The truth behind stories is not always what happened, with each person 's perspective is where their truth lies. In the beginning of the novel, you start to think that it is going to be the same old war stories you read in the past, but it changes direction early. It is not about how the hero saves the day, but how each experience is different and how it stays with you. From his story about Martha, to how he killed a man, each one is so different, but has its own meaning that makes people who have not been in war, understand what it is like. Tim O’Brien can tell a fake story and make you believe it with no doubt in your mind. He does this throughout the novel. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien distinguishes truth from fantasy and the
He will say a story is true but then at the end of the chapter he will mention that it was not or he made it up based on something that happened. He clearly states this “That 's a true story that never happened” (80) after explaining a detailed war story. This forces the reader to rethink everything that O’Brien has said in the novel. Even the things that were said that were true and things about his life. At this point in the book, there is no idea of what is fact and what is fiction. This is what makes the reader confused and wondering if O’Brien is doing this on purpose or if he is doing it
In “Telling the Truth” by Jon Volkmer, he compares The Things They Carried to another war story. He points out that when O’Brien tells the truth it is more of an individual one instead of the one of an event or group. Which makes sense because in every story he tells the outcome is different. Sometimes from another person or sometimes from himself. Each of his stories is changed based on his perspective and what he remembers, so it makes sense that his truth’s are individual. He also states how O 'Brien spends his time picking the truth apart about war. This could be of a couple different reasons, like his trouble remembering what happened, or how he depicts the truth from fiction. Mr. Volkmer says how O’Brien was always trying to quote on quote “ pull the rug out from underneath the reader” when he was telling a story. It is definitely true that O’Brien was trying to do that throughout the whole novel. If he was doing that, he did a great job because every story he told was believable and it painted a vivid picture in your head about what happened. Then at the end he would just stab you in the heart with something about it not being true or he did not
Tim O’Brien is a very gifted author, but he is also a veteran of the Vietnam War and fought with the United States in that controversial war. Tim O’Brien was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1968. He served as an infantryman, and obtained the rank of sergeant and won a Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel. He was discharged from the Vietnam War in 1970. I believe that O’Brien’s own images and past experiences he encountered in the Vietnam War gave him inspiration to write the story “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien tells the story in third person narrative form about Lt. Jimmy Cross and his platoon of young American men in the Vietnam War. In “The Things They Carried” we can see differences and similarities between the characters by the things they hold close to them.
He implies, “The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real” (Truth and lies, 54). However, this is not the case with O’Brien’s writings. O’Brien mentions that a true war story is in a way that it completely sounds unrealistic, which is one detail that completely conflicts Nietzsche’s thoughts. In his story the “How to tell a true war story”, he says, “A true war story is never moral… embarrassing… unbelievable… contradictory…” (A true war story) According to Nietzsche, O’Brien is telling all lies because his stories appear unreal, and unbelievable. Nevertheless, according to O’Brien, this is the way to tell a true war story, a story that makes you feel uncomfortable, and make you ask whether it is true or not. Sticking to his statements O’Brien thinks that “Speaking of courage” is not a true war story because it sounds realistic. There is nothing embarrassing or unrealistic about that story. O’Brien mentions it in his story “Notes,” that writing “Speaking of courage” felt like a sense of failure. “Almost immediately, though, there was a sense of failure. The details of Norman Bowker 's story were missing. In this original version…I had been forced to omit the shit field and the rain and the death of Kiowa…” (The things they carried, 158) This statement shows, that unless
He admits that some parts of his writing are made up, and he is intentionally vague about the truthfulness of other parts. When asked if he had ever killed anyone, O’Brien said that he could reply, honestly, with both “Of course not,” and “Yes” (172). He explains that even the guilt of being present when the kill took place was enough that it doesn’t matter if he himself threw the grenade or not, he would feel the same way. It doesn’t matter the exact events that took place; this story is about how he felt about seeing murder up close and personal. O’Brien explains that “by telling stories, you objectify your own experience... You pin down certain truths. You make up others” (152). Writing was a way to verbalize his past, and he told the vague details how he experienced them, if not necessarily how they happened. He was able to separate himself from his memories and remorse allowing himself to cope with his past in the war. While the reader will never know the exact truth, they can still understand the guilt and that O’Brien felt as a
O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried layering themes on top of themes, but what makes it amazing is the way he presents these themes. Every single one intertwined with another. Burdens. Truth. Death. The soldiers carried their burdens and the death of their friends and enemies, and they live on as storytellers telling their war stories, but can there really be a true war story?
Tim O’Brien is doing the best he can to stay true to the story for his fellow soldiers. Tim O’Brien believed that by writing the story of soldiers in war as he saw it brings some type of justice to soldiers in a war situation.
In Tim O' Brian's, The Things They Carried, he talks about the Vietnam War and it's effects country. O' Brian uses the psychological approach to tell the sorrows of war . The things that they carried had all represented a part of each soldier. In the days of the Vietnam war, they did not expect a woman to fight in a war. The story is better understood because the reader knows the background of the story and the characters personality. The thought was just unacceptable and definitely not normal. The two methods of interpreting a story fused together brings about a great understanding of the characters and the event which is about to take place. The deceitful interpretations presented, the things they carried, and a transformation of a dainty girl that turns into a survivor are examples of each method presented.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, “The Things They Carried,” imaginations can be both beneficial and corrosive. This novel consist of story truth and real truth. Throughout the novel, imagination plays a big role. Tim O’Brien wrote his book about the war mainly based on his memory of the war. He did not remember every details of the war, thus he made up some false details to the stories to make it seems more interesting. He wants the readers to be able to feel how he felt and understand how everything happened as he tells the story. He wants to provoke the emotional truth. O’Brien tries to prove that imaginations is not completely a bad thing and that it is also a good thing. O’Brien starts to create stories about what could have happen and what he could not do at the war in addition to the original war story. With the power of imaginations, O’Brien is able to talk about something that he could have done but did not do in his past. Imaginations helped him escape the reality. Imagination has the job of finding the real truth, attempting reconciliations and creating reality.
The novel The Thing They Carried is a compilation of short stories that share underlying themes and characters. One of the stories is called “How to tell a True War Story”. In this story the narrator expands on a central theme of the distinction between truth and fiction when writing a war story. The story, like most of the other stories in the novel jumps erratically between events, which oftentimes creates confusion and a sense of the surreal in the story. Throughout the story the narrator repeatedly shows that when writing a war story the “story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth.”(O’Brien pg. 171) This quotation encompasses the theme and supports it. The narrator’s use of stylistic devices coupled with stories such as “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Good Form” exemplifies how fiction can fully represent the truth whilst the facts fall miserably short.
Throughout Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, a plethora of stories are told concerning the lives of a select number of soldiers in and out of the Vietnam War. In his writing, O’Brien also conveys his own thoughts on the art of storytelling and the nature of stories themselves. In these passages, O’Brien provides a detailed analysis of the challenges of storytelling, the effects of time on memory, the role of imagination in storytelling, the reason for retelling a story, and a story’s purpose and process for the reader.
A true war story isn’t always true, no matter what the author states about it. The moral of it is probably the only true part, with the other pieces being made up to grasp the reader’s attention. O’Brien stepped foot into Sanders’ shoes to find the moral under all the lies, and he did. Kidder met an man named Bill and found out his time in Vietnam, even though he made some parts up to make himself sound cooler.
In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
This allows the reader to see what takes place rather than what is perceived. O’Brien’s main objective is to expose the subjectivity that lies within truth. To point out a specific contradiction within truth, he uses war to highlight this difference. He writes, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty” (77). The truth has two different meanings and it all depends on who is interpreting it. One person may think one truth and another person can see the complete opposite. To go along with this ambiguity within truth he states, “Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true” (77). He once again shows that truth is up for interpretation. There is not a single, universal truth, however, there are many variations of it. As previously mentioned, O’Brien claims that he honestly admit that he has both never killed a man and has in fact killed somebody. Here he is stating that there can be completely different answers that all seem to be the truthful. Whether or not O’Brien killed someone, he felt like he did, but could answer that he didn’t. It is this discrepancy that proves that it is all relative. When it comes to telling the story it becomes “difficult difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen,” (67). This is what causes the subjectivity, the unknowingness of the situation. Since
Several stories into the novel, in the section, “How to tell a true war story”, O’Brien begins to warn readers of the lies and exaggerations that may occur when veterans tell war stories.
Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried challenges the reader to question what they are reading. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien claims that the story is true, and then continues to tell the story of Curt’s death and Rat Kiley’s struggle to cope with the loss of his best friend. As O’Brien is telling the story, he breaks up the story and adds in fragments about how the reader should challenge the validity of every war story. For example, O’Brien writes “you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (69), “in many cases a true war story cannot be believed” (71), “almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true” (81), and “a thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth (83). All of those examples are ways in which O’Brien hinted that his novel is a work of fiction, and even though the events never actually happened – their effects are much more meaningful. When O’Brien says that true war stories are never about war, he means that true war stories are about all the factors that contribute to the life of the soldiers like “love and memory” (85) rather than the actual war. Happening truth is the current time in which the story was being told, when O’Brien’s daughter asked him if he ever killed anyone, he answered no in happening truth because it has been 22 years since he was in war and he is a different person when his daughter asked him. Story truth
Tim O’Brien wrote his novel with non-traditional war heroes to show many things about war that the reader did not know about. He did this to show the reader that not even soldiers are immune to emotions in the warzone. Also, to show that not everyone is fearless and heroic and people have fear inside of them. He also did this to show the controversy with the war in Vietnam. Not using traditional war heroes allowed Tim O’Brien to show that not all heroes are heroic and courageous, and that they were just normal people going into a war they didn’t understand.