Truth In O Brien's The Things They Carried

O’Brien’s unification of fact and fiction is to illustrate the idea in which the real accuracy of a war story is less significant than storytelling. The subjective truth about what the war meant and what it did to change the soldiers is more meaningful than the technical details of the

Often in the years following a war the notion of warfare is warped by common conceptions or cliches so that it no longer resembles the realities that the soldiers experienced. However, Tim O’Brien uses his own personal experiences from Vietnam to create stories which exhibit the real situations that these soldiers faced. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, demonstrates this unfiltered reality through multiple literary elements and the creation of fictional stories in order to portray the war accurately. Courage and valor are often associated with the idea of war and are often expected to be traits that all soldiers live by.

The first three words of the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” are, “This is true” (67). Although Tim O’Brien begins this chapter with such a bold and clear statement, throughout the chapter he has the reader thinking and confused when he contradicts himself by stating things such as, “In many cases a true war story cannot

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.

Tim O’Brien writes about the different characters he meant during the Vietnam War and what stories the character carried. In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to the main character Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. He is presented as a weak character who thinks about his love live more than being a leader for the platoon. As the novel progresses the characters are presented differently. O’Brien also highlights the physical objects the characters carried and how they connects to the emotional weight the characters carried. In the end, O’brien talks about how the old Tim saved the new Timmy explaining how the stories in his memories make up the person he is now. The novel presents so many stories that illustrate the hardship of the Vietnam War and each

In his story, Sanders attempts to provide a moral to the story and swears that the whole thing was true. He has a difficult time producing a moral however, because as the narrator had previously stated, “a true war story is never moral” (“How to Tell a True War Story”). Also, Sander later reveals to the narrator that he has had to make some things up while telling the story to get it right. Throughout the piece, the narrator continually interjects commentary introducing details about what he believes constitutes a true war story. One of the main things the narrator becomes conscious of during the story is that sometimes facts can contradict themselves; it is possible for someone to remember an event differently every time they look back on it. In the end however, the narrator admits that his previous story about Curt Lemon wasn’t true and that a “true war story is never about war” (ibid). “O’Brien’s work is more about the quest for truth, the use of the imagination in telling the truth, and the art of storytelling in creating the truth than it is about the Vietnam War” (Henningfield).

The Elusiveness of War and the Tenuousness of Morality in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” “How to Tell a True War Story,” and “Style”

The idea of truth often correlates with facts,but facts alone cannot always convey emotional and personal truths.The concept of truth is subjective,determined by individual perspective. Within Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried various short stories of “truth” are told. Through the stories’ different narrations readers are forced to distinguish the concrete details from the muddled emotions of the events of war. Thus readers must question truth anew with each story and weigh “happening truth” against “emotional truth”

In Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, the author presents a collection of stories that blur the lines between fact and fiction, exploring the nature of storytelling and the ways in which war stories can be both truthful and untrue at the same time. O'Brien's approach to telling his and others war stories, which combine fact and fiction, challenges what most may believe is considered a true war story. Throughout the novel, O'Brien seems to struggle with the difficulties war brings, such as his story of “The Man I Killed” and what it means to be human as he shares in his story “Speaking Of Courage”. These two perspectives of these short stories, with their own and others perspectives, can be deeply personal and felt by many. O’Brien’s main analysis of a true war story is his definition of it as something that

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

In Tim O’Brian’s short excerpt, How to Tell A True War Story, the narrator recounts his hardening experiances in the Vietnam War (1956-1975). O’Brian details the story of Rat during the war, and his experiances losing his best friend. Through the use of literary divices such as imagry, paradoxical ideas, as well as themes that juxtapose each other, O’Brian is able to deliver an effective message in reguards to the complex relationship between physical war and war stories. The use of imagery and discriptive language allows for a realistic experience for the reader, and ultimatly amplifies the audience’s percenption of the text. Additionally, paradoxies are included

The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,

Tim O’ Brien, having the memories of war engraved in his mind, recalls the memories of his youth during battle in “The Things They Carried,” an intriguing collection of military accounts that symbolize his attempt to resist closure from past experiences. O’ Brien’s story reflects the difficult choices people have to make in their struggle to confront the war waging inside their bodies as well as on the ground they tread. In Steven Kaplan’s criticism, “The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried,” he explores the uncertainty and inevitability that lies in the path of each soldier through their military conquest of Than Khe. In context to O’ Brien’s

Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, is about several short stories following O’Brien and his squadron in the Vietnam War. In the book, theme of truth gets brought up frequently. Specifically, the book delves into the difference between “happening-truth” and “story-truth”. O’Brien elaborates that “happening-truth” is about the legitimate feelings and emotions felt by those that was apart of the event while, in contrast, the “story truth” is the objective truth of what had actually happened. This theme gets alluded to in multiple places throughout the book. It is referenced when O’Brien mentions how he made up some details of Curt Lemon’s death, when he admits to not actually killing a man near My Khe, and the way the soldiers cope

Throughout the book, O’Brien tells us events that he “experienced” in the war. However, in the chapter called “How to Tell a True War Story”, he explains how telling a “true” war story is impossible and how he actually lies to us while telling his stories. O’Brien uses lots of metatextuality, where he steps out of the frame and talks about his own piece, which helps him discuss the aspects of reality in his stories. It’s explained that in a war, it’s barely possible to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. Reality and surreality create a new form of truth together.