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How To Tell A True War Story Summary

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The Moral of the Story

War is never poetic, however, Wilfred Owen England, author of Dulce Et Decorum Est, brings to life an experience he had at war. Although the language is gory and he refrained from niceties, the story he tells is vivid and makes you feel that you are there at the moment experiencing it with him. Makes one wonder why the title, which in translation means “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”, is chosen when he experienced so much death around him. On the other hand, author Tim O’Brien begins to tell the story as though it is coming from a second party and gives it philosophical twist here and there, which creates an interesting telltale version of stories in How to Tell a True War Story. The story being told by Wilfred Owen sounds is more believable as he states it experiencing it firsthand. …show more content…

He starts by telling a story as if Rat is the one who experienced it. He starts the war story with “THIS IS TRUE”(pg. 241), but further on states that “A true war story cannot be believed…”, which makes you wonder if the story he’s telling is true at all. All stories should have a moral or make a point but O’Brien states that, “A true war story is never moral…If a story seems moral, do not believe it (pg. 241-242)”. The author continues to contradict himself through this story and reflects on the “why” a war story should not be believed. As Tim O’Brien talks about having had the same experience 20 years ago where he begins to describe On the other hand when Wilfred Owen writes about being in the war there is no doubting that this man actually went through the things he writes down on paper. The description gives a vivid picture of the type of war he was

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For example in the chapter, O’Brien announces that “A true war story is never moral”(O’Brien 65), but, later on in the chapter he contradicts himself conveying that “ In a true war story, if there's a moral at all, it’s like the thread that makes the cloth ”(O’Brien 74). He starts off saying a true war story has no morals, but then he explains that the moral means everything to a war story, which contradicts his earlier statement. This contradictory excerpt from the chapter parallels the idea of the Vietnam war in the fact that to make peace, there had to be war and bloodshed to solve the problem that the United States and North Vietnam had with one another. War is contradictory in itself ,and O’Brien’s contradictory motif illustrates it well. In fact, the idea of war is a reoccurring topic in “How to Tell a True War Story,” and O’Brien illustrates this idea of war with many other devices as

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This story is a success because it features components of what O’Brien says is a true war story. This certain short story includes, embarrassment, love, memory, and, shame. This story perfectly depicts the theme of one's conscience versus the society around them. It portrays this theme because it is the perfect example of the fight between what he believe is right and what society believes is wrong and is “unpatriotic” while what he believes is wrong and unworthy of such violence, yet society believes is right. According to O’Brien, in order for war stories to be true they must possess at least some of the elements from his specific definition.

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In the short story, “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien focuses on this to show that everyone fighting in a war has a story. He spends the story describing the man he killed and searching for justification of his actions. He carries around guilt with him because of it, and his fellow soldiers try to help him justify and come to terms with his action by saying things like, “You want to trade places with him? Turn it all upside down= you want that? I mean, be honest,” (126) and “Tim, it’s a war.

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(page 68). This is why Tim O’Brien writes the way he does. He wants the reader to believe his story and get a sense of what war is truly

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In this book Tim O’Brien explains the difference of what he calls “story-truth” and “happening-truth”. “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way” (71). Happening-truth is actual events that happened with real people in a real time. Story-truth may not have actually

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In Tim O’Brien’s THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, there is a chapter called How to Tell a True War Story. In this chapter, he states how you should never trust a “true war story” because many aspects go into a war story. He characterizes them; at the end of the day, you are the listener and should be skeptical. Ask questions and be curious.

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War’s Reality We as humans find conflict to be rash and futile, but to the soldiers that fight for our freedom, it is an honor and a privilege, but it is dreadful nonetheless. We are going to be discussing Tim O'Brien's intentions in writing the short story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy.” It is my understanding that he wrote the story to tell us about war as it is hard to imagine its entirety and that war takes lives. Finally, I believe that he wants us to see how dangerous and terrifying war really is.

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This is also true of Tim O’Brien as he narrates from Vietnam, in the midst of the Vietnam war, how to tell a true war story. As readers find out though, a true war story is not always true, and “cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical” (O’Brien 3). Through various memories, O’Brien proclaims that if one is going to tell a war story, although it is ironic, they must insert lies to make the truth sound real. He explains that “often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness” (O’Brien 3).

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Stories are for joining the past to the future.” (O’Brien 24) This quote shows the emotional connection to people that went through an experience to people who hear about the experience. Stories have the power to capture the emotional part of it to go through the event in a way that concrete facts can’t. "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth."

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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.

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There is such thing of story-truth and story-happening. “Happening-truth is an objective factual account of events which occurred. Story-truth, sometimes referred to as emotional truth, is a subjective reflection of a person’s thoughts and feelings about the same event when retelling that story” (IGI Global). These authors being war veterans, write these stories and change them up a bit to cope with what they have experienced at war. As O’Brien writes in the novel, “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (O’Brien 179).

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“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

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Telling a true war story can be hard to do, because soldiers are tempted to change some traumatic aspects to make the story easier to comprehend, and not so traumatic for the listener. For the readers who prefer the brutal and gruesome stories,

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Like, we can’t become haywire in emotion while telling a typical war story, as it then crush down the authenticity, the truth behind the words. His story can be taken into account not only for a war story, but for a good number of other classics

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Using both sarcasm and his hellish experience to criticize the fantasizing of war, Owen breaks down the common narrative of mankind’s ugliest features. It cannot be refuted that these depictions of war are anything but horrific and tragic, but with these awful consequences come a world of beauty. War is not about the men who die on the battlefield. Their sacrifices will be remembered throughout history, but they are not putting their life on the line so they can come home and have a hero’s welcome. They fight for the women and children they leave behind.

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