Storytelling In Bernie Goetz's Writing Techniques

Perry for example was already uncertain of his future and his knee injury already had him on edge. towards the end of the book after burning the corpses of his past comrades he lost all faith, and innocence. So the theme of the book is that war is devastating to person both mentally and

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.

He then begins to speak about the difference between “real truth” and “story truth.” Sometimes story truth is more true than real truth due to the emotions that the reader experiences. O’Brien’s goal was for the readers to believe these experiences were true down to the very last detail. This makes the audience grasp a better understanding of what these soldiers actually experienced in battle. In “How to Tell a True War Story” Mitchell Sanders shares a story with Tim about when a troop is on an operation in the mountains for an operation.

On the topic of morality: to be moral is to know the distinction between right and wrong, or to have that distinction in general. The truth in war, O’Brien argues, is never moral. If the truth is moral, then it is a lie (65). Even if the truth is the story-truth (171), it can be more real more true, and more astonishing than the whole of the real truth.

O’brien explains that the behavior of these soldiers show just how brutal war can be. True war stories do not “instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor

“How to Tell a True War Story” reflects this feeling of chaos and lack of control with jumps between war stories and existential commentary without a constant setting or a linear plot. “In the midst of evil” (77) everything is unexpected, unfathomable, and terrifying. By instilling in the reader questions about the factual reliability of the narrator with statements that denounce the importance of “that kind of truth” (79), the chapter expresses the “ambiguity” (78) that a soldier experiences, and communicates that reality lies in the experience rather than the facts. Moreover, during war there is the permeating and constant feeling of “a ghostly fog” (78) that clouds vision of anything new and undermines accuracy which parallels the fog of confusion that the narrator faces. Without any “clarity”, “chaos” becomes a constant and the “only certainty” (78) is that nothing is predictable, nothing is as it seems, since all is

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.

However, Tim O’Brien instead uses fiction to get to the truth, and creates ­­ in a paradoxical fashion ­­ a more truthful telling, shaping the story to fit his own view. For example, Tim O’Brien dedicates the book “to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa” (1). By dedicating the book to entirely fictional characters, the author creates a mirage of truth that is wrapped around the novel, which allows for the reader to treat the novel as a nonfictional account, yet still be able to get to the truth and deliver a moral at the end. Likewise, Oliver Stone’s film also uses war stories for didactic purposes. In one instance, Chris Taylor refers to Vietnam as Hell, because as “somebody once wrote, ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason’”

Few things surpass the difficulties that accompany the overwhelming unknowns, unplanned fighting, and risk of injury on the battle field. To exasperate this pain, many media outlets falsely report on wars and publish stories that glamorize the events instead of telling the truth. As a response to the inaccurate “hype” regarding the war in Iraq, former soldier Jessica Lynch presents a combination of her own stories, emotionally-charged moments in the war, and honest facts to correctly tell her story in her speech “The Truth is Always More Heroic than the Hype;” the mix of these appeals increase the power of her speech. In order deliver a captivating and effective speech, it is necessary to maintain a foundation of trust with an audience.

(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

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.

Some were true while some were just to portray heroism and were filled with false facts. The story “How to Tell a True War story” written by Tim O’Brien illustrates the difference between true and fictional war sorties. To show this O’Brien used two different stories and compared them. In both the stories, the common theme is that war brings melancholy and pain to everyone. The first story was about two friends Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley.

The author compares the soldiers because he wants the readers

Present throughout the book is the theme of disillusionment. In the school, they’ve been told by their schoolmasters and parents that unless they join the war, they would remain cowards. They see propaganda after propaganda, all alluding towards the glory of battle and warfare. Out on the front, they realize that nothing was further from the truth. Their dreams of being heroes shattered, like when they compare themselves to the soldier on a poster in chapter 7.

What is a true war story? How can it be told? this is a quite complicated question with a quite complex response(s). a true war story is something beyond generalizing, that could be true and untrue at a time. There is not only one type of truth, but happening and seeming truths, and not the man could know the real truth in a war story.