ipl-logo

Speaking Of Courage Short Story Quotes

1243 Words5 Pages

"Speaking of Courage" written by Tim O'Brian does a fantastic job at providing examples of both story truth and happening truth. O'Brian writes this vignette in such a way that one might disagree whether it is happening or story truth; this literary analysis will further explain the words that Tim writes about, and how they impact his theme, or facts, of the story.
"The war was over and there was no place in particular to go" (131). The first line that readers will read is the above quote. The quote that O'Brian states is a very powerful quote because he is talking about Norman Bowker, the protagonist of this vignette, and is telling the readers that Norman literally has nowhere to go. So in other words, Norman has returned home from the war, and has nothing to do and no one to talk to. Right from the beginning of the vignette, readers notice that Norman is solo and has nothing to do. This opening sentence is an example of story truth because Tim is trying to get the point across that Norman has …show more content…

Readers can infer from this statement made by O'Brian that Norman is on a never ending circle. Some readers might suggest that Tim is talking about the circle of life, and that him driving around the lake is him wanting to start his life over again. This is wrong. Norman drives around the lake so many times, and is constantly starting over. Tim is trying to get the point across that even after war, a veteran might still find it difficult to connect to people or get over the war. Readers find out later on in the vignette that Bowker feels as if he is responsible for Kiowa's death. He is unable to get over this death, and that is why he keeps circling the lake so many times; his pain is a never ending circle—no one is ever going to understand what he saw and why he did not win the Silver Star

Show More
Related
532 Words | 3 Pages

Norman had felt as if he had no one to talk to or relate to because no one around him had experienced war like he had. He tried to keep jobs when he was home from war, but not one of them had lasted more than 3 weeks. Since he feels he is unable to speak to anyone about war, he writes a letter to O’Brien, telling his entire war story. He soon feels as if he cannot do anything without thinking about war and hangs himself in the locker room of his town’s YMCA.

Read More
990 Words | 4 Pages

The war forces people into situations where the pressure is too much and the environment forces a change on how one views himself. Curt Lemon and Norman Bowker held themselves to standards that they couldn’t reach. They let the war determine how they live and who they would become. The war causes the human spirit to change so vastly that it leads to a demise, so quick and drastic, that it is hard to

Read More
1292 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
423 Words | 2 Pages

(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

Read More
489 Words | 2 Pages

The novel, The Kite Runner, tells a story about two incredibly strong and courageous boys, who have to find their way back from a dreadful thing which they thought they could never forget. The two boys are guided by their father, Baba, who is also looking for forgivness in himself. In the end, all of the boys find redemption for their wrongdoings. One of the boys, Hassan, shows extreme courage from the very beginning of the book.

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien tells the readers about him reflecting back twenty years ago, he wonders if running away from the war were just events that happened in another dimension, he pictures himself writing a letter to his parents: “I’m finishing up a letter to my Parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and how sorry I am that I’d never found the courage to talk to them about it”(O’Brien 80). Even twenty years after his running from the war, O’Brien still feels sorry for not finding the courage to tell his parents about his decision of escaping to Canada to start a new life. O’Brien presented his outlook that even if someone was not directly involved in the war, this event had impacted them indirectly, for instance, how a person’s reaction to the war can create regret for important friends and

Read More
1504 Words | 7 Pages

Norman is unable to find words to describe his struggles and therefore can’t move on from the war. This just shows that the horrors don’t stop, even after the war. Norman is desperately grasping for a way to understand everything but he is unable to. Because of this, Norman, unlike Roy, is unable to cope and eventually takes his own life to escape his own mind. Additionally, Tim O’Brien himself has been greatly afflicted by the psychological aspect of war.

Read More
1184 Words | 5 Pages

This quote from the short story illustrates how Tim felt about leaving for the war. He knew that it was against his beliefs for him to leave. He eventually left for the war, still not believing in what he was fighting for which resulted in Tim losing sight of who he was. He allowed the pressures of society to influence him and morph his character into one resemblant of the popular belief of the time. In the story of The Book Thief, Hans Hubermann experiences a similar situation to Tim.

Read More
1505 Words | 7 Pages

Already he had passed them six times, forty-two miles, nearly three hours without stopping” (O’Brien 139-140). As if Norman was stuck in a loop, he drove around that lake, reliving moments of his life from when he was in Vietnam. He questioned, doubted, and second guessed things that had happened. He wants to tell his story to his friends but they all moved on with their lives while he was in Vietnam in the war, leaving him with no one. He wanted to talk to someone but he couldn’t.

Read More
966 Words | 4 Pages

Courage has gone through many changes. It has been altered throughout races, cultures, religions, sex, and time. However, the core values of courage has always remained parallel. It is difficult to explain in words the meaning of courage, like describing a color, but everyone knows what courage is, how it feels, and how to perform it. In Harper Lee’s

Read More
637 Words | 3 Pages

War is what denies an absolute truth in a war story. “In war you lose your sense of definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and, therefore, it’s safe to say that in a true war story nothing is absolutely true(p82)”. War many-sided. In war, one can never say anything definitely because the perception

Read More
1227 Words | 5 Pages

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).

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

War was so much more than just war to O’Brien and he able to share this through his writing. " But this is true: stories can save us. ... in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (page

Read More
925 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien writes, “You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (76). Regardless of the changes within the narrations, the fact remains, that these soldiers are in the middle of battle and the emotion that follows differ for each person. As Kaplan states in his writing, “the most important thing is to be able to recognize and accept that events have no fixed and final meaning and that the only meaning that events can have is one that emerges momentarily and then shifts and changes each time that the events come alive as they are remembered or portrayed”

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

The Help (2011) directed by Tate Taylor, is an inspirational, courageous and empowering story about Southern women in the 1960s. It's the story of the help: the black maids of Jackson, Mississippi, and the relationship with their white employers. The central theme of the film is courage, and how the characters embrace courage to overcome obstacles and fight for social justice. Whether it is their ability to deviate from in-group norms, or overcome fear, courage is essential throughout the characters' journeys. In this essay, I will analyse the situations endured by the characters, and how they respond to these situations with courage.

Read More

More about Speaking Of Courage Short Story Quotes

Related Topics

Open Document