Tim O'Brien
docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Maseno University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
404
Subject
English
Date
Nov 24, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
9
Uploaded by petemtei
Running head: TIM O’BRIEN
1
Tim O’Brien
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
TIM O’BRIEN
2
Tim O’Brien
Introduction
Tim O’Brien integrates metaphor in his writing to illustrate soldier’s experiences in the
battlefield and in the course of executing their duties. Significantly, O’Brien deviates from the
American perception and interpretation of a war narrative; consequently, he asserts that war
stories are far from the truth of the actual war. It is his view that war stories often depict a certain
type of war hero; however, the reality is that every soldier is a hero in his/her own right.
Analysis
O’Brien argues that a person who has not experienced or participated in a war cannot get
the true picture of war no matter how well a war story is put together.
The only person who has
knowledge and experience of true war is the soldier who participated in the war and seen or felt
things that impact the soldier’s psychosis and emotions (O’Brien, 2009). Therefore, unless you
are a soldier, it is almost impossible to understand and appreciate the implications and
consequences of war. O’Brien asserts that a person that has served as a soldier has a totally
different outlook towards life in contrast to the common person, as a result, of their differing
lifestyles and experiences. The narrative “
How to Tell a True War Story
” attempts to illustrate the
different perspectives between soldier’s experiences and the fact that only former soldiers can
understand the concept of war (O’Brien, 2009).
“
How To Tell A War Story
” is narrated, in a way that assumes the reader has no prior
knowledge or experience in war; consequently, Obrien makes comprehensive explanation of his
arguments to make his point (O’Brien, 2009). This is precipitated by his argument that no one
understands the plight of the soldier. The fact that the soldiers are misunderstood by the rest of
the average people and society is illustrated when rat attempts to explain his friend to his sister in
TIM O’BRIEN
3
a letter where he refers his friend as having, “stainless steel balls… a real daredevil, because he
liked the challenge of it” (O’Brien, 2009). Though this sentiment is made by a soldier describing
a fellow soldier to an average person who may not understand the meaning or think the sentiment
as offensive, it depicts the difference between the soldier’s perceptions of war in contrast to that
of common people (Klay, 2014).
Average people that are not soldier may not wish to partake in the gore details of a
soldier’s exploits or their zeal to engage in combat, all they may wish to know is that their
soldiers won the war. Significantly, in the event that the soldier in question is a relative, the
recipient of such a letter may not wish to know the details since death or maiming may be an
outcome of the war (Klay, 2014); hence impacting on the family in a negative way. In light of
this, common people may not wish to understand, comprehend or experience the impacts of war,
though their relatives are soldiers, they live in entirely different worlds psychologically,
philosophically and emotionally. The average people want their soldier relatives to remain heroes
in spite of their acts during the war. It is evident that the only person who can understand a
soldier is another soldier.
Tim O’Brien’s, “
The Things They Carried
” utilizes an array of objects the soldiers in the
Alpha Company carry with them in the Vietnam War to illustrate the psychological and
emotional challenges that these soldiers face (O’Brien, 2009). Among these challenges is the
need for the soldiers to differentiate between what is real and what is an illusion; hence they must
come to terms with the tensions that may arise in the process. O’Brien illustrates the experiences
of young soldiers on during the war in Vietnam given their inexperience’s, young age and
expectations that are completely altered after experiencing the gores of war. The horror of losing
their lives, witnessing the deaths of their close friends, the fear, and the things they must do to
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
TIM O’BRIEN
4
survive the war are among the things the soldiers carry home. However, these things cannot be
understood by any other person who has not experienced war. Hence the existence of a wide
divide between those that have participated in war and the average common people whose
families’ members or friends are soldiers in the war (Klay, 2014).
It’s hard to understand a person that has done something that one has not, that goes with
anything. War is unlike any other experience; a soldier can lose so much when he/she goes to
battle, he/she come back someone completely different. O’Brien tries to give the reader a
soldier’s point of view of a war story, “ a true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor
encourage virtue, nor suggest models for proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing
the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, then don’t believe it” (O’Brien, 2009).
Significantly, Obrien goes against every one's general thought of any story, which is
when lesson are taught, and morals are shown. Therefore, when O’Brien basically says forget
everything you learned about stories, it makes the reader think he’s was crazy. But we only think
he’s crazy because we don’t think like him; he was a Solider and received a purple heart. War
changes you as a person, “you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses. If you don’t care for
obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send
guys to war, they come home talking dirty” (O’Brien, 2009). War stories are supposed to have no
hold backs because in war there are no hold backs in war. War is gruesome and gory, anything
goes in war, so why when telling a war story should it be any different. If you do tell it different
then it probably isn’t true because the story is to censor and actually makes sense.
O'Brien structures his stories in an uncommon fashion because actual war is simply not
something one experience's every day. War stories are set apart and in their own league. They are
complex and mysterious; therefore, they are unorthodox. The core reason for their distinctiveness
TIM O’BRIEN
5
is because of the psychological trauma that war impacts on surviving witnesses. They are left
even without speech at times and struggle to precisely communicate such a terrifying and
unfathomable experience.
O’Brien’s friend Mitchell Sanders tells a story that proves what misunderstanding a
soldier is about. He narrates a story concerning six men in the mountains of Vietnam, which is
inherently a jungle. He describes the setting as very dark and eerie, fog so dense that you can’t
see your hand in front of you face. It’s just them out there, nobody else. They hear things in the
jungle but see nothing; they hear these noises for days. They finally decide to drop heavy
artillery on the whole mountain. When returning to base camp the colonel ask them why they
“spent six trillion dollars on firepower… But they don’t say zip... they salute the fucker and walk
away, because certain stories you don’t ever tell” (O’Brien, 2009).
It is evident that what was experienced is beyond verbal expression. Which is what war
is, they can’t tell the colonel because he would think they were crazy, he just wouldn’t
understand. That story will forever be with those men, and it will never be spoken of again
because no one will understand it, only the men who experienced it and lived it.
When a person goes through a traumatic period in life, like war, it changes a person
forever. For instance, war changed O’Brien’s views on what a real war story is and how no one
will ever understand it. Other people suffer from PTSD. Soldiers find it difficult to cope with the
society once they are released from active duty. As such, they struggle to start or continue with
life since their perception of the world and life has been changed by their experiences during the
war. Hence they have to life in a war environment, and do not know how to return how they were
prior to the war.
TIM O’BRIEN
6
Acquiring a job and finding a life partner will complicate their lives. Friends and family
exert pressure for them to return into normal social behavior; however, they perceive life in
society as a lie because they cannot confirm to social normalcy after their experiences in war.
Soldiers return from the war as completely different people and society does not know how to
handle them because no one understands what they have been through. Their entire psyche has
changed about everything, hence the difficulty in understanding the true war stories as O’Brien
argues in the narratives.
In the narrative “
Speaking of Courage
” O’Brien explores methods of telling war stories
while recalling the suffering and pain experienced during the war and the processes that soldiers
must undergo in order to come to terms with their various experiences after the war. Therefore,
the concept of speaking out or not speaking out is evaluated with the aim of illustrating the
manner in that it impacts soldiers and their assimilation to routine social life after the war. In his
own way, O’Brien confronts his experiences during the war by writing about other soldiers
experiences; hence through writing he removes the horror of the war from his mind and
transforms such horror into an informative literal work about war.
In the narrative “
How to Tell a True War Story
” the reader begins to realize that O’Brien’s
point of view is completely different from the average person. He often contradicts himself when
he describes war, “War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a
man; war makes you dead” (O’Brien 294).
How is a war nasty and fun at the same time? War is
nasty because it is grotesque, and a soldier will see things that no one wishes to see his or her
lifetime, like seeing a man’s head getting blown off or watching your best friend die right next to
you. Only a person who has been in war can describe it as fun because they have no other choice,
they take what they have and make the most of it.
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
TIM O’BRIEN
7
If a soldier is miserable, the entire time then he/she looks at everything through a
negative perspective, but if he/she is positive, the misery will pass and may learn a couple things.
War is thrilling because a soldier's adrenaline is pumping at all times; anything can occur at any
given time. War is drudgery because it is the same thing every day in a place that is miserable. A
soldier becomes a man from war because he learns how to defend himself and his countrymen;
as a result, he has a responsibility do his duty. On the other hand, war makes people dead
because it kills them, or it kills the soldier as a person, changing them into a completely different
people.
Eventually, the reader will see things from a different point of view; while learning not to
take the little things for granted, “For all its horror, you cannot help but gape at the majesty of
combat. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons…
You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move” (O’Brien 294). How are these things
beautiful and majestic when they are used to kill other human beings? The truth is they are not,
but to the common person’s eyes they appear as such. People are taught to be scared of all these
things, but you cannot help but notice their beauty. Like the “majesty of combat” combat it’s self
is gruesome but the thought of sacrifice and dying for something you love is beautiful because it
takes a special person to do such a thing
Conclusion
War is contradictory, which is why some people don’t understand it. This leads to people
not understanding soldiers, because they look at things differently, it changes you as person. It
hard to understand someone when you’ve never been through the same thing as him or her, they
have lived a different life than any other person. This explains why people don’t understand a
true war story, sure you see horrible things, but you learn to see the beauty in them.
TIM O’BRIEN
8
War is so much more than killing the guy on the other side, but only people that have
been there will understand that. Rat tries to explain this in a letter back home to his best friend’s
sister, but she simply does not understand which is why she doesn’t answer him. A soldier goes
through things that he can’t even explain to his own colonel because he just simply wouldn’t
understand. A true war story isn’t supposed to make sense, only to the ones who lived it, which is
why every soldier is misunderstood.
TIM O’BRIEN
9
References
Klay, P. (2014).
After war, a failure of the imagination
. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/after-war-a-failure-of-the-
imagination.html?_r=0
O’Brien, T. (2009).
The things they carried
. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help