Preview

Summary Of How To Tell A True War Story By Tim O Brien

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
265 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of How To Tell A True War Story By Tim O Brien
In the passage “How to Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien explores the idea that the truth in a war story does not matter; only the emotions that the story is trying to relay matters. In the beginning of the passage O’Brien starts with a story about the death of a soldier, Curt Lemon. Lemon was playing around with his best friend, Rat Kiley, when he stepped on a hidden mine and was blown away. After the death of Lemon O’Brien brings up the idea that in a war story it is nearly impossible to separate “what happened from what seemed to happen” (128). When Lemon died everyone there witnessed something different; yet the experience of losing a friend was the same. O’Brien then tells a story about six soldiers who trekked into the mountains on
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Summary Of The Book 'The Things They Carried By Tim O' Brien
    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Summary Of The Book 'The Things They Carried By Tim O' Brien

    In this book the author Tim O' Brien uses many different little stories to sum of the big picture of war. He focuses in on many different characters, stories, and their specific feelings to help the reader get an actual feel of what he felt. Which he states on pg. 171 " I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth". While O' Briens main connection to the title focus's in on what each soldier physically carried, deeper than that is the soldiers own feelings, doubts, and fears.…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Summary Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Summary Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    One chapter in the book, “How to Tell a True War Story,” forces the reader to start paying thorough attention. In this chapter, Tim opens up with a story of Rat Kiley and the letter he wrote to Curt Lemon’s sister after Lemon died. After that, O’Brien proceeds to tell the story of exactly how Curt died. O’Brien writes, “When he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms (70).” Throughout the chapter Tim repeats the story while adding and removing details of what happened. Also, in between each story Tim tries to explain the difference between a true story and a fake one. This part of the book is where “metaficion” takes part. Tim forces the reader to decide which parts of the stories are true, and which parts are just fictions. Tim wants the reader to know that in most true war stories, the story is not completely true. Instead, false details are added in order to try and get the true point of the story across. This is also emphasized in the chapter “Good Form.” Tim writes, “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth (179).” In this chapter, O’Brien explains to the reader why it is necessary to have a difference between “story-truth” and “happening-truth.” These chapters in the book have the greatest impact on the reader. Not only is the story told well, but the placement of these chapters has a great effect on the reader. The reader is now left questioning not only everything that will be read in the rest of the book, but also everything that has been read up to that…

    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Soldier In The Story 'Ambush By Tim O' Brien
    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Soldier In The Story 'Ambush By Tim O' Brien

    In the story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien, it is a story about a soldier having a conversation with his daughter. In the conversation, you can see some of the soldier weaknesses, strengths, and how his actions affected the story. Next, the soldier weakness are shown.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Juxtaposition In How To Tell A True War Story
    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page

    Juxtaposition In How To Tell A True War Story

    True war is exclusive, true war is not read from or watched, true war is only told by those who have faced it dead in the eye. Although experiences like these will never be truly known to the outside world, Tim O’Brien uses juxtaposition, allowing his readers to undergo the next best thing. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien explains his take on what a real war story should look like. In it he uses juxtaposition to emphasize points and reveal the emotions of characters. An example of juxtaposition comes when the platoon encounters a water buffalo in the mountains.…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien: Character Analysis
    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien: Character Analysis

    This shows how the speaker knows about true war stories. Not only that, but he knows how they’re supposed to sound, feel like, what they entitle, and how many lies are in the story. For example, he explains how a true war story cannot be believed and if you do then you must be skeptical: “often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Comparing Soldier's Home 'And How To Tell A True War Story'
    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Comparing Soldier's Home 'And How To Tell A True War Story'

    Though Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” (1925) and Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell A True War Story” (1987) were written about sixty two years apart and portray different experiences after the war settling back into everyday American society, both works have similar situations, a setting of war, and experiences. In “Soldier’s Home”, Harold Krebs, a nineteen year old soldier, fought in the Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and in the Argonne battles of World War I, while the soldier in “How to Tell a True War Story” is deployed during the Vietnam War. Both of the stories have protagonists who are both returning veterans. “Soldier’s Home” and “How to Tell a True War Story” have soldiers who have a tough…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Elliot Ackerman's The Things They Carried
    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Elliot Ackerman's The Things They Carried

    “How to Tell a True War Story” describes the death of Curt Lemon, Rat’s, Bob Kiley’s, best friend, in depth. After the death of Curt, Rat authors a “very personal” (64) letter to Curt’s sister. Despite “pour[ing] his heart out”, Curt’s sister “never writes back” (65) making a new “sin” that is “fresh and original”(76) for Vietnam. Insisting that there is no “point” (78) in war, “How to Tell a True War story” proclaims that war is “never moral” (65). Even “in miniature”, war has “no…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    How to Tell a True War Story
    • 2231 Words
    • 64 Pages

    How to Tell a True War Story

    In the essay, “How to Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien tells several stories of war to illustrate to his readers the criteria for truth in storytelling. O’Brien offers his readers a guide to telling and determining war stories that are true, for the author, true does not necessarily mean actual or real. Instead, O’Brien tells us what a true war story is, but his requirements are not always clear precise—a true war story “never seems to end,” (O’Brien 273) “embarrasses you,” (270) “are contradictory,” (275) and have an “uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (270)—they are defined and given context by the author through the telling of his own accounts. The essayist Jon Krakauer offers up his own version of a war story, of sorts, in his telling of the story of Chris McCandless, a young man not participating in a war of nations, or a conflict with others; he, in his own words, was involved in “the climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage” (Krakauer 207). The battlefield for McCandless was not a booby-trapped jungle, saturated with enemies and soldiers for the opposition; no, McCandless’s battlefield was the Alaskan frontier. Like a soldier going to war, McCandless knew that where he was going was dangerous. Krakauer remarks that “he was fully aware when he entered the bush that he had given himself aperilously (emphasis added) slim margin for error. He knew precisely what was at stake” (Krakauer 219). One can draw many parallels between the essays, or war stories, of Krakauer and O’Brien; they are both provocative, and both use descriptive language and paint vivid pictures in the minds of their reader, they both write of young men in the midst of a conflict—emotional or physical—but the stories differ as well. O’Brien presents his ideas of what makes a true war story; based on these ideas, we can determine that the war story told by Krakauer is not a true war story because it is committed to…

    • 2231 Words
    • 64 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    The Vietnam War, By Tim O Brien
    • 2265 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The Vietnam War, By Tim O Brien

    The Vietnam War last from 1964-1975 for America and was it longest war. Throughout those eleven years many stories and letters were written and many more would come long after the wars end. While officially the conflict was considered to be a police action, many consider it be just rough and brutal as any other war fought in modern history. The majority of soldiers who did return home came back to an America far different than the one they left behind and were subject to the hatred of anti-war protestors and many came back changed and haunted by the things they had seen and done in Vietnam. Some, like Tim O’Brien, found solace several years later by writing of their own accounts of what they witnessed while overseas.…

    • 2265 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How To Tell A True War Story Analysis
    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How To Tell A True War Story Analysis

    Have you ever been through a traumatic experience? How did you explain your feelings during it? Did you want the other person to feel the same way you did? A few years ago, a drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into my vehicle. Surviving the accident with no marks, bruises, or scrapes, I had no visible proof of what I had been through. But mentally, I was hysterical, frantic, and upset. My family did not understand my reason for being distraught since I had not sustained any injuries. Wanting them to understand what I had gone through and how I felt, I exaggerated and gave extra details in an attempt to prove that my experience was detrimental and distressing. Tim O’Brien, the author of the short story How to Tell a True War Story, used symbolism and polysyndeton to convey that people often exaggerate after experiencing something profound, emotional, or traumatic in order to communicate unthinkable sensations and feelings.…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    How to Tell a True War Story
    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages

    How to Tell a True War Story

    The story by Tim O’Brien shows how the soldiers are themselves and can also be serious. O’Brien also sees how Vietnam changes the soldiers and how they see the world now. There will be people that will ask if it’s true or not true they can asks what happened. There can be different ways to tell a story but they can ask what happen. O’Brien would know which story he really believes. O’Brien will give use by looking at Rat’s point of view, and Sanders point of view of Lemon death and how Rat copes with a letter. Here are three points’ that will go with O’Brien story the history, biography and literary criticism.…

    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Commentary How to Tell True War Story
    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Commentary How to Tell True War Story

    O’Brien opens the chapter with three powerful words which set the tone for his debate throughout the chapter, “This is true.” (O’Brien 67). Narration of this chapter continues in first person where O’Brien narrates a story, analyzes its validity, and moves on to tell another aspect of the story, taking it apart. This syntax makes the reader feel interrupted and disoriented. You have barely had time to absorb the heartbreaking story before O’Brien switches gears, saying, “A true war story is never moral” (68). He sets qualifications for true war stories—“absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (69) and manages to clarify in his next pause in storytelling warning that “it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” and acknowledges people perceive things differently and thus will tell the stories differently (71).…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A True War Story
    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A True War Story

    The more unbelievable the story seems the more likely it is to be true, leading to the real moral of the story if there is one. “ In war you lose your sense of definite, hence your sense of truth itself”, O'brien says. He states that as a soldier, there is so much to take in from war scenes that it all become muddled. Therefore, the stories can be different from each soldier's perspective because of the fact that each puts their own ideas in the story, what they think happened. This, which in turn, leads to speculation on whether or not the stories are actually true.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Short Story: A Real War
    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Short Story: A Real War

    The following story is not a true one, it is based on true facts, a real war, and the same type of issue that happened in such war. You are Hans Pellston, a boy of only eighteen in August 17th, 1939, born in Nuremberg, Germany. So your story begins, on the south side of your home town.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Other Side of the War Story
    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Other Side of the War Story

    Thinking about the 1890’s in the Philippines, what comes to mind are katipuneros in their straw hats, kamisochinos and red trousers, raising their bolos in the air, fighting for the freedom of the country – basically, a bloody era of wars between the brave natives and the powerful conquistadores. It is probably only natural; since young, we have been taught in school that the Spaniards brought nothing in the country but bloodshed and indolence, aside from a few euphemisms now and then to appease the brutality for the children’s young minds. Truthfully, never have I thought that there’s another side to the tale, a side where style and glamour exist despite the noises of revolution.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics