How to Tell a True War Story Essays - 599 Words

War can be defined as â€Å"an active struggle between competing entities. It’s truly hard to tell who is right or wrong during a war. Both sides are fighting for what they believe in and what is true to their heart. In the end there is always two things promised – destruction and death. These two objects can explain the result in every facet of war from the physical to emotional. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story† O’Brien explores the relationship between the events during a war and the art of telling those events. O’Brien doesn’t come to a conclusion on what is a true war story. He writes that one can’t generalize the story as well. According to O’Brien, war can be anything from love and beauty to the most horrid†¦show more content†¦This is similar to what happened to Krebs in Hemingway’s â€Å"Soldier’s Home†. Krebs has returned home to find that it is not that everybody and the world around him has changed, but he was the one that had changed. He has fought in some of the worst wars there were and he didn’t want to come back home. Krebs dreaded coming back to the states, and would have preferred to stay overseas. Krebs was once used to a normal life. He went to a Christian school and was a part of a fraternity. His perception on life had changed dra stically after enlisting in the military and fighting in a war. When he returned home, the girls that he saw on the street were the same as when he was there years ago. His father still parks his car in the same spot day in and day out. His mother tries to encourage him to get a job, but he doesn’t care. He was so accustomed to the repetition of a soldier’s life. He couldn’t adjust to the typical lifestyle that other soldiers made. Somehow you can see the struggle he is going through. After the physical war, there was a war going on internally. Krebs had lost his emotion and will to care. The horror he experienced actually seeing first-hand life and death situations were incomprehensible to his parents. There was no way they would be able to identify with him. It doesn’t matter where anyone played a role in a war; the nature of the war itself leaves a tremendous impact on everyone’s life. Just retelling a storyShow MoreRelatedHow to Tell a True War Story952 Words   |  4 PagesHow to Tell a True War Story OBrien was drafted into the army during the Vietnam War. He is telling several stories in different points of views, of things that happened to him and his buddies while at war and on how you or someone else might believe or not believe a true war story. He tells about how his friend dies in three different views. How his friend dies and it looks beautiful, somewhat how is happened and then the true war story. He also tells little stories within the whole StoryRead MoreHow to Tell a True War Story1628 Words   |  7 PagesNyameer Puok Essay 2 Section 01B How to Tell a True War Story We have all heard the stories that our parents tell in order to prove a point. One example is the â€Å"I walked 10 miles over snowy hills to get to school† or one of my favorites, â€Å"If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?† These stories or statements try to convey a truth. The only problem is that while a parent sees it one way, his or her child does not. Even if the parent had walked to school 10 miles over hills every day in snowRead MoreHow to Tell a True War Story2535 Words   |  11 PagesThe 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 po int of view, and Sanders point of view of Lemon death and how Rat copesRead MoreOBrien: How to Tell a True War Story2183 Words   |  9 PagesHow to Tell a True War Story Ââ€" The Irony of Truth in Tim OBriens How to Tell a True War Story This is true. (OBrien, 420) Ââ€" with this simple statement which also represents a first, three-word introductory paragraph to Tim OBriens short story, How to Tell a True War Story, the author reveals the main problem of what will follow. Truth Ââ€" when looked up in a dictionary, we would probably find definitions similar to sincerity and honesty on the one hand, and correctness, accuracy or realityRead MoreA True War Story in How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’ Brien 765 Words   |  3 PagesHave you ever been hesitant to share a true story because you suspected that it would appear as a fabricated anecdote to your audience? Well, most of the time we add bunch of things or change a true story to make it sound genuine to our audience. We live in a judgmental and complex world where lying has become a part of our daily lives. Because of this habit, it is hard to differentiate the truth from a fabricated lie. Since I was a child, my parents always talked about battle of Adwa and many eventsRead MoreIntrospection in How to Tell a True War Story, and Into the Wild1494 Words   |  6 Pagesthe text, â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story† Tim O’Brien expresses his thoughts about the true war story and how the war story is changed according to the person who tells it. Jon Krakauer illustrates Chris McCandless’s journey into the Alaskan wilderness and reasons for McCandless’s gruesome death in an isolated place, in his book â€Å"Into the Wild.† O’Brien relates introspection and a soldier’s war story by saying that the war story portrays the feelings of a soldier. A soldier’s war story is not theRead MoreHow to Tell a True War Story by Tim Obrien1124 Words   |  5 Pagesunderstanding how people were feeling during that time. Also, to better understand what was happening during that time by reading the literature that was written during that time period. Through Tim O’Brien’s â€Å"Ho w to Tell a True War Story† to Ursula K. Le Guin’s â€Å"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas†, they reflect the cultural, economic, political, and intellectual upheavals the United States was experiencing. These stories affect your way of thinking about these times, especially the war. The VietnamRead MoreA Literary Analysis of How to Tell a True War Story1803 Words   |  8 PagesA Literary Analysis of How to Tell a True War Story The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, â€Å"was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart† (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writesRead MoreEssay on Tim O’Brien’s How to tell a True War Story618 Words   |  3 PagesTim O’Brien’s â€Å"How to tell a True War Story†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficultRead MoreHow To Tell A True War Story by Tim O ´brien1000 Words   |  4 PagesShort Story Explicative Critique â€Å"How To Tell A True War Story† In Tim O’Brian’s short excerpt, How to Tell A True War Story, the narrator recounts his hardening experiances in the Vietnam War (1956-1975). O’Brian details the story of Rat during the war, and his experiances losing his best friend. Through the use of literary divices such as imagry, paradoxical ideas, as well as themes that juxtapose each other, O’Brian is able to deliver an effective message in reguards to the complex