The Psychological Impact Of War In Tim O 'Brien's Style'

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 is something that can change the very principles of a person, it can change a person and leave multiple effects that can last for their entire life. The sniper is fighting in a civil war where friends and family can turn into enemies at a moment's notice. The fight is between the Republicans and the Free Staters, the protagonist is a sniper for the Republicans. Throughout the story, we go into the state of mind of the main character and learn some ramifications that he gained in the war. The text, “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty shows us the physical and psychological results of war, that happens to people.

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

“The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 68). In Tim O'Brien's’ novel, The Things They Carried, the author creates an overall reflection of war and the memories that come from the experiences. O’Brien describes his experiences in the Vietnam War and how the outcomes can lead to PTSD. Soldiers can not possibly capture these experiences in literal truth, but by storytelling. Tim kills an enemy and feels the guilt from it, so he makes up a backstory for

One of the first points in the book that the group of soldiers, as a unit, feel a little guilty is during the boot scene (16-17, All Quiet on the Western Front). During this scene Kemmerich is dying, it’s clear as day to everyone and he has very nice boots and furthermore, even if he did not die he has an amputated leg and thus they would be of little use to him. So Muller wants his boots and asks for them, but Kemmerich denies him and instead of simply taking them or pressing the question too much further, he respects Kemmerich’s wishes. There’s a certain amount of guilt felt throughout the group as they ask a dying man for his only worthwhile possession. They could simply take them from him but instead they seem to follow a conscience and do not do so.

Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried” epitomizes the degradation of morals that war produces. This interpretation is personified in the characters who gradually blur the line dividing right and wrong as the motives for war itself become unclear. The morality of soldiers and the purpose of war are tied also to the truth the soldiers must tell themselves in order to participate in the gruesome and random killing which is falsely justified by the U.S government. The lack of purpose in the Vietnam War permanently altered the soldier’s perspective of how to react to situations and in most cases they turned to violence to express their frustration.

War can destroy a man both in body and mind for the rest of his life. In “The Sniper,” Liam O’Flaherty suggests the horror of war not only by presenting its physical dangers, but also by showing its psychological effects. We are left to wonder which has the longer lasting effect—the visible physical scars or the ones on the inside?

     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

Throughout Tim O'Brien's, “How to Tell a True War Story”, the concept of truth and how one tells a “true” war story is discussed. Several factors contribute to the “truth” of the stories the soldiers told; the madness of the war, the civilians back home who didn't experience war or understand that it was hell, and the indescribable ways the soldiers felt. O'Brien explains that people willingly accept the facts of what happened during a war but, what they don’t consider is the deception of these facts that change through people’s stories. All of these factors combined caused the soldiers to react to certain situations and tell stories differently. O’Brien’s stories characterize that “truth” isn’t always a straightforward concept; and that it can be revealed in many ways. It can be the narrator’s intention, to provide the truth but the person listening might find a different truth to the story.

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

The war has changed O'Brien in many ways, it has taught him lessons, shown him things he has never seen before, been in situations that were virtually difficult situations to be in. He entered the war as a younger man who was scared of what would come to be if he tried to dodge the draft and war. He was afraid of the shame it would bring to him and his family. Although he contemplated dodging the war he ultimatley came to going to Vietnam and joining the fight. From this, O'Brien comes out of the war with horrific stories and events that took place reselling them throughout the novel so that the reader could get a clear understanding of the misconceptions of war and what it truly is. As said, " In a true war story, if theirs a moral at all,

carted out and the new wounded would be brought in all around me ". Kovic gives us a picture of how terrible the war is, he begins to tells us about his roommate the vegetable who has a half a brain also he begins talking about him waking up to screams every morning and how he see victims of the war burn, blinded shocked and brain damaged. After coming home crippled Ron question himself about the war. Ever since the Kent state shooting he began to question his belief about the war. He went to high school giving speeches about his life in the war and what harm it did to him. In 1972, he was at Nixon’s acceptance speech protesting the war.

“It’s not pretty exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you,” (81) is a quote from Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried. This quote shows how war can affect an individual through taking over one’s body and mind. War affects everyone in different ways, but it is impossible to understand how war affects each and every single person. The texts and forms of art communicate different ideas to the viewer. It is through interpreting these texts that humans get a better idea of the overall impact of war. When individuals experience war, they lose their innocence and morality. This will be evident through “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Wound,” and “Machine Gun.”

When asked how he felt about the deaths of 9 /11, Pablo Sequera , a 22 year old US army soldier in Iraq said "I wanted to bomb the fuck out of every single one of them towel heads". Now fighting in Iraq he says he has grown more sympathy and understanding toward Middle Eastern people. "Actually being up close, watching how they live every day in violence, has given me even more ambition to help them gain freedom" said Sequera. War will always change a person whether it's physically or mentally, a soldier never leaves the way he came in. The smells of gunfire, the loud ping of bullets bouncing off of metal, the vibrations of grenades exploding nearby, and the taste of their own fear climbing up into their throat will always remain close to