Tim O 'Brien's If I Die In A Combat Zone'
analytical Essay
1076 words
In the textbook, the War and Peace chapter is preluded by an epigraph from Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone which states: “Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.” O’Brien’s quote goes against the stereotypical depiction of the “war hero.” O’Brien believes that just because someone participates in a war does not mean that the person is able to make sense of war. As O’Brien believes, and as numerous other authors throughout the War and Peace Unit believe, war is confusing and meaningless, especially in regard to the vast …show more content…
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how tim o'brien's "if i die in a combat zone" epigraph goes against the stereotypical depiction of the "war hero."
- Analyzes how muriel spark's "the first year of my life" portrays the disarray and senseless killing of war.
- Analyzes how anna akhmatova's "the first long-range artillery shell in leningrad" highlights the confusion and unnecessary killing in war.
- Analyzes how mohsin hamid's "of windows and doors" portrays the hysteria and meaningless death in war-torn areas.
- Concludes that o'brien's assertion that war is full of confusion and senseless killing is supported by multiple texts in the war and peace unit.
However, at this time, the speaker was merely a newborn baby. This does not hinder the speaker’s ability to relate ideas and communicate though as the speaker authenticates her newborn self by claiming all babies are born with a sense of omniscience that they eventually lose. By telling the story through the perspective of an infant, the speaker incorporates a childish tone with war which is obviously not supposed to be childish. For example, the speaker relays, “In France the conscripted soldiers leapfrogged over the dead on the advance and littered the fields with limbs and hands, or drowned in the mud.” Through her description of soldiers “leapfrogging” over other dead soldiers, Spark characterizes the death and destruction of war as senseless. Also, by telling the story from the infant’s perspective, Spark juxtaposes the actions typical to a baby with the calamity of war. The speaker says, “On all the world’s fighting fronts the men killed in action or dead of wounds numbered 8,538,315 and the warriors wounded and maimed were 21,219,452. With these figures in mind I sat up in my high chair and banged my spoon on the table.” This juxtaposition downplays the significance of the destructiveness of war and conveys that war makes as much sense as the random actions of newborn
Related
- analytical
- opinion
- The Good Soldiers by David Finkelanalytical essayA true war story blurs the line between fact and fiction, where it is neither true nor false at the same time. What is true and what is not depends on how much you believe it to be. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” from the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author provides various definitions to how the validity of a war story can be judged. The entire chapter is a collection of definitions that describe the various truths to what a true war story is. Unlike O’Brien, who is a novelist and storyteller, David Finkel, the author of “The Good Soldiers”, is a journalist whose job is to report the facts. Yet in the selection that we read, chapter nine, Finkel uses the convention of storytelling, which relies heavily on the stories the combat troops tell each other or him personally. Finkel attempts to give an unbiased view of the Iraq war through the stories of the soldiers but in doing so, Finkel forfeits the use of his own experiences and his own opinions. From O’Brien’s views on what a true war story is combined with my own definitions, I believe that Finkel provides a certain truth to his war stories but not the entire truth.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how a true war story blurs the line between fact and fiction, where it is neither true nor false at the same time.
- Explains o'brien's view that a true war story is both true and false at the same time.
- Analyzes how the factual points of finkel's stories allow the audience to peer into the iraq war through the experiences of characters and see how much war can affect people.
- Opines that finkel's war stories provide certain truths but not the entire truth. they agree that his reports are neither true nor false at the same time.
- Opines that a true war story is not about truth but rather about conveying experience and not false emotions to the audience.
967 wordsRead More - Vethuizen's How To Tell A True War Storyanalytical essayWar makes you a man; war makes you dead. The truths are contradictory” (O’Brien 181). The violence that the narrator witnesses and inflicts is part of the reason why his testimonies conflict with each other. Furthermore, these violent experiences shift the truth of these experiences from the actual events that occurred and the “real” truth that is warped by the violence and jumbled memories. Vethuizen explains, “Seeking the truth about violent conflict also requires sufficient time to allow for the discovery of accurate explanations in the space where it happened, to evaluate, analyze, and reflect on all the perspectives and to judge where power relationships and continued strategic contests distort perspectives” (Vethuizen 22). Even as Vethuizen suggests that evaluating the truths told in a story is adjusted because of the violence reflected through their experiences. Even the violence can cause a silence that has no words to describe their story. Sanders tells the narrator, “But the guys don’t say zip. They just look at him for a while, sort of funnylike, sort of amazed, and the whole war is right there in that stare. It says everything you can’t ever say…because certain stories you don’t ever tell” (O’Brien
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the narrator in "how to tell a true war story" insists that generalizing war diminishes the effect of telling war stories because war is many truths and contradicts themselves.
- Analyzes how vethuizen suggests that evaluating the truths told in a story is adjusted because of the violence reflected through their experiences.
- Analyzes how vethuizen describes how to find the truth in faulty testimony and disorienting violence-induced versions of truth. the truth is not the roots of a war story.
- Analyzes how the narrator insinuates that there is an underlying truth that does not need a factual story to exist.
- Analyzes how the narrator tries to discover the real "truth" hidden in war stories through storytelling and the inquiry of the truth.
1147 wordsRead More - Johnny Got His Gunopinion essay...ke the reader suffer, but to create recognition of the psychosis involved in co-existing with war.
In this essay, the author
- Describes what it would be like to have lived without legs, arms, or a face.
- Opines that noble was noble in a war but for most of the soldiers it was nothing but noble.
- Opines that this book showed the harsh reality of war that most people don't understand.
- Opines that we should use more restraint to protect ourselves.
- Opines that ending the world is not a good solution, which is why we must end it.
- Analyzes how johnny got his gun takes as its focus the aftermath of war for a soldier, rather than the optimistic, patriotic prewar time frame upon which other novels—as well as the original song—focus.
- Opines that young men were told that it was glorious to fight for their country, but they put their lives on the line every day.
- Explains how joe was isolated from the rest of the world due to his injuries. he didn't even know if he was awake.
- Narrates how he wanted to end the war but had no power to. he told others through morse code but they denied him.
- Narrates how dalton trumbo's depression-era work, johnny got his gun, upended their teenage dream world. it was inspired by world war i, which launched revolutions and forever rusted the cast-iron fantasies of the gilded age.
1432 wordsRead More - If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brienanalytical essayO'Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone. New York: Broadway Books, 1975. Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how tim o'brien is confused about the vietnam war, getting drafted into it, and protesting it. he visits a military chaplin about his problem with the war.
- Explains that they decided to do their project on tim o'brien because it was one of his great books about vietnam.
- Analyzes how o'brien's flashback to his hometown in minnesota shows the major conflict in the book, being drafted into a war he wanted no part in.
- Analyzes how o'brien writes the book like a journal of his experience in vietnam, with him as the person telling the story.
- Opines that if you are interested in war books that can sometimes get a little graphic i would definitely recommend this book to you.
982 wordsRead More - Tim O Brien Where Have You Gone Charming Billy Summaryanalytical essayTim O’Brien, when writing “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?”, wanted his reader to understand many things about war. He wants us to understand how hard it is to get over killing someone and the emotions you have when you’re at war. Also, he wants us to know how alert and agile you have to be at all times.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how tim o'brien wanted his readers to understand many things about war, such as how hard it is to get over killing someone and the emotions you have when you’re at war.
- Analyzes how soldiers cannot control their emotions at war. private first class paul berlin laughed about billy being killed, but he couldn't stop.
- Opines that being alert and agile is a walloping advantage when fighting at war. one out of two must be awake and alert during the night in case of enemy troops attacking.
- Opines that tim o'brien wanted his readers to understand about war. he told us that people sometimes can't handle killing someone, as well as the emotions they go through are tough.
414 wordsRead More - Things They Carried Trueanalytical essayIn times of war, many men and women tend to forget or alter their memories. Thoughts became mixed up, the sense of time becomes delayed, and the telling of one man’s experience does not seem possibly true. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien writes about realistic events that never truly happened to him while he was at war. Nevertheless, he goes on telling about in writing a war story, a person can never remember the full event or will change it in a way that is not true. War will bring the worst out in people, and often, many of the men and women who live through it, cannot tell the full tale.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how tim o'brien writes about realistic events that never really happened to him while he was at war. war brings the worst out of people, and many of the men and women who live through it, cannot tell the full tale.
- Analyzes how o'brien's novel, the things they carried, isn't true because he knows firsthand what happened in vietnam.
- Narrates how o'brien killed a vietcong man while at war, and how he saw the man's face as gruesome and real.
- Describes how larry gwin saw men killing other men as he fought for his life in the vietnam war in 1966.
- Analyzes how o'brien and his men attacked small villages and towns that they suspected were helping the vietcong. they found a 14-year-old girl dancing violently outside her home.
- Analyzes how nguyen hung's story is an inside look of a vietnamese person’s point of view.
- Analyzes how tim o'brien's the things they carried tells the reader that many of his stories are true. a veteran of war leaves out details and gruesome facts of their experience while fighting in war.
1442 wordsRead More - Failure Of Consciousness Analysisanalytical essayComing to terms with war and its moral consequences is burdensome. War is filled with death, pain, bullets. Tim O'Brien, a military veteran and author, believes that the “nightmare of Vietnam” was not the bullets and the bombs, but the failure of nerve and consciousness. I believe that the failure of consciousness means that you act before you think, as shown in Ambush and Of Mice and Men.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that the "nightmare of vietnam" was not the bullets and bombs, but the failure of nerve and consciousness, as shown in ambush and of mice and men.
- Explains that failure of consciousness is when you act before you think, which usually leads to bad decisions, and in the case of a war, death.
- Analyzes how a failure of consciousness in war can be beneficial and detrimental at the same time. tim o'brien's automatic grenade throw in ambush haunted him for the rest of his life.
- Analyzes how lennie kills his dog accidentally because he didn't think his actions through. this single event avalanches and caused the rest of the melancholy ending, which eventually led to his demise.
- Explains that failure of consciousness is something that will torment you for the rest of your life.
695 wordsRead More - O 'Brien's How To Tell A True War Story'analytical essay"How to Tell a True War Story" gives detailed insights on how difficult it must be to experience war, let alone rehash the memories once they have passed. War stories have been a part of many cultures since the beginning of time, in which the leaders and soldiers would regale their battles to earn status and glory among their people. He makes statements that the narrator is almost as important as the actual story itself as the narrator can change how we are effected by a story by changing the perception on what happened. There are also many references to death, which is an inevitable outcome of war. It is always an underlying circumstance but the matter in which it is relayed can determine how the listener feels. There are also different versions of truth, which he feels are all worth considering.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how "how to tell a true war story" gives detailed insights on how difficult it must be to experience war, let alone rehash the memories once they have passed.
- Analyzes how o'brien's concept about how to tell a true story is based on the storyteller themselves.
- Analyzes how o'brien's references to war and death are interesting. death is an inevitable part of war, but the morals are steeped with it.
- Analyzes how o'brien's story reflects the truest truth, but also perceptions of truth. he conveys that the general way to know if what you hear is true.
- Analyzes how o'brien's ideas of storytelling reflect values of narrators still in play today. the truth depends on the audience and what they are influenced to believe.
863 wordsRead More - Fact Verses Fiction in O'Brien's The Things They Carriedanalytical essayFirst, the reader must understand just what makes a good "war story". The protagonist of the novel, Tim O'Brien, gives us his interpretation of it in the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story".
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how tim o'brien examines what it takes to tell a good war story in the things they carried. he uses his own experiences in vietnam in conjunction with his imagination.
- Explains tim o'brien's interpretation of a true war story. it is never moral and does not instruct, encourage, or restrain men from doing the things men have always done.
- Analyzes how o'brien's "relentless investigation" of how to tell a true war story exemplifies his relentless investigation.
- Analyzes how the chapter "sweetheart of the song tra bong" is another questionable narrative. the narrator, rat kiley, is not known for his accurate story telling ability.
- Explains that facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around, and when you listened to o'brien's stories, you'd find yourself performing rapid calculations in your head, subtracting superlatives, figuring the square root of an absolute and then multiplying by maybe.
- Analyzes how steven kaplan states that rat kiley is an unreliable narrator, and his facts are always distorted, but this does not affect storytelling truth as far as o'brien is concerned.
- Explains that a believer in the power of stories transcends the question of factuality or actuality.
- Analyzes how tim o'brien's "the man i killed" and "good form" deal directly with the question of fiction verses nonfiction.
- Narrates how they walked through quang ngai province as a foot soldier. twenty years ago, they watched an elderly man die, but their presence was guilt enough.
- Asks the narrator if it really matters what is a true accounting of events and creatively enhanced for the benefit of the story.
- Analyzes how a war story is difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. the angles of vision are skewed, and the surreal seemingness makes the story seem untrue.
- Opines that it is through stories that can bring people and events back to life.
- Opines that a thousand years from now, when vietnam is filled with condominiums and we're all going there to vacation on the beautiful beaches, all the facts will be gone.
- Analyzes how o'brien's 'the things they carried' is a true war story based on metafiction.
1458 wordsRead More - Breaking Point For Men in Phillip Caputo's A Rumor of Waranalytical essayWar is an entity that not only physically tears apart soldiers and countries, but also a force that shatters soldiers and civilians psychologically. The arduous physical conditions, the close proximity to death, and the hysteria in difficult situations play on soldiers’ minds and slowly push them to a breaking point. In Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, we see the effects of war and the conditions of war as told by 2nd Lieutenant Philip Caputo. In the novel, we saw a steady buildup of anxiety and confusion as the soldiers were faced with an invisible enemy and struggled with the mixed signals from those in command. This steady buildup developed into a psychological degradation that converted the soldiers into cold killers who could not control their propensity to kill the Vietnamese, whether or not they were enemy forces. Such conditions forced soldiers into “untenable combat situations” where they acted ruthlessly under the duress. This hysteria was only amplified by the lies and confusing signals of those in command. As displayed by Philip Caputo, soldiers in this time were deeply affected by the war of attrition that was the Vietnam War. The mundane, strident battles sunk the soldiers into depression and forced them into a submissive hopelessness. This pushed the soldiers towards precarious combat situations and dampened their ability to utilize reason over savagery in combat. The lies and ambiguity of those in command and the psychological toll of the war forced the soldiers into indefensible situations and broke down their moral judgment.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how arduous physical conditions, close proximity to death, and hysteria in difficult situations play on soldiers' minds and slowly push them to a breaking point.
- Analyzes how the vietnam war disrupted the soldiers' ambitious notions of war by enmeshing themselves in the jungle and integrating themselves into the south vietnamese civilian and military forces.
- Analyzes how the vietnam war was a ruthless affair and the commanding officers wanted to mask the civilian deaths during the war effort.
- Analyzes how the vietnam war caused deep psychological damage that is often irreparable. the rigors of the war and the falsifications by the commanders devastated the soldiers' mental state.
926 wordsRead More