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

The way we want to approach personal problems in front of others can have a great influence on our lives and actions. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien provides the nature of storytelling with the generalizations about war and the concept of truth. Through the act of storytelling, Daniel Gilbert’s “Immune to Reality,” reiterates how the psychological immune system acts as a barrier preventing us from experiencing unexpected and traumatic events. Both authors respectively combine the meaning behind a true war experience with the unconscious need to deny the painful experience in it to lessen the pain. Sometimes a story can transmit positivity to help find meaning in life during difficult times. The transmission of storytelling

The attempt to make a story sound beautiful and peaceful insights the conveyance the storyteller has even though it is about violence and death. The use of O’Brien’s imagery words during Curt Lemon’s death provides a very beautiful and calm description when indeed it is the opposite, it was said that, “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” (O’Brien 317). Through the use of scenic sceneries the true representation of Curt Lemon’s death provides a less painful picture for the listener. Painting the picture differently delivers setbacks to what one truly wants to believe, whether it being true or not. In the retelling of Lemon’s death, O’Brien repeatedly recounts the way Lemon died from various angles. This makes O’Brien confuse himself as to how easy it is to retell a story many times without having to think about it. The only way to create a true meaning behind a “true” war story is by not generalizing war, instead by providing a brief plot of a war story. When multiple versions pile up at the same time, it just ends up contradicting one another leading the storyteller to confuse him or herself from their own retelling. Although the persistent contradiction from the retellings structures the story from failing authenticity, “the benefit of all this unconscious cookery is

“The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot… 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 318). Stories can reflect one’s lives, repeating unfavorable experiences, which we try to forget or ignore, troubling our mind to misinterpret dismal situations. This is what happens with stories. We try to believe in what benefits us, whether it being emotionally or mentally. War stories tend to have a strong position due to the aggressiveness it conveys, therefore instead of imagining the gruesome reality, we imagine the positivity out of war stories. From the concept of storytelling, the “seemingness” of a story is where the truth really is. First of all the communication between the storyteller and the listener is different, on one side there is the storyteller who delivers the sense of experiences of those who were present in the story. In O’Brien’s case he delivers the experiences soldiers went through during the Vietnam War. O’Brien only knows the truth behind the war: he only provides certain detailing which can be considered truthful. Rather than repressing the harsh events that come to his mind, O’Brien tries to reinvent their meaning not truthfully but at least honestly. The use of