O Brien Truly Shows A Different Side Of War Analysis

Decent Essays
O'brien truly shows a different side of war. O'brien is trying to convey that men are not in wars to be heros. They are there because it is required and if they do not go they are viewed as cowards.

This quote shows that men truly kill and die to avoid embarrassment. O'brien reveals men are not in war to be heroes, they are there because denial to go shows weakness and lack of commitment to the country. Only cowar

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    O’Briens use of imagery is a key element in his passage. My first example is “There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I”m left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief” he used the young men to represent the fearless Vietnam soldiers that have died. Thousands of soldiers were dead and weren’t able to be identified because they were burned by napalm or they were buried by the American soldiers.…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Tim O’Brien uses emotion to convey his opinions and thoughts along with heroism, These are the following reasons why used these persuasive elements. Stated on page fifteen Brien says” They carried the land itself-Vietnam, the place, the soil- a powdery orange red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces.” Brien is showing us that the soldiers know the war is going to be hard but they push through it everyday to keep U.S civilians safe And sound. Example two, Page sixteen brein goes on to say”They carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders”.…

    • 159 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If I Die in a Combat Zone, author Tim O’Brien, argued that the Vietnam War was unjust yet there was still a sense of humanity left, through his depictions of himself, O’Brien and his fellow soldiers in their daily life in combat, how he was brought into the war, and through his self reflection about his actions as a combat soldier before he returned home. If I Die in Combat Zone, talks about O’Brien and the other soldiers time in combat. Things in their daily lives made O 'Brien believe that the war was unjust because there were many mistakes made by the U.S. Army throughout the war. One of those mistakes was when one of the U.S soldiers accidently shoots a vietnamese woman.…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The year is 1968, and the Vietnam War is already 14 years underway. There is not a volunteer army, so the Selective Service System sends out a draft notice to all eligible males between the ages of 18 and 26. There were many ways to get out of the draft like having a disability, having a health condition, being a conscientious objector, being a student or choosing to flee to Canada. What would the feelings be of a young man with a bright future who just received a notice? This is what the author Tim O’Brien went through in his autobiographical short story “On the Rainy River”.…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” The effect of this use of parallelism is showing that war is more than what is told in the media. Soldiers carry pride, and they have to do terrible things to others and experience terrible things such as death. Another syntax technique O’Brien inventively employs is…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He includes this seemingly irrelevant story in order to sum up the novel. When readers finish the book, he does not want them to walk away thinking that the purpose of the novel was to inform them of what it is like to actually be in the war. O’Brien wants to show them the significance and meaning of death and how it is all the…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This essay will go into detail about the actions and consequences Tim O’Brien, Jimmy Cross, and Norman Bowker decide and how they relate to O’Brien’s theories on responsibility, cowardice, and courage. The first step in the engagement of war is being drafted. In O’Brien’s novel, he includes the story of how he was drafted on a humid afternoon on June 17, 1968. At the age of 21 O’Brien was not prepared to fight a war in which he did not agree with, so he drove north. When he reached the Tip Top Lodge, he met Elroy Berdahl, a quiet 81-year-old bald…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Things They Carried War is a wretched battlefield. It twists the minds of soldiers, scarring them with experiences that can last a lifetime. During war, there are some experiences that one cannot verbally formulate into words that truly capture what had happened. As the author of “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’brien writes with a style that brings his stories to life, as it allows the readers to be able to feel the situation as if them themselves were in it.…

    • 1129 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Tim O’Brien always seemed to base his stories off his own experiences in one way or another. More specifically for this essay, we will be talking about “How to Tell a True War Story” in his book “The Things They Carried”. What I am getting at here is that his work never seems to be what we originally think it is. In his story “How to Tell a True War Story”, the point of the story is not about war, it is not a war story. It is a love story; it is a ghost story.…

    • 1549 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The men are units in an army. The numbers chalked on their helmets are almost like the license numbers on robots.” (13) The idea that soldiers are god-like or fearless is ignoring the humanity and once again the souls of these people. “The soldiers were exactly as brave and as cowardly as anyone…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Soldiers that lose their life in war deserve the utmost respect. Their precious life was lost so ours can go on. Ultimately, actions like those define bravery. Tim O’Brien seemed to truthfully respect his fellow soldiers and demonstrated bravery in his book. In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, bravery can be defined by soldier’s decisions, comfort, and sacrifice during the…

    • 1592 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien shares numerous war stories to illustrate the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War. Throughout the book, the narrator, Tim O’Brien, shares stories about the soldiers in his platoon during the war. He shares what each soldier carried and its significance. He also discusses the effects of the war on the soldiers’ life, including his own, by using themes. O’Brien utilizes several themes in his stories, such as love and guilt.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He has the pressure of his community on him to go, but he does not want to make a decision if he will go this soon. As tim battles with his thoughts on fleeing or going to the war, the date of the draft is nearing. O’Brien finally reaches his breaking point and flees to the Canadian border to spend what comes to 6 days with a man named Elroy. During his stay, he is put in a very tough spot about whether to flee or to not flee,but he does end up coming home and going to the Vietnam. Now, the normally courageous thing to do is what he did, go to the war and serve his country.…

    • 1032 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The main reason Tim O’Brien wrote this book was to show how war is not for everyone. Not everyone is accustomed to war. He proves this by his stories of how lonely he was and how the other soldiers were polar opposite from him, how courageous the other soldiers were and how he wasn’t, and how he was compassionate for the old men and native people but the other soldiers weren 't as…

    • 1310 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Soldiers felt forced to participate in the war to avoid the shame and embarrassment from friends, family, and others familiar with them. They each are embarrassed for different reasons. One isn’t brave enough, while one isn’t smart enough. One isn’t tough enough, while one isn’t satisfied enough. O’Brien demonstrates that he is able to tell his story, twenty years later, due to the fact that he realized that facing one’s fears may be difficult, but it dissolve the shame that is felt before it.…

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays