The Memories We Carry When I was two years old, my family rented a beach house in the Outer Banks. It was terrible, or so I am told. The small, weathered house was temporarily home to my parents, my aunt and uncle, six children below the age of eight, and two dogs. The homeowners promised the house would be clean upon arrival; we soon learned clean is a rather subjective term. Sand fleas inhabited the couches and animal droppings decorated the floor. The adults went out and bought cleaning supplies and raided the place from top to bottom with disinfectant; after sanitizing everything, they carefully placed white sheets over each piece of furniture and the vacation continued as planned.
The home’s horrendous conditions did not deter my family from returning to the Outer Banks for another thirteen years. Though, we did not go back to that disgusting beach house. My family rented a larger, and
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He claims stories are often built on a foundation of truth, yet are carried “forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain” (O’Brien 158). Maybe my story is true; maybe my story is a lie. Maybe I embellished the story, embellished it until even I could not tell the truth from the lies. It does not matter if Catie and I snuck into that house or if, after eight years, we saw what we saw. All that matters is that readers feel that moment, share in our excitement, our triumph, when they hear that story. All that matters is that listeners are there, that they are our partners in crime, when they hear that story. Ultimately, it does not matter if the truth is true because, as O’Brien claims, “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (179). In other words, some stories may never have happened, but these stories can be emotionally true rather than factually
Regarding memoir this becomes the concern for some critics. So, what matters and doesn’t matter about truth may all be in the perspective of the author,
“How to Tell a True War Story” and “Ambush” are stories that both explore on topics: truth, the real definition of a true war story, and the role of truth. O 'Brien starts off “How to Tell a True War Story” with “This is true.” Starting this story with such a bold sentence not only makes it seem more true, but to some extent, it acts as a comfort statement to the narrator’s own doubts, as if there were unspeakable uncertainties and lies of the narrator. The title of this story also comes into play, with a meta-fictional name “How to Tell a True War Story”, as if it were a guide, a manual, having a true war story tell the readers how to tell a true war story. However ironically, towards the middle of the story, us as
These suggestions that O’Brien continually makes forces the reader to whether the details and people placed in the story change the impact on of the event. These commentaries made by Tim O’Brien are alludes to the notion of the power of emotional truth over factual truth. It is obvious to see that when these stories are being told that there is not much truth placed in them. For instance, Sanders confesses that he fibbed about a few aspects of his story about the men who heard voices in the jungle.
Take for example the story of the Alabama-born writer Mary Shipman Andrews. As the story goes, one day, her son Paul’s history teacher, Walter Burlingame, evoked a story to his class about hearing Edward Everett tell his father, diplomat Anson Burlingame, that the president “wrote his address on a piece of
Through this story, O’Brien describes a True war story and is able to prove the point of telling them. As a soldier named Rat Kiley tells the story, the other men comment on it. When Rat asks them what they think will happen, the men point to the details Rat described and say, “...all that had to be there for a reason. That’s how stories work, man” (O’Brien 102).
At first as Wright claimed that stories have authority I was not convinced, but as he continued the more I started to understand what he meant. When we are engaged in a story, we are captivated and drawn into it. Wright’s example of the officer telling a story to some troops really captured my attention. Soldiers have a difficult and dangerous task, and if they are just told to do something they will carry it out but not in a deeply passionate way. however, if they hear a story about what is happening and how they can help or solve the problem they will go and fulfill the orders with a greater desire.
Although he mentions that you can’t tell a true war story, he still points out the story of the troops who heard unreal sounds in the mountain, and he also points out that Mitchell Sanders states this story. The irony happens because if the story is untellable, Tim O’Brien still told it. The truth conveyed by this irony is that the story is probably exaggerated as it’s passed to O’Brien, and it is not what it actually happened. Contrast and Juxtaposition “The truths are contradictory”(80).
The sad thing about stories is that “once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (King10), that plane with no survivors cannot be taken back, the article in the news about the bus that flipped is read by thousands of people and cannot be taken back. The author of the “Truth About Stories” never says whether he thinks that not being able to take back stories is a good or bad thing, but rather he states that “you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories you are told” (King,10) because they will shape who you
The word “truth” can be interpreted numerous ways regarding different situations and also the person that is telling the story. In the book, “ The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien wrote about his experience in the Vietnam War and how the war had impacted him and his fellow soldiers. Throughout the story, O’Brien begins to doubt himself and the accuracy of the story that he was telling. “ And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 54). Knowing that everything might not be what it seemed, O’Brien began to realize that “fact” and “truth” are two different items.
Claim 1. O’Brien wants his readers to feel the embarrassment of trying to run from his problems. Reasoning and Evidence O’Brien tries to portray embarrassment through his own testimony. Tim starts the reader off by saying that he has not told this story until now because he thought it “would only cause embarrassment(37)”
True war stories are hard to tell, because of the guilt from things seen and those not seen. True stories do not allow the author to see things he never saw, so creating new images are necessary to create the story. True war stories are too subjective; even if it is true to someone it may not be true to the other. O’Brien says the only thing a true war story needs is to be asked if it is true, “and if it matters you got your answer” (O’Brien 79). It does not need to be factually true to make it a true war story.
Reliability is an intriguing topic within the world of literature due to the vast amount of speculation on what makes a narrator reliable or unreliable. It comes down to whether or not the narrator’s words are trusted. Ralph Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man (I.M.) is not a reliable narrator. Within the novel, I.M. is proven to be emotional, naive, and has undergone traumatic events in the course of the novel. These aspects of the narrator cause his recollection to be untrustworthy; however.
O’Brien differentiates between happening and seeming truths. The truth that Lemon exploded on a detonator is a happening truth. The actual reality. But the story Lemon would tell is a seeming truth. This real truth, the happening one can never reject Lemon’s seeming truth.
We will hear one story or tale, but sometimes we don’t get all of the information. Some of this information can either be left out or never
Cobwebs linger in every witch way, and antique furniture layered with dust sits perfectly arranged in the living room. Cautiously, I walk farther into the house to explore. With every heavy step and pressure on the floor boards, it feels as if the house will collapse on top of me. I make my way into the kitchen. An old wooden table sits in the corner, along with matching chairs.