How does the perspective of the narrator change the story? What do you think the author is trying to convey with this?
Tim O'Brien being the narrator has a lot of impact on the way the story is told. If it was some random person who has never served in the war telling the story, it would not seem as plausible and sad. O'Brien serving in the Vietnam War is what makes this story so marvelous. It can be seen in his writing that this war has changed this man forever. He has this certain tone in the way he writes. He does not embellish the truth to make it more interesting. One of the main chapters that you could see his true feelings and this way of writing come through was during "How to Tell a True War Story." He talks about how when people tell about the war, they have this want to make it seem like everything is okay when in fact it is not. O'Brien states, "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" (95). That makes me want to believe him more as an author. He is trying to say that this war was not some beautiful, heroic thing. It was terrible and not pretty to be in or hear about.
His writing is a little bit monotone and does not show a lot of emotion. That makes a huge impact on the way the reader hears the story. In my life, we all have had this vision of these false war stories that O'Brien talks about because that is all we have ever known. When you read this novel, everything changes. Another main thing that sticks out to me is the way he talks about people dying. It is almost flat like it is an everyday occurrence, and that is when you realize, this is an everyday occurrence for these men. That is extremely powerful and heartbreaking. Tim O'Brien telling this story is incredible and makes all the difference.
I agree with you when you say that if the story was told by anyone else, it wouldn't be as good. O'Brien does seem very monotone throughout some parts of the story, but it makes sense in a way because it's not like he's going to be all happy and excited with what he was doing with his life at the time. He didn't want to go to war, let alone kill anyone and go through what did. He is a great author that doesn't hold much stuff back. War isn't this beautiful, full of life situation. It's a serious, problematic life or death situation. -Sydney Derrow
ReplyDeleteI agree. O'Brien sugarcoats absolutely nothing, he tells the story in extreme detail, no matter how gruesome or horrible it is. War is often glorified, but O'Brien understands that there is no real glory in war.
ReplyDeleteEthan Cantell ^
ReplyDeleteEveryone hit this topic perfectly but I'm going to try and not reiterate what everyone else has said but it'll be hard because this has been almost completely covered. However some have covered it almost correctly. There is some glory to war. When a soldier fights for the right reason like defending his own country or protecting others from terrorist attacks. There is no glory when a soldier invades another country to coax/force it to choose between something like Communism and Democracy. I'm going to use a personal example. My father was in the Marine Corps between 1994-1999. He served in the Haiti revolution and was stationed in many other countries like Hong-Kong, when the chines broke away from Britain, also Germany, Russia, Australia, and many more. He said he has never killed a man but he had to be in some gruesome situations. He told me you were only a hero in war/revolution/or any battle 5% of the time, the other 95%, not so much. He said his most glorified moment was when he had to escort President Clinton because that man was something that was a part of him and he defended it. There were very little proud hero moments but many scary moments. He understood that glory came in small amounts, even to a soldier who wasn't in an intense war as O'Brien was.
ReplyDelete-Brady Wood^
ReplyDelete