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.…
In comparing these two short stories the similarities were evident and stuck out like a sore thumb. The first similarity that I had encountered was that both stories gave the impression that previous to war the main characters had an enormous sense of patriotism. This is why they went to join the military. They wanted to fight for their country, and if they were willing to die for it Krebs, the main character in "Soldiers Home", had a nationalistic view before the World War I, and he believed that Americans should fight to save the freedoms of the United States. In "How to Tell a True War Story" the main character is portrayed as a person who had a lot of loyalty to America prior the Vietnam War because he has the emotion of a true patriot. Another similarity between these two stories is that the main characters were changed by the sight and horrific events of war. For example, Krebs could not even pray with his mother at the end of the story because he has lost faith in God. These events, such as, watching someone get their head blown off, or catching sight of one of your friends lungs turn into liquid because of mustard gas, changed their perception of war. This would definitely change my view of patriotism for one's country. Also, the narrator in "How to Tell a True War Story" points out that no one wants to listen to the real truth. This is emphasized because no one wants to hear…
While Ernest Hemingway's “A Soldier's Home” and Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a War Story” are both pieces focusing on war and the profound impact it has on the minds of soldiers that go through it, they both differ in many ways.…
In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses many short stories to describe his experience in Vietnam. The story that captured many aspects of writing was “How to Tell a True War Story” because it acts as a guide to writing a true story. O’Brien uses many different rhetorical strategies, narrative techniques, and establishes a theme in this story to help develop his characters and story line.…
One of the most obvious differences between the two stories is how each soldier handles himself after the war. In Tim O'Brien's Soldier's Home, the narrator of the story uses story telling to convey his war experiences with everyone. He uses this method of telling stories, to blur the difference between truth and fiction, and also to hide the atrocities of war. This telling of stories is used to dance around the truth. It is also is a way of him making his transition back into his home's society and way of life that is completely different from what he…
When one thinks of war, the general thought is that it inspires acts of patriotism and heroism. No one really looks deeper into the topic to find that along with patriotism and heroism there are often feelings of shame and loneliness. In The Things They Carried it is clear that most of the soldiers in the war do not come back with a sense of pride or honor. Most come back wishing they had never gone at all. Tim O'Brien reveals that because Vietnam precipitated such traumatic experiences, his storytelling is a great way to cope with his shame and loneliness, emphasizing that the war experience is not one of patriotism and heroism, but one of loneliness and guilt.…
True war stories are not about war. So tells us Tim O’Brien, a master in the art of war stories. What they are about is life, love, family, loss, grief, and…
Throughout the three chapters, “Good Form”, “How to Tell a True War Story”, and “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, O’Brien highlights the effectiveness of interspersing the mundane and ordinary, as well as telling the truth as it seems, in storytelling. Emotion in a story can help the story in immense ways, by being more relatable, but having personal commentary or analysis is not. These two tenants are the cornerstone that O’Brien builds his thesis on for a proper war story. These concepts help to avoid issues such as a story not being believed and a story not flowing very well. O’Brien’s outlook on storytelling is to tell the story in its entirety, whether it be outrageous or plain. By doing as O’Brien describes the issues that crop up during storytelling can be resolved in their…
Ernest Hemingway in “ Soldier’s Home” represents the life of Harold Krebs as an example of the effects on people and communities as well as a country as a whole caused by wars. There appears to be a blatant lack of respect for the main character from family and friends. This lack of respect is shown through the author’s discussion of a lack of empathy, confidence, and lack of placement. Hemingway shows the reader a view of the returning soldier from war and his clear displacement from “home.”…
O’Brien plays with the idea of truth, his story may not have actually happened in real life but the raw emotion and ideas are still there. O’Brien prefaces this story by saying that it is true. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien claims that a true war story is not moral and tells us that we should never believe a story that seems moral.…
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.…
Young men who are sent to a war learn the reality in a very harsh and brutal way. Both the stories, ‘The Red Convertible’ and ‘The Things They Carried’ portray the life of a young soldier and how he psychologically gets affected from all the things he had seen in the war. Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried,’ is more specific on the experiences of a soldier during a war where as Karen Louise Erdrich focuses more on describing the post war traumatic stress in her short story ‘The Red Convertible’. One thing similar in both the narrations is the Vietnam War and its consequences on the soldiers. From the background of both the authors it’s easy to conclude that Tim O’Brien being a war veteran emphasizes more on the war scenes where as Louise Erdrich focuses mainly on the life inside the reservations, which makes sense as she has a Native American ancestry.…
Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” is a tremendous story about a young soldier’s battle to find himself after returning from the war. In this story, Hemingway’s character Krebs leaves for the war as a young upscale college student and returns a couple of years later out of touch with society and lost within himself. The main conflict in the story is the struggle in which Krebs faces as he tries to rediscover where he belongs not only in the world, but also inside himself.…
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.…
In "Soldier's Home" through the historical setting of World War I, , Hemingway describes Harold Krebs having trouble adjusting to society, lying to himself, and observing no longer interacts with people even his family; however, Krebs must lie to stay in the town and to survive from between reality and truth. As a result, he has to choose how to re-adapt himself not to fall behind the line of…