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Summary Of Style By Tim O Brien

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In “Style” by Tim O'Brien, he writes about a girl in the village who danced. The American Soldiers came through and burned down a village, and despite all of the destruction and death, this girl still danced. The men of the platoon speculated, but couldn’t come to a conclusion as to why she wouldn’t stop. Azar thought it was a strange ritual, but Dobbins believed it to be the fact that she just liked to. After the fact, Azar mocked the girl by trying to dance like her, but Dobbins obviously didn’t find it even the slightest bit of funny. He jumped up and took Azar from behind and threatened to dump him in a nearby well if he didn’t dance properly. He said, “Dance Right”(130). Within the first couple sentences, direct characterization about …show more content…

She took “tiny”(129) steps and would do a “slow”(129) twirl. No one understood what she was doing, and they continued to question her with the most commonly used phrase, plainly and simply, “Why’s she dancing?”(129). Her family was dead, but she moved “gracefully” with her hands against her ears. He then moves into using similes to describe the burning village; it “smelled like straw”(130) and the smoke moved in “patches like fog”(130). This showed the heavy atmosphere that they were in and despite the fact that they were in the middle of a village burning like hell, she still danced. She “danced through the smoke”(130) and her face had a look that was “quiet and composed”(130). All of the words O’Brien used to describe the girl were words that could ever be used to describe a war, and that is what this girl is. They didn’t know but her dancing made just as much sense to them as the war did to her. She was a beautiful contrast to a very ugly war and in her mind the only thing that could’ve made the war uglier was if she didn’t find a way to escape it. She is the representation of how every man in the war or person being impacted by the war has to find a way to mentally flee the madness taking place around them. It doesn’t make sense to anyone, whether it be dancing or wearing stockings around their neck, but it doesn’t have to. That’s

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Tim O Brien Quotes And Analysis

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1) The Things They Carried the novel by Tim O'brian is a fictional representation of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Although the stories he tells are a fabrication of what really occurred in Vietnam, each story digs a little deeper on the emotions Tim O’Brien felt as a result of the war. I don't just think that the book is fiction because that's what it says on the title page, but because of This quote "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

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“It’s never about war, it’s about sunlight.” This quote is one of the many reasons Tim O’Brien gives on how to tell a true war story. In The Things They Carried four of Tim O’Brien’s own rules demonstrate why his chapter “On a Rainy River” is true. The rules that a true war story has no moral, a true war story doesn’t generalize, a true war story is not just about war, and a true war story is embarrassing prove his chapter true.

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1603 Words | 7 Pages

"Probably some weird ritual," Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance.” (136) In this quote they’re calling her dance a "weird ritual,” making it seem stranger than it already is but in reality dancing is her way of coping with her

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604 Words | 3 Pages

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