Use Of Imagery In The Works Of Tim O Brien

On the Rainy River is the name of a chapter in Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried. O’Brien tells the story of one of his life experiences: how he almost ran from the Vietnam War and almost tried to escape to Canada. This story uses the first person as O’Brien recounts a personal story using “I.” He uses a lot of imagery, characterization, and even a bit of foreshadowing. However, the use of these devices help the story that he is telling to seem so much more true, so much more realistic. Imagery can be seen throughout the story, and it is apparent when O’Brien describes the people he is imagining.

This quote in the first chapter of the book sets the overall tone. The author Tim O’Brien uses his language through out the book in an extremely straightforward manner. He does not sugar coat the way going to war and being in a war is. He does not use stories of heroes,

As stated in the thesis, Timothy O’Brien also writes his short story, “How to tell a True War Story,” in the first person narrative, although the style in which he narrates is quite different than from the style in “A & P.’’ O’Brien, who was an actual soldier in the Vietnam War takes on more of an autobiographical approach to telling his “true war story.”

Actions tested there ethical and moral values. After this point these soldiers have to cope with the cause and effect from their actions. Coping can cause mental illnesses, and addiction but also you can cope with these some things plus more things such as love, and mortality. This is the most important struggle that had to take care of for their survival. But why is this still relevant to today's society? Tim o’brien used many methods while writing this book to help the reader to understand the soldiers experiences and feelings throughout the war. These methods include imagery, repetition, hyperbole, metaphors, allusions, and many

O'Brien presents the details of his story in chronological order. In the lengthy paragraphs, he incorporates many specific details such as his emotions, his surroundings, and his current situations. In his lengthy paragraphs, he also included short, fragmented sentences to lure in his audience to keep on reading. “Silly and hopeless.” (55) This three word sentence is not a complete thought and conveys a sense of fragmentation. This represents his confusion and loss of unity during this time period and at war. He uses flashbacks to better narrate and add a background to his story. The structure presents how much time has passed in between events. Tim O’Brien uses narration and description modes to further emphasize the struggles of going to war. “I spent the summer of 1968 working in an Armour meatpacking plant...it was like standing for eight hours a day under a lukewarm blood shower.” (41) This narration foreshadows his shame and embarrassment in the future by using an extended metaphor about war. He alludes to the audience that essentially, war is like a blood shower. The narrative mode included O’Brien referring to himself in the first-person point of view, having it take place in the past to help to reader understand the present, using dialogue between people, action and descriptions of events and

In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt, and will deal with his past. In war, a way to

First, the reader must understand just what makes a good "war story". The protagonist of the novel, Tim O'Brien, gives us his

O’Brien always questioned the idea of “enemies”. Throughout the book he questioned in many ways and asked why were they enemies. What have they done to make them enemies, he sought for answers to his questions and eventually justified them by “if I don't kill them then they will kill me”.He was afraid of both killing, and dying but he knew that if he didn’t kill then he himself would be dead. These experiences and suppression of ideas are what led O’Brien’s to write The Things They Carried. In real life, Tim O'Brien feared the war and wrote this book to persuade others and to plant an idea in their head about the horrors that they should not want to suffer. Tim portrays his fear of the war by sharing his experiences as stories. Tim portrays many of his fears

“War stories” are shared by people all over the world, describing exhilarating experiences one encompasses during a war. However, these stories have been known for hyperbolizing details of the story, deeming it a “lie.” Tim O’Brien, the author of “How to Tell a True War Story,” examines the complex relationship between war experience and storytelling. The tale is told partly from O’Brien’s role as a soldier, as a reprise of several Vietnam stories, and half of his role as a storyteller, as a discussion on the art of storytelling. O’Brien provides detailed commentary on storytelling and blurs the division between truth and fiction through a series of paradoxical commentaries.

. . . Like I was losing myself, everything spilling out” (O’Brien 202). Provided with only laconic, expository definitions, an audience cannot truly feel the pains of war. O’Brien utilizes descriptions which evoke all the senses and submerge the audience in the unique and powerful sensations of war. Witnessing war’s pains through the familiar tactile crunch of an ornament or the splash of liquid spilling, the audience can immediately understand the inconceivable pressure placed on the soldier’s injured body. O’Brien continues, “All I could do was scream. . . . I tightened up and squeezed. . . . then I slipped under for a while” (203). His abrupt syntax and terse diction conveys a quickness to these events. Not bothering with extraneous adornment, his raw images transport the audience to the urgency of the moment and the severity of the pain. Now supplied with an eyewitness’s perspective of war’s injuries, the audience can begin to recognize the significance of the suffering. O’Brien tells his audience, “Tinny sounds get heightened and distorted. . . . There was rifle fire somewhere off to my right, and people yelling, except none of it seemed real anymore. I smelled myself dying” (203). In the same frame, O’Brien paints the rumbling chaos of the big war juxtaposed with the slow death of the small individual. His description emphasizes the purposeless discord and confusion of war and seeks to condemn its disorder. He argues that war’s lack of

Tim O’Brien wrote a memoir, in which he wrote about his life as a Vietnam soldier, called If I Die in a Combat Zone. Raised in Worthington, Minnesota, Tim O’Brien was influenced by wars while growing up (particularly the Korean War). Soon landing in the training facility at Fort Lewis in Washington, O’Brien’s life was about to change. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, author Tim O'Brien argued that the Vietnam War was full of courage through how the soldiers chose to stay and battle for their nation, his depictions of Plato, and through O’Brien’s experiences of his fellow soldier’s deaths.

America is well known and hated across the globe for its involvement in foreign conflicts and affairs. The self proclaimed police of the world, America often goes too far when it comes to its involvement overseas. Many times the outcomes of these conflicts is overlooked and the effect it will have on america and other countries. Often times the American news media and politicians will claim that America 's goal is to bring freedom and liberty to other countries. However, this is a ploy to get the public on board and in reality war is used to make politicians and corporations richer. Tim O’Brien experienced this firsthand when he was shipped off to Vietnam in 1969. When he came back he finished his education at Harvard and was inspired to write a memoir about his experiences. “If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home” tells his story as a foot soldier and the effects it had on himself and other soldiers physically, emotionally, and mentally. The books starts with O’Brien as a child playing war games and then moves to when he was drafted. In the bootcamp O’Brien had contemplated deserting but ultimately decided not to so that his family would not be disgraced. He was then sent off to Vietnam where he was placed in the Alpha company. O’Brien talks about things like his involvement in ambushes to his interactions with locals. With this piece O’Brien was trying to show the horrors of war and and how it affected the soldiers sent to fight in

In this essay, I will discuss how Tim O’Brien’s works “The Things They Carried” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone” reveal the individual human stories that are lost in war. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien reveals the war stories of Alpha Company and shows how human each soldier is. In “If I Die in a Combat Zone” O’Brien tells his story with clarity, little of the dreamlike quality of “Things They Carried” is in this earlier work, which uses more blunt language that doesn’t hold back. In “If I Die” O’Brien reveals his own personal journey through war and what he experienced. O’Brien’s works prove a point that men, humans fight wars, not ideas. Phil Klay’s novel “Redeployment” is another novel that attempts to humanize soldiers in war. “Redeployment” is an anthology series, each chapter attempts to let us in the head of a new character – set in Afghanistan or in the United States – that is struggling with the current troubles of war. With the help of Phil Klay’s novel I will show how O’Brien’s works illustrate and highlight each story that make a war.

Tim O’ Brien, having the memories of war engraved in his mind, recalls the memories of his youth during battle in “The Things They Carried,” an intriguing collection of military accounts that symbolize his attempt to resist closure from past experiences. O’ Brien’s story reflects the difficult choices people have to make in their struggle to confront the war waging inside their bodies as well as on the ground they tread. In Steven Kaplan’s criticism, “The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried,” he explores the uncertainty and inevitability that lies in the path of each soldier through their military conquest of Than Khe. In context to O’ Brien’s

Tim O’Brien tells the story of him and his platoon in Vietnam as well as a little about what each had experienced before and after the war. He tells each story in different way to elaborate on different things that happened around the same time. This complicated method emphasizes how he and each of his platoon member felt together while in Nam.It may jump from tale to tale in the stroy, but it has a clear message. In the story The Things They Carried O’Brien explains in different ways about being away from home can cause dramatic changes to someone in an alienating or a beneficial way.