Good Form O Brien Quotes And Analysis

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. In the chapter Good Form O’Brien talks about the difference between story truth and happening truth. He mentions how both can be true at the same time saying, “I can say honestly, “Of course not.” Or I can say, honestly, “Yes.” (O’Brien

O’Brien’s story of killing a man was completely fabricated as he even admitted, but despite the falsehood it could be true to him. This is one reason for true war stories to be so hard, as the one telling it cannot always devise truth from the false claims he is making. This is noticeable the Man I killed, the chapter does not discern truth from fiction, it speaks in truth, but is all made up. It is impossible for the narrator to tell that he did not kill a man in the story, because he feels he must have. He was at war, many people died and he witnessed many of those deaths, so how could he not have been responsible. War stories project one person on to another too often for them to actually be true, if the man was real then someone else killed him, but the guilt crept into O’Brien and led him to blame himself for the death. If

In the in the description of Curt Lemons death, O’Brien says “how the sun gathered around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree” (80). The true story could have easily been used, but often in order for it to be true a story would either need to be void of imagery or too gory. The true story of this is that he was blown up into the tree by a mine, even if he says true events he ignores describing the true events in detail, all the detail of the actual death is summed up in the statement, “When a booby trap explode, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself” (O’Brien 68). It does not work to pour heart into a war story and keep it all true, the effect of it might be more lasting, but it entails many problems in the reactions it receives. Rat Kiley writes a letter that is true of how great a guy Lemon was and sends it to Lemon’s sister. The problem was it got no response from Lemon’s sister for one reason or another she did not respond. This is likely because truth is the hardest thing to accept because it is not beautiful like falsehoods are, especially in times of war. War is often not full of the valor that is displayed in many stories of war, but it actually just men who are scared and trying to survive nothing else. O’Brien seems to echo these sentiments in the chapter Speaking of Courage,