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The Man I Killed Analysis

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THE PURPOSE OF AMBIGUITY by Floor ‘The Man I Killed’ is a chapter in Tim O’Brien’s book filled with a collection of short stories named ‘The Things They Carried’(TTTC). TTTC contains autobiographic stories that occurred during Tim O’Brien’s served time in the 23rd infantry in the Vietnam War. The title of the chapter, ‘The Man I Killed’, implies that the narrator killed a man. Conversely, there are several passages in the text that suggest that the narrator did not kill anyone. This ambiguity found in the collected short stories by Tim O’Brien purposes to implement chaos, and therefore to let the reader experience the unsettling chaos of war. As aforesaid, the chapter ‘The Man I Killed’ entails the story in which Tim, the protagonist and …show more content…

Nobody knows how the enemy is going to react, nobody knows when danger will arise, soldiers do not know where they are, what will happen, what has happened, whether they are going home, and occasionally they do not even know what they are fighting for. Besides not knowing anything, countless people also disagree about what they do not know or about what they believe they do know, this creates even further chaos. This immense amount of chaos festers in the mind. The author decided to distribute the chaos in the book to form a truer war experience. The chaos that is distributed throughout the book is naturally not as upsetting, massive and powerful as in times of war, however, it does paint a better picture about the chaotic ambiance than non-ambiguous words ever could. Now the reader does not just gain war experience by reading stories concerning the experience of Tim O’Brien, the reader also lives a part of the war. The chaos adds a new and different dimension to the stories. Besides reading the experiences and imagining what it is like, the reader now as well feels how the chaos and uncertainty of war affect the brain, and how long the disturbance of not knowing what happened - even if the matter is fictional - can preside over the

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This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

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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.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.

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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

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543 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

Human beings often claim to be searching for the truth. The truth often entails finding the right answer, choice, or formula. The search for truth develops a tendency to settle for the easiest choice—a false truth; more often than not, a false truth goes unquestioned in order to remain benighted. Concerning the false truth in The Things They Carried, information—specifically memories, must be sorted into two categories: those stories that are true and those which are simply glorified recreational war stories. It would be a near impossible task due to the extent that the tales mix.

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1247 Words | 5 Pages

When faced with war soldiers change, for better or for worse. Modern culture celebrates the glory of patriotic sacrifice. However, this celebration often leaves out the gritty details and trauma of violence behind war and the way it affects people. Homer’s The Odyssey and William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives clearly discuss these details. Both debate the long-awaited return of warriors that went off to fight a war and the way the experience changes the protagonists.

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A Psychoanalysis on The Wars In human history, war has greatly affected the lives of people in an extremely detrimental way which can be understood in Timothy Findley’s novel The Wars through a psychoanalytic approach in character development and their deterioration; the readers are able to identify the loss of innocence intertwined between characters, the search for self-identity in the symbolic and metaphorical aspect, as well as the essence of life. Those that are not able to overcome these mental challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Rape trauma Syndrome, and sadly, some resort to suicide as the last option to escape their insecurities. However, soldiers are not the only ones affected by war; family members also face

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1504 Words | 7 Pages

The novel focuses on coping with the death and horror of war. It also speaks volumes about the true nature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the never-ending struggle of dealing with it. In the

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1284 Words | 6 Pages

Tim O’Brien never lies. While we realise at the end of the book that Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders and Rat Kiley are all fictional characters, O’Brien is actually trying to tell us that there is a lot more truth hidden in these imagined characters than we think. This suggests that the experiences he went through were so traumatic, the only way to describe it was through the projection of fictional characters. O’Brien explores the relationship between war experiences and storytelling by blurring the lines between truth and fiction. While storytelling can change and shape a reader’s opinions and perspective, it might also be the closest in helping O’Brien cope with the complexity of war experiences, where the concepts like moral and immorality are being distorted.

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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772 Words | 4 Pages

The tribulation the soldiers have to endure with all the violence in O'Brien's novel brings a tremendous slap of psychological trauma in their lives. This psychological trauma has been

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688 Words | 3 Pages

He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

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1520 Words | 7 Pages

This is described in the story when the narrator states, “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” (3). It’s the idea of trying to find a truth, or some meaning behind this meaningless slaughter and killing that happened during the war. But with each telling it seems that the narrator might be stepping further from the truth and that this story should be questioned on its validity. As Rosemary King explains in her article, “On one hand, O 'Brien is asking how a listener can distinguish whether a story is a factual retelling of events; on the other he outlines "how to tell" a war story” (182). King is describing how O’Brien is saying it’s impossible to tell what is and isn’t factual in a war story, and how he is at the same time explaining how to tell a “true war story.”

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

In T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “The Hit Man”, underlying psychoanalytical themes are present that display an allusion to struggles in human life. The main themes present in this story are dysfunctional behavior, displacement, and an insecure sense of self. Readers see the main character, The Hit Man, go through his entire life struggling with insecurity and other dysfunctional behavior. During this timeline, his dysfunctional behavior represents common struggles and conflicts that occur in common day-to-day life. Relationships with his parents and classmates and also academic struggles seems to be the main contribution to the way this character is represented.

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