Understanding A Good War Story Summary

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.

Through the war, Tim found a new side of himself. One that was brave and strong. Tim explained this by saying, “He wished he could have explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible.” (Page 147) By finding this new side, he was able to support his fellow soldiers. Thus, Tim turns into a shining bright for the soldiers. He starts to be a positive light for them in the toughness of the war.“I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again” stated Tim (page172).” This quote shows how Tim helped his men through war. He helped people and took positives from the war. Thus, Tim O’Brien provided a positive influence for his men by being positive and

“You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let 's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you 've got your answer” (O’Brien 62). In the book The Things They Carried Tim O’ Brien displays throughout his short stories how much war can change you mentally, emotionally, and your sanity.

Copious bullets, like that of torrential downpour, reign over the battlefield; a setting in which man created through dispute, engulfs each and every individual caught within it. Some are immediately spun into a downward spiral, while with others, it hits them in the midst -- even if they have built an immunity to war’s ways. Two fictional characters, both sharing a similar atmosphere, experience the true affects to war in their own ways. Although war never changes, the individuals do, no matter the situation. This is exemplified through the fictional tales, told by Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper,” as well as Tim O’Brien’s “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy,” and as the main characters are to each their own story, they bear contradistinction to one another in the aspect of war, personality, and the emotional reactions to war.

20) O’Brien tells how these young men were drafted which were constantly in fear, they wished to be there obliviously but war takes up all of one’s attention; it played a big role in their life, changing their tactics, personality and becoming a new person. O’Brien uses this to show the stressful moments in war where one has pressure to be alive and in this case to fit in with everyone else and feel part of something, in a lonely place such as the war.

In this scene specifically, he recounts an instance when Mitchell Sanders told him a war story and how it fits the qualities of what he believes is a “true war story.” He argues that a “true war story” should have longevity, hard to decipher morality, no generalizations, concreteness and the ability to make your stomach believe, and he is able to do so through his use of repetition, comparisons, and dialogue. Primarily, O’Brien uses repetition to introduce the components of a war story that he wishes to discuss. For example, he starts off the passage with, “You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end.”

O’Brien tries to create something positive out of his negative circumstances, “How do you write about war? ‘You do it sentence by sentence, line by line, character by character, even syllable by syllable,’ said O’Brien. ‘You have to have a poetic sensibility - that language matters. You dive into that wreck and try to salvage something,’ he said” (Haven 2). While it is true that he cannot change what has happened in the past, O’Brien is able to reflect on his traumatic experiences and see the good in his unfortunate situation.

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.

Yet another example of the brutalization and dehumanization of the soldiers caused by the war occurs during Paul’s leave. On leave, Paul decides to visit his hometown. While there, he finds it difficult to discuss the war and his experiences with anyone. Furthermore, Paul struggles to fit in at home: “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:– ‘You are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me; I cannot feel at home amongst these things. There is my mother, there is my sister, there my case of butterflies, and there the mahogany piano – but I am not myself there. There is a distance, a

A war has been raging in the jungle and rice paddies of Vietnam. Many have died from other people and mines. Tim O'Brien was born in the time known as the baby boom. The babies born in this time, when they were older, ended up fighting in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War lasted for eighteen years (1956-1975)(Smith 1). O'Brien wrote "Where Have You Gone Charming Billy" in 1975 to protest against the war. The military draft rarely happens, so when it happened for the Vietnam War everyone was surprised. Many did not want to join, which caused mass protests against a war we didn't have to enter. In the story, Paul Berlin is the main character. When he first arrives in Vietnam, he watches one soldier named Billy Boy get his foot blown off. Billy Boy reacts so much that he gave himself a heart attack. Tim O'Brien develops his theme you can not let fear take control in his short story "Where Have You Gone Charming, Billy" through the use of setting, mood, and characterization.

Paul does not allow himself to reconnect with his dying mother and family, this causes him to regret leaving the front line it makes him realize that he has reopened the emotional wounds and thoughts that the soldiers train themselves to become accustomed too. Paul believes that no one at home understands the tragedy of the war. It proves the alienation that springs from the soldier’s disconnection that comes along with being in the war “I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless; I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end.” (Pg.

One reason Tim O’Brien writes war stories is to show how war can affect a soldier, as some of his stories show the effect on the mind. For example, in the story Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy, the protagonist starts breaking into a laughing fit after thinking about his dead brother, showing the mental impact war and loss has on a single person.

What does Tim O’Brien want his reader to understand about war? O’Brien wants his reader to understand the soldier's emotions during war, the skills the soldier has to learn, and the foul conditions the soldiers have to go through. These are only three of many things O’Brien wants his reader to understand.

What do you think Tim O’Brien wants his reader to understand about war? Well, there are very many interpretations to this inquiry, but the three main effects Tim O’Brien perform in a war story to parlay his reader to understand is by exhibiting the cruelty of war, by reminding us of the dark and mysterious things that go on in war, and by manipulating the theme in the story to make someone distinguish the situation. The definitive war story we are discussing about is called Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy. Tim O’Brien used these methods throughout this story to make whatever reader feel a connection betwixt themselves and the story. Here are some examples of Tim doing so in the short story Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy.

Tim O’Brien undertakes an archetypal quest for understanding and closure when he takes his ten-year-old daughter, Kathleen, on a trip to Vietnam. While they did go to a few tourist spots for her sake, O’Brien did not plan for this to be a pleasure trip. He takes his daughter along to try to help her understand some of his past, but Kathleen is an outsider to the idea of war and does not understand the reason behind her father wanting to go to a field in the middle of Vietnam to look back on his experiences. The reader sees the ignorance of the common people through Kathleen’s childish questions and views such as her wondering “why everybody was so mad at everybody else.”