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Tim O 'Brien's Short Story' Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?

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The short story, “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” was about a boy who went to war and was scared to death about it. There are many reasons to be scared when you go into war. You could get shot, step on a bomb, or you could die of diseases. Tim O’Brien explained how war was terrifying, emotional and how accidents could easily happen in his story about war in “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?”.
Tim O’Brien explained how war was terrifying; therefore it was so terrifying that the soldiers just wanted to get to sea. They wanted to get to the sea because that was the only safe place. War is terrifying because you never know what you’re about to run into, nevertheless you never know when you're about to get shot. You never know what’s around the corner in front. You never know when an ambush of people is about to jump out of tree’s and attack …show more content…

You are a long ways away from your family. You may never get to see them again. Just thinking of these thoughts would make you want to cry. What would you do if the person beside you, your brother was shot and died right in your arms? That is how emotional war is. You can't mentally prepare for what you’re about to see, you just can’t. “Billy Boy got scared and started crying and said he was about to die” (202). As in the quote, you just can prepare because you never will know what will happen.
Tim O’Brien wrote in the book on how accidents can happen in war. Accidents can take away a person's life in war. Just because it was an accident doesn’t effect on what happens. Sometimes when you ambush your enemies you might accidentally shoot your man, But just because that was an accident does mean that it will bring back your brother. “Billy Boy stepped on the mine, and how it made a tiny little sound-poof-and how Billy Boy Stood there with his mouth wide open, looking down at where his foot had been blown off” (202). That quote right shows that anything can happen in war, even at the least expected

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Pretending he had not watched Billy Boy Watkins die of fright on the field of battle” (O’Brien p. 208). Pretending you are not in a war and being a boy again makes this novel real. This novel showed readers what it was like to be an American soldier, watching other soldiers and your friends die on the battlefield. War was real and memories of home, day dreaming of times

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Ripping of the Band Aid War to some people might be a little scary, but do they understand how scary it really is? In the short story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?”, by Tim O’Brien, it shows how truly scary war can be. For the people who have not served, we can not even understand the half of it. War might seem like nothing or it might be near and dear to your heart. People that have not served or had a relative fighting, probably do not know how scared you are twenty-four seven.

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In the story, “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?”, Tim O’Brien uses characters to show that Imagination is a strong coping strategy when facing war. The protagonist in the story, Paul Berlin, is introduced as a new recruit who doesn’t want to be fighting in the Vietnam war. O’Brien makes this very clear and throughout the story, Paul is seen coping with the stress of the war by using his imagination. The first time O’Brien shows this is as Paul is marching through Vietnam with his troop in the night. This is how he describes what Paul is thinking, “He was pretending he was not in the war, pretending he had not watched Billy Boy Watkins die of a heart attack that afternoon.

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O’Brien then adds, “the way your eyes focus on a tiny white pebble or a blade of grass and how you start thinking, Oh man, that’s the last thing I’ll ever see, that pebble, that blade of grass, which makes you want to cry” (182). This statement encompasses the ultimate reality of facing death on the battlefield. People might even ask themselves what sort of heroic death they are departing with, and whether they are truly proud of their sacrifice in that moment of departure. The truth is, soldiers are not thinking about their country when they’re being shot at, they’re thinking about everybody they know, especially themselves and their fellow infantry mates fighting viciously beside them; and that is the main idea that O’Brien cleverly articulates as the tone of all the firefights they encounter in the

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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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Storytelling has such a large impact on all stages of life. Stories are told to teach a lesson, give hope, or get someone through a hard time. Tim O’Brien uses storytelling in his book, The Things They Carried, to teach lessons from war, and help readers understand about the baggage people bring to war. The publisher section of this novel has this warning in it, "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life all incidents, names, and characters are imaginary” (O'Brien).

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War and its affinities have various emotional effects on different individuals, whether facing adversity within the war or when experiencing the psychological aftermath. Some people cave under the pressure when put in a situation where there is minimal hope or optimism. Two characters that experience

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He was willing to escape at all cost but ultimately it was the fear of disgracing his family, and the emotional toll it was taking on him that led him into the war. He stated, “I simply couldn’t bring myself to flee. Family, the home town, friends, history, tradition, fear, confusion, exile: I could not run.” (O’Brien

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In a desperate attempt for peace, as ironic as it may be, we create chaos, resulting in the death of millions at a time. Firearms burn bright in the dim sun, exposing the vibrancy of blood-stained suits. As the bullets penetrate skin, the life of another innocent individual has already been lost. Families never to hear a last, “I love you” before their loved one tragically passes in a loud, chaotic mess. They run towards the danger, knowing exactly what result the soldiers might have gotten in the gamble of life or death.

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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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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

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The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.

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Through the characterization of Billy the reader gets a deeper look into the emotional and physical effects of war: “He had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots. On his feet were cheap, low-cut civilian shoes which he had bought for his father’s funeral… He didn’t look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo” (33). The simile to a “filthy flamingo” displays Billy is physically lacking for and an incongruity of war.

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I was so happy when I was enlisted into the infantry unit to fight for nation against central power. I wanted to show everyone how much I love my country and I can do anything to protect it. When I reached the camp site, my battalion commander gave a speech before our battalion moved to the front lines in which he said that don’t fear death. I was quite surprised at his speech because instead of being an inspiration for us, he was very casual and expected us not to fear death. I thought he was joking

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Tim O’Brien’s uncommon ending sentence that have caught many people by surprise in the story, “Where have you gone, Charming Billy?” which was wrote as a historical fiction that revolves around the Vietnamese war. It leads you to O’Brien’s perspective on why war is bad. The story also shows how things are not okay, even after the war. O’Brien shows the realities of war through repetition of thoughts about fear, how soldiers deal with it, and the effect it has on their actions.

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