Essay about Tim O'Brien's War Stories

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

The short story “On The Rainy River” is written through the perspective of O’Brien in present day and as a young faced with a draft notice for Vietnam War. In “On The Rainy River,” O’brien portrays the importance of bravery in an individual through the use of symbolism, powerful tone, and reflective point of view.

When the Vietnam war took place, many people protested against it as they believed that the war’s purpose was illogical and unreasonable. Many people tried to protest against it in different ways; for example, men who were drafted to the war fled the country - as a form of protest - in order to dodge the draft. Stories like “On the Rainy River” and “John Strickland: Draft Dodger” show how men reacted when they were drafted to the Vietnam War, a war which they were opposed to. In the story “On the Rainy River” - the story was written by an author was also named Tim O’Brien just like the main character in the story - O’Brien was opposed to the war as he believed that the war was unjust and unreasonable and saw it as unnecessary. He tried to flee the country to dodge the draft but he couldn’t bring himself to do it as he felt too guilty and ashamed of his decision to avoid fighting in the war. However, in the story “John Strickland: Draft Dodger” - the story was written by John Strickland himself - Strickland, a man who also disagreed with the reason for the war, fled the country as he didn’t believe in fighting in a war which had no solid purpose. From his perspective, fleeing the country to dodge the draft was his way of protesting against the war. Both Strickland and O’Brien didn’t agree or support the war for similar reasons. Yet, only Strickland stuck to his convictions and dodged the draft to show that he was against the war whereas O’Brien wasn’t

     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

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

Analysis Essay: The Things They Carried Essay Tim O’Brien was a soldier in the Vietnam War in 1968. O’Brien was drafted after graduating college at the age of 21 years old. Throughout the novel Tim O’Brien tells miraculous stories about the war and his colleagues, and now at the age of 43 years old he is recalling these events again and again within this novel. O’Brien utilizes many rhetorical devices in his storytelling but, he mainly uses repetition to create emphasis.

In Tim O’Brien’s short-story, On the Rainy River, the main character, Tim, is drafted to the Vietnam War. Later on in the chapter, Tim deals with mental and emotional issues on whether he should go to the war or run away to Canada and be a “coward”. This is a conflict for Tim because he does not agree with the war which makes it hard for him to attend, but on the other hand if he does not go to the war he fears that his family and friends will neglect him. Tim O’Brien reveals how an individual may discover the person deep inside themselves when insecurities and doubts are in one’s mind. O’Brien’s use of gloomy words, a depressing tone, symbolic events, and imagery, help the reader understand Tim’s situation as well as his purpose in the book.

In June of 1968, O’Brien was “drafted to fight a war I hated,” (O’Brien 38). The shock of being drafted made him consider fleeting to Canada. It isn’t long before he overcomes “the test of courage,”

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 the text, “How to Tell a True War Story” Tim O’Brien expresses his thoughts about the true war story and how the war story is changed according to the person who tells it. Jon Krakauer illustrates Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan wilderness and reasons for McCandless’s gruesome death in an isolated place, in his book “Into the Wild.” O’Brien relates introspection and a soldier’s war story by saying that the war story portrays the feelings of a soldier. A soldier’s war story is not the exact war story; it is the illustration of that particular soldier’s perception. Narrating a war story is not like inundating others with facts and numbers however, it is about the introspection of a soldier, because that soldier determines

O’Brien, forty-three years old, dates back to when he “was drafted to fight a war he hated.” He planned on attending Harvard for a graduate study on a full-ride scholarship. He was way “Too smart, too compassionate, too everything ”: he knew what he wanted to do and who he was; although, the Vietnam war had no interest for the lives of its soldiers. For Tim O’Brien, he was pulled from Minnesota; for other soldiers, they were pulled from their respective hometowns-- all were taken out of comfortability to devastation. This memory moment, along with others, develops the setting by displaying

This novel is not considered a memoir of Tim O’Brien’s war experiences as a solider in Vietnam because a memoir is a work of non-fiction and some parts of The Things They Carried are fiction.

A true war story is not always about war sometimes it’s about a life lost and how much that person impacted them, “Then he tells a few stories to make the point, how her brother would always volunteer for stuff nobody else would volunteer for in a million years, dangerous stuff, like doing recon or going out on these really badass night patrols. “(64) Rat sits down and writes a letter to Curt Lemons sister. He expects to get a response but he doesn’t. He writes to her saying how much he loved her brother and how much he will be missed and he talk about how good of a person he was. He tells the true war story about her brother by not talking about the men he kills but about the soldiers he’s helped and been there for in battle.

He emphasizes about the bad experience of the war. He explains that the war isn’t what he thought it would be. He explains that he never wanted to be a soldier in the war, because he felt like he was too good to be in the war, and rather be doing his studies instead. However, he had no choice, and he became a soldier like the rest of his friends in his platoon. He uses his experience during the Vietnamese war to help him write short stories about it. He complains how many of the stories that he written has been altered and that is some of the things that happened were not true. The things that were made up, however, were to make the story sound more realistic and that people can relate to. Tim O’Brien stressed about how he would tell his daughter what had happened out in Vietnam, but he finds out that Kathleen does not understand the meaning of the Vietnam War. O’Brien feels guilty of what had happened in the war and that why he decided to write them all on paper, as he is emotionally and mentally unstable because of the many experiences that he had to go through during the

Tim O’Brien spoke to the Lovett Upper School in a very grim and upfront manner, careful to not “sugarcoat” any of the harsh realities from the War, which veterans have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. In a sense, O’Brien’s rash visualization of his brutal war stories was a necessary evil in explaining the war to a group of uninformed individuals. He spoke to show the confusion of the war, sharing many stories of despair and triumph in the jungles and fields of Vietnam. In many ways, the student body represents what was at the time of the war the American civilian population. While draftees were thrown into battle, the people in the United States were oblivious to the treacherous nature of combat. There seemingly was no preparation for a