The Story Of Timmy And Linda

As stated in the UCLA article “Anticipating various outcomes to scenarios in life may assist in preparing for the stress associated with any given change or event” (UCLA). Tim O’Brien often refers to real life in his book comparing it to the stories of war and where he is now compared to where he was. Some people tell stories constantly, looking for sympathy or reactions from others, because it makes them feel better knowing their lives interest others. Tim O’Brien uses his book to ask for forgiveness to the man he killed and Norman Bowker, whose story he didn’t portray accurately. Tim O’Brien will never be able to give those people a formal apology, so he uses his book as a way of letting people know he is sorry.

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

The storyteller is able to keep his or her memories fresh and alive through the act of telling stories. At the age of forty-three, Tim O’Brien is still able to remember his childhood friend, Linda, who died when he was nine. “Even now I can see her walking down the aisle of the old State Theater in Worthington, Minnesota. I can see her face in profile beside me, the cheeks softly lighted by coming attractions.” Linda is given the gift of life through death by the power of the story. She not only lives in the mind of Tim O’Brien, but now Linda can live in the mind of anyone of whom he tells the story to. O’Brien’s audience is even graced with the pleasure of imagining what Linda looked like, “There were little crinkles at her eyes, her lips open and gently curving at the corners.” The audience can nearly see Linda, nine years old, standing in a childlike manner before

This chapter has a lot of focus on a number of different themes in the book but the thing that i saw had the largest impact in describing Tim’s outlook on death and violence is when he talks about the death of Curt Lemon. In the beginning of the chapter Rat is writing a letter to Curt’s sister. Tim says that it was a great letter and Rat couldn’t write it without bawling his eyes out but in this letter it describes that Curt was a great man and a great friend to many people. It helps to give us a picture of the meaning that Curt had to everyone and gives a great value on his life and worth. By the end of this chapter it tells about how he died. It describes that Rat and Curt were talking and walking by this tree and Curt took a half step onto a booby trap and it blew him up into the tree that he was standing by. Tim and Dave Jensen were ordered to go clean Curt off of the tree. Again we see an instance of joking around about a close friend that has just died when Dave was singing “Lemon Tree”. This goes to show us again that war will take the value of life

For Timmy his at bat in the last inning in the baseball game was the definition of Confidence. As Timmy walked up to the batter’s box his legs started to shake and his hands got clammy. His heart began to pound. But he wanted to hit in the game winning run. He didn’t want to be the player to get the last out in the district championship. So as Timmy stepped in the batter’s box he heard his dad who never misses a game cheering for him and his team rooting him on. But now when Timmy stepped in the box he had an extra hop in his step he was confident now. As the pitcher pitch the crowd was silent it was a battle between the pitcher and him. When Timmy hit a shot in the gap to score the winning run the crowd roared and his teammates ran on the

Linda is the most important woman in the book. Even though she shows up in the end of the book for the one story, she was Tim O'Brien's first love. "I just loved her. She had poise and great dignity. Her eyes, I remember, were deep brown like her hair, and she was slender and very quiet and fragile-looking" (228). This shows how much he loves her, he can recall much detail after so long. The reason she is so important is, she is the one that gives Tim the ability to keep storytelling. Tim and Linda were in love, he even recalls the night they went on a date, when they were only in 5th grade. "That night, I remember, she wore a new red cap, which seemed very stylish and

In Tim’s first up-close and personal encounter with death, Linda, his girlfriend, dies of cancer before turning ten. When Tim attends her wake and sees her body, he is unable to cope with the reality of her death. Instead, he imagines that she is awake and normal and having a conversation with him. Through this conversation with a dead person, Tim comes to realize that his imagination - the stories that he makes up - can keep people alive after their deaths. If he remembers Linda’s corpse, that is all she can ever be, but if he continues to have conversations with her, to imagine her alive, to tell stories about her, then she remains alive as he portrays her. Though told at the end of the book, this vignette becomes a lens through which Tim views death throughout and explains why Tim, the character, and O’brien, the author, tell stories about dead friends. Tim tells stories about death - the death of his friend Kiowa, the postwar suicide of Norman Bowker, the corpse of the man he killed, the tragic accident that killed Ted Lavender, and Linda’s battle with cancer - to preserve the life of people he

Tim truly copes, accepts, and moves on from his past through his writing. Everyone after the war coped differently, Tim wrote to help himself and also share the stories of the fallen soldiers. All of the chapters in his novel serve their own purpose, but also are there because Tim finally put to words the horrible experiences. Tim sometimes wrote in a 3rd person omniscient, which allowed the readers to see stories and perspectives differently. It also allowed Tim to write more freely about experiences told with different names put in, because it is a lot easier to talk about other people than yourself. “Telling stories seemed a natural, inevitable process, like clearing my throat” (O’Brien, 157). Secondly, Tim wrote for the dead. He kept them

By focusing on an individual’s memories, O’Brien demonstrates to us that his narration of stories is true and false as he speaks about them meanwhile communicating that story-truth stand in opposition to “happening truth.” In “How to

This is one of the major themes of the novel, and it is why O’Brien has dedicated much of his life to telling these war stories. Because, as O’Brien puts it, war stories are rarely about war. This is why he is so insistent on sharing what he can about the lives of the dead. Although Linda seems irrelevant to the Viet Nam war, O’Brien includes her to keep her alive. For O’Brien, upholding her story is important because it makes him feel like he can preserve life through his

In the chapter, “The Lives of the Dead”, Tim O’Brien focuses on an episode from his childhood rather than one from the war. This creates confusion because O’Brien’s entire story is centered around his experiences in the Vietnam War. Although he does not directly use or refer to the word “war”, the episode does contribute to the theme of the book. Earlier in the book O’Brien explains that stories and memories were what kept him alive. Meanwhile, in “The Lives of the Dead”, he says, “We kept the dead alive with stories” (“The Lives of the Dead” P.226).

Drawing upon the ability of fiction to preserve life against death, O 'Brien says that, during wartime, that they were able to "[keep] the dead alive with stories" (239). To the living, stories were a way to keep the memory of the dead alive, but to the dead, it was the simple act of remembering that kept them alive: "That 's what a story does. The bodies are animated. You make the dead talk" (232). This theme of preservation is exemplified by story of Linda, in which O 'Brien uses the power of storytelling and memory to keep people alive: "Stories can save us. I 'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive...They 're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (225).

Tim O’Brien story is told in both first person and third person. It is mostly told in first person with the use of a peripheral narrator – there are only a few stories in which Tim is an active participant. For example, the first paragraph of the story starts off in third person when talking about Jimmy Cross. The rest of the story is told in first person accept for a few times it switches back and forth. For example, when he admits his responsibility for the death of Kiowa. This story also has limited Omniscient, which is also seen when Kiowa death is talked about. The Major characters in this story are Tim O’Brien, Jimmy Cross, Mitchell Sanders, and Kiowa. They characters all had the most importance to the story. The minor characters are Norman Bowker, Henry Dobbins, Bob Riley, Curt Lemon, Ted Lavender, Lee Strunk, Linda, and Kathleen. These characters all had small but important

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The sun was starting to come out , I can feel my eyes getting heavy , I should have took that coffee to go made yesterday . I felt like I was wasting my time with this , Karen and Trever were probably right , I should leave this to the police and worry about my life . I got up from the bushes rubbing off the dirt from my jeans , all of a sudden everyone came running out