The book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’brien shows us how a true war story should be told. This book follows a platoon of soldiers fighting in The Vietnam War and reveals the truth about war through their struggles. O’brien argues that “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, …show more content…
The director of the movie The Deerhunter, Michael Cimino, tells the story of three friends fighting in the vietnam war, Mike, Nick, and Steven. Cimino uses O’brien’s guidelines on how to tell a true war story in this movie, he accurately proves that a true war story is never moral, a true war story is unapologetically evil. True war stories allow us to see the pure evil and lack of immediate remorse or hesitation in the soldiers at war. To have the ability to harm another human being and show no sign of remorse or hesitation is an example of unapologetic evil. The crimes committed against innocent civilians during a time of war, show how unapologetically evil some of the soldiers were. 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 …show more content…
It takes a sick person to find joy in someone else’s suffering. This statement further proves O’brien’s claim that “you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” (O’brien, 76) Prisoners of war are often tortured, the torture that prisoners of war are forced to live through is obscene and murderous. One scene in the movie, The Deerhunter, demonstrates how purely evil soldiers at war can become. The men, Mike, Nick, and Steven were taken as prisoners of war. They were locked up in a lake area, under a building. In this scene we see vietcong soldiers forcing the prisoners to play russian roulette. One man stood in between the two soldiers and placed one bullet in the barrel. One by one they made each soldier play the game. When one died, another took his place. They would gamble on which soldier would be the first to die. They would stand there, excited to see which soldier would be the first to shoot themselves in the head, they later happily collected their money when they won the bet. By forcing the prisoners to play russian roulette, we saw the lack of remorse the soldiers had for the opposing side. We also saw the anger that one side had towards the other. The torture that Mike, Nick, and Steven, had to live through shows the evil in the hearts of the vietcong soldiers. The war desensitized them from death, they felt no remorse in playing this horrible game, they got
In chapter 15, Alpha Company was resting in a village when one of the soldiers finds an AK-47 in a bush and all the other soldiers are orders to search the rest of the village. The men tore apart the entire village, destroying innocent people’s homes and even pouring sand into their well. When they found nothing they took three prisoners, tied them to trees, and beat them for answers (143-144). The sheer brutality of this event perfectly showcases how the Vietnam war was wrong and unnecessary, and it backs up the fact that O’Brien was very against the war. Another atrocity committed by the American troops was the massacre at My Lai where there were several women and children killed by american troops (210).
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a fictional collection of war stories that describe how knowing the difference between good and evil are changed through warfare and loss. The theme of morals is prevalent but it is displayed through losing previous morals Tim uses plain, candid storytelling to show that the societal conventions between right and wrong are lost through warfare also. Warfare modifies practically everybody who experience it. Making them lose sight of what is right or wrong. For instance, in Vietnam’s jungles and rice fields, while “humping” or moving along, they would “search the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes
For many soldiers returning home from war, the truth about what happened can be a hard and confusing thing. The book The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, and published in 1990, describes his time in the war. O’Brien struggles the whole time with differentiating his emotional memories with events that actually happened, and tries to impress upon the reader what it was actually like to be over in Vietnam. O’brien believes that war stories do not always accurately portray what war was like, and that is why story-truth can be truer than the happening-truth.
No doubt the events and occurrences that took place during the Vietnam War were nothing short of gory, horrendous, and unimaginable, but is it true that the surreal horror of the war can only be captured and lived again through stories recounted by those involved in the war itself? First-hand accounts, real or made-up, are crucial to being able to experience the emotional and physical struggles the soldiers of the Vietnam War experienced. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien states, “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (171). This means that stories are the only way to capture one’s raw war experiences and emotions, so the best way the surreal horror of the war in Vietnam
We believe that true, patriotic heroes go to war without cowardice or complaint. Yet, as O’Brien demonstrates in his novel, war is incomprehensible and lacks the morality we expect it to have. The Vietnam War was fought for reasons unknown to the soldiers involved as seen in the lines “The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression?
War Prompt War always has an impact no matter who is involved. This can be a good thing to the nations and groups who win the war, or a bad thing for those on the other side, but the men involved on either end are forced to endure specific things that affect them for life. The psychological trauma on soldiers not only affects them when in war, but also afterwards when they are in society. Experiencing an event or taking part in an act leaves scars on these people who sometimes have to live with it for the rest of their lives. What a soldier experiences and sees during war leaves them with traumatic memories even though they may have not taken part in it.
Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.
Obedience at My Lai War is never a pleasant event. However, there are times during war when something truly tragic and miserable happens. This was the case for the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. A platoon called Charlie Company in Vietnam was getting attacked by guerrilla booby traps and snipers in the area (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). They started getting frustrated from an enemy they couldn't see or fight.
Obrien perfectly describes the duality of war saying, “war is nasty; war is fun” and “war makes you a man; war makes you dead” (76). War has many positives for some men, and it gives them a chance to honor their country. War is also horrible and leads to the death of countless young men with bright futures ahead. O’Brien uses the story of the water buffalo to describe all the emotions described in the description of war. The shooting of the water buffalo shows how desensitized soldiers become due to the mindless killing of Vietnam.
(Platoon). Stone’s intention is to get the notion that life as a soldier in Vietnam is very difficult to go through via Taylor’s dialogue. A documentary on Vietnam may still have been able to explain why Vietnam was disorganized and disjointed, but the documentary would only be able to explain it from a historical standpoint, whereas Stone has the ability to mold the image in the way he wants to portray it in. Both war stories achieve didaction because of their ability to present things in the manner the respective artist chooses to present them
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.
Oliver Stone’s film, Platoon (1986) presents the American struggle between good and evil during the Vietnam war era. Chris Taylor, represents middle class America and a nostalgic value in purity and innocence. The United States is many times represented as untainted and unaligned with conflict, but instead as helpers or saviors to other countries and their internal struggles. Stone’s film, however presents a new reality for the United States because of tension and distinct reactions to the war in Vietnam. Sgt.
Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.
The Vietnam War leaves a legacy of moral confusion with each and every soldier who serves. Soldiers are fighting for a cause they do not necessarily believe in, killing people who do not necessarily deserve it, and watching their brothers die beside them. Tim O’Briens’ book, The Things They Carried, illustrates the soldiers struggle to define morality throughout the confusion of the war. On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien faces what he feels is his moral obligation to answer his country’s call and fight in Vietnam, and a personal moral issue with the reason for the war.
Oliver Stone’s Platoon presents a perspective of what it was like to be an infantry soldier in the Vietnam War during 1967-1968. The narration by Chris Taylor aids in giving an introspective account of what the warfare felt like while his brothers in arms, make it explicit through their dialog and actions. The violence that permeates the film centers around fear, bloodlust, and retribution portraying the Vietnam War like Hell on Earth. However, one of the centers of focus the film follows are the interactions between the United States infantry and the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. These interactions take place at large through the combat scenes and also during the company’s investigation of a nearby village.