. Interestingly, In the chapter Good Form, he bluntly states that he has has made most of the stories in the book up and then points out why he did it. “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (170) O’Brien makes it clear that the affect the war has had on him is so impactful, that even his memories which predate it impacted by events that happened during. For example, in On The Rainy River. when he is contemplating whether or not he should dodge the draft by jumping off of a