Theme Of Truth In Hills Like White Elephants, By Tim O Brien

Through their stories, writers often use literary elements to enhance the impact on their readers. Using such devices, writers frequently blur the line between true reality and fictional reality. As Tim O’Brien said in “Good Form,” “stories can…make things present” (O’Brien 751). Reading a story rather than just reading facts allows readers to have a personal connection to it. It makes it “real.” Writers such as Hemmingway and O’Brien in their short stories “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Man I Killed,” use symbols and character conflicts to blur the lines between factual and fictional truth. It is this blurring that makes the stories “real” and allows the readers to have a personal connection to them. Stories contain immense power,

Looking at “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien is the prominent character in the story. Whether he is telling the truth or not, the readers cannot tell. His theme of subjection of truth to storytelling makes it impossible to check if any of the events O’Brien mentions ever happened to him. His characters, mainly him, contradict themselves several times in his story, rendering the possibility of truth impossible to ascertain. For example, when Azar sees the soldier’s body, he says, “man, you…trashed the [man]…” implying that what O’Brien did could have been avoided (O’Brien 748). However, a few moments later, he says, “nothing anybody could do,” implying that what O’Brien did was the correct thing to do (O’Brien 748). O’Brien’s point through his uses of symbols and the storytelling theme is that the objective truth of the war is not as important as the act of telling a story. He is not attempting to write a history of Vietnam; rather, he writes about different ways that the audience can feel stimulated about the ghastly nature of war. His concrete imagery alongside his storytelling symbols and themes, blur the lines and thus making the readers feel a personal connection with the Vietcong

In the story, O’Brien’s conflict about the soldier, whether he should have killed him or not, is brought up again and again. He uses concrete imagery, as mentioned above, but also distances his feelings from the readers. He never mentions in the story how he felt about killing the Vietcong soldier. His conflict is left unresolved. He feels guilty, as is implied, but he takes safety in the physical attributes of the soldier and the flowers growing on the side. The failed attempt of consolations by O’Brien’s fellow soldiers, demonstrate that nothing can erase the marks left by war. For instance, when Kiowa tries to help O’Brien, he says, “Tim, it’s a war. The guy wasn’t Heidi—he had a weapon” (O’Brien 749). O’Brien ignores Kiowa’s consolation as he does not even respond. By leaving his own feelings out of the story, O’Brien removes a major aspect that the readers would need to tell fact and fiction apart. Rather, in his strategy, he uses symbols, a moral conflict to blur the fact and the