The Vietnam in Me Tim O'Brien

The Vietnam in Me

The Vietnam In Me: Multiple Truths in the Life of Tim O’Brien

 “The Vietnam in Me.” New York Times Magazine, October 2, 1994.

Comment:
Tim O’Brien has explained multiple times throughout the novel that everything he writes is absolute fiction, even though it may be inspired by actual events, but maintains a special term which is classified story truth (in the sense that it’s true that it is a story and may have happened). He also uses the term happening-truth, which is what is actually occurring in reality. These two clash with the release of the short story “Field Trip” and the article “The Vietnam In Me”, both about his return to Vietnam.
The first, “Field Trip”, is a prime example of story truth, where O’Brien speaks about how he and his daughter return to Vietnam and he goes to the field where Norman Bowker let go of Kiowa and O’Brien wades in and buries Kiowa’s moccasins at the spot where he went under. He then has a heart-to-heart conversation with his daughter on the nature of the Vietnam War and gives a great deal of polished-over romanticism on loss and grief and duty (almost as if you combined Nathaniel Hawthorne, Keanu Reeves, and Tom Clancy for a made-for-TV movie).
Meanwhile, “The Vietnam In Me” is the realistic, factual account of O’Brien’s return to Vietnam, with a female friend (not his daughter), and his return to his own personal killing fields (apologies for the incorrect placement of that term, seeing as killing fields were in Cambodia and not Vietnam). In this account, it’s as though O’Brien allowed Larry Clark to follow him around with a camera and detail everything on his journey through ‘Nam. From visiting the minefields that took the lives of his friends with former VC and NVA officers, to the village of My Lai where American militarism truly failed in 1968, and even to stuffy, hot Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) hotels where he battles his own personal demons on the “terrible things” he did during the war, though not giving any evidence as to what those things were. The article even takes a turn for the even darker with his constant contemplation of suicide after his female friend leaves him. While this article is much more gritty than the short story, one thing remains the same: his feelings. Throughout both pieces, he cannot escape this insufferable sadness and guilt over the unknown.
“The Vietnam In Me” is more true because O’Brien says that truth is in the gut and this is where O’Brien’s gut is. Based off his writing style alone, one can just literally feel the emotions sweep off the page and hit him or her right in the chest while with “Field Trip”, it’s as if one can almost see the time it took in calculating the perfect emotions and perfect snippets of dialogue for each character from the uncertaintity as to what to say at Kiowa’s death spot to him telling his daughter that the Vietnamese was not angry at him because “all that’s over now”. Almost cliche even though it works wonderfully with the rest of the book. One shouldn’t get upset about the fact that one story is based on fact and the other is based in fiction; it is one’s personal choice to like or dislike whatever they read. And the question of getting upset brings up another question of whether it would be better to stick to the truth or to emotional fiction, and once again, it is whatever one wants. Personally, I would like truth with emotions clearly portrayed so not only do I know what actually happened, but I also know what the people were feeling at the time.

The Things They Carried (cont.)

Agenda:

Discussion Questions:

Chapter 19: “Field Trip”
1.    Why does O’Brien return to the shit field? 2.    What is the point of putting Kiowa’s moccasins in the ground (burying them)? 3.    Explain the significance of the final sentence. Who or what is “all finished”?
 
Chapter 20: “The Ghost Soldiers”
1.    What does “The Ghost Soldiers” add to the book that we have almost completed? Does it provide any new insights, perspectives, or experiences about any of the characters? What do you think its function in the overall narrative might be?
2.    Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in “The Ghost Soldiers”?
3.    “The Ghost Soldiers” is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?
4.    Explain the significance of the title of this chapter.

Chapter 22: “The Lives of the Dead”
1.    How does the opening paragraph frame the story we are about to read?
 2.    Why is O'Brien unable to joke around with the other soldiers? Why does the old man remind him of Linda?
 3.    What is the function of the Linda plot in “The Lives of the Dead”? Consider in particular what it teaches him about death, memory, storytelling.
4.    What is the “moral” of the dead KIAs? Consider Mitchell Sanders' view.
5.    In many ways, this book is as much about stories, or the necessity of stories, as it is about the Vietnam War.  According to O’Brien, what do stories accomplish? Why does he continue to tell stories about the Vietnam War, about Linda?
6.    Reread the final two pages of this book. Consider what the young Tim O’Brien learns about storytelling from his experience with Linda. How does this knowledge prepare him not only for the war, but also to become a writer? Within the parameters of this story, how would you characterize Tim O’Brien’s understanding of the purpose of fiction? How does fiction relate to life, that is, life in the journalistic or historic sense?

Overall:

1. Assume for a moment, that the writer, Tim O’Brien, created a fictional main character, also called Tim O’Brien, to inhabit this novel. Why would the real Tim O’Brien do that? What would that accomplish in this novel? How would that strengthen a book about “truth”?

2. Finally, if O’Brien is trying to relate some essential details about emotional life – again as opposed to historic life – is he successful in doing that? Is he justified in tinkering with the facts to get at, what he would term, some larger, story-truth?

3. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: “This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.” How does this statement affect your reading of the novel? 

Discussion Questions/Vietnam War Poetry

AGENDA:

Finish presented the group discussions from yesterday.

READ/DISCUSS:   Vietnam War Poetry Handout

Driving through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings

By Robert Bly b. 1926 Robert Bly

We drive between lakes just turning green;   

Late June. The white turkeys have been moved   

A second time to new grass.

How long the seconds are in great pain!   

Terror just before death,

Shoulders torn, shot

From helicopters. “I saw the boy

being tortured with a telephone generator,”   

The sergeant said.

“I felt sorry for him

And blew his head off with a shotgun.”   

These instants become crystals,

Particles

The grass cannot dissolve. Our own gaiety   

Will end up

In Asia, and you will look down in your cup   

And see

Black Starfighters.

Our own cities were the ones we wanted to bomb!   

Therefore we will have to

Go far away

To atone

For the suffering of the stringy-chested   

And the short rice-fed ones, quivering   

In the helicopter like wild animals,

Shot in the chest, taken back to be questioned.



 

Literary Terms for Quiz #2 for Friday, 9/26

Literary Terms Test for quiz on Friday, Sept. 26

• caricature
• clause
• colloquial/colloqualism
• conceit
• conceit
• connotation
• denotation
• diction
• didactic
• euphemism
• extended metaphor

Style, Speaking of Courage, Notes, In the Field

Group One (Speaking of Courage):

(1) To begin with, why is this story called "Speaking of Courage"? Assume the title does NOT hold any irony. In what sense does this story speak of courage?

(2) Why does Norman Bowker still feel inadequate with seven metals? And why is Norman's father such a presence in his mental life? Would it really change Norman's life if he had eight metals, the silver star, etc.?

(3) What is the more difficult problem for Norman--the lack of the silver star or the death of Kiowa? Which does he consider more and why?

(4) Why is Norman unable to relate to anyone at home? More importantly, why doesn't he even try?

 

Group Two (Notes):

(1) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien receives a letter from Norman Bowker, the main character in "Speaking of Courage." Why does O'Brien choose to include excerpts of this seventeen page letter in this book? What does it accomplish?

(2) Consider for a moment that the letter might be made-up, a work of fiction. Why include it then?

(3) In "Notes," Tim O'Brien says, "You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain it." What does this tell you about O'Brien's understanding of the way fiction relates to real life?

(4) Compare and contrast possible versions of Kiowa's death in "Speaking of Courage" and the end of "Notes".  Who is responsible?

Group Three (In the Field): 

“In the Field”
1.    Briefly summarize the plot and style of the story. Is this story more of a “true” war story than the account in the chapter “Speaking of Courage”?
2.    What point of view is used to narrate “In the Field”? 
3.    Why is the young man not identified in the story? What is the character’s purpose in the narrative? 
4.    In “In The Field,” O'Brien writes, “When a man died, there had to be blame.” What does this mandate do to the men of O'Brien's company? Are they justified in thinking themselves at fault? How do they cope with their own feelings of culpability? Consider all of the characters.
 5.    What, in the end, is the significance of the shit field story (or stories)?

Group 4:
 “Good Form”
1.    In “Good Form,” O'Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the entire novel. Why does he do so? Does it make you more or less interested in the novel? Does it increase or decrease your understanding? What is the difference between “happening-truth” and “story-truth?”

RETEST QUIZ #1 and CONVERSATIONAL ROUNDTABLE

AGENDA:

RETEST QUIZ:   Literary Terms retest Quiz #1.  Student.s can take the retest to get a better grade. I will count the higher of the two grades.  Be sure to put your name on the paper! 

DISCUSSION:   Work in groups to complete and share their Conversational Roundtable charts for The Things They Carried.  Collect the charts for classwork credit.  Be sure to put your name on your papers.
I’ll pass them back tomorrow.

HOMEWORK:  Read to page 181 for discussion tomorrow –“In the Field “ and “Good Form” for Discussion tomorrow.  Continue to work on AP packet.

PSAT Meeting

PSAT meeting in the MAINSTAGE

HMWK:  Do reading for Monday.  Go over the "A" vocabulary for a retest.
On Monday, you will be going over the "Conversational Roundtable" handout about "The Man I Killed" and "Ambush" with your group

Also on Monday, you will receive a packet of AP passages for homework, due at the end of the week on Friday.

The Man I Killed/Ambush

AGENDA:

Diagnostic Grammar Test
Continue Conversational Roundtable in groups

Tomorrow: PSAT meeting

HMWK:  Read "Style"  "Notes" and "Speaking of Courage" for Monday
Monday will be a retest of VOCAB and work on Practice AP exam passages

The Man I Killed/Ambush

Thematic Search--Things They Carried

AGENDA:

Discuss in groups. post a comment or write a group answer.  Report out.
Thursday:  Diagnostic Grammar test
Friday: PSAT meeting in Ensemble Theatre.  Meet here first
 HMWK: For Mon.  Read "Style"  "Notes" and "Speaking of Courage" for Monday
 Retest on vocabulary and practice multiple choice passages.


GROUP A:

Spark Notes analysis:

"O’Brien illustrates the ambiguity and complexity of Vietnam by alternating explicit references to beauty and gore. The butterfly and the tiny blue flowers he mentions show the mystery and suddenness of death in the face of pristine natural phenomena. O’Brien’s observations of his victim lying on the side of the road—his jaw in his throat and his upper lip gone—emphasize the unnaturalness of war amid nature. The contrast of images is an incredibly ironic one that suggests the tragedy of death amid so much beauty. However, the presence of the butterfly and the tiny blue flowers also suggests that life goes on even despite such unspeakable tragedy. After O’Brien killed the Vietnamese soldier, the flowers didn’t shrivel up, and the butterfly didn’t fly away. They stayed and found their home around the tragedy. In this way, like the story of Curt Lemon’s death, “The Man I Killed” is a story about the beauty of life rather than the gruesomeness of death."

Find contrasting images of beauty and gore in the chapter.  Do you agree with this analysis?
 Where else in the novel do you find images of the beauty of life contrasted with the gruesomeness of death?




Group B:

Again, from Spark notes:


“The Man I Killed” sets up ideas that are addressed in “Ambush,” just as “The Things They Carried” sets up ideas that are addressed in “Love.” The refrains of “The Man I Killed,” such as “he was a short, slender man of about twenty,” are constant, adding to the continuity of the storytelling. Unlike “The Man I Killed,” which seems to take place in real time, “Ambush” is already a memory story—one with perspective, history, and a sense of life’s continuation. As such, O’Brien uses his narrative to clear up some of the questions that we might have about the somewhat ambiguous version of the story in “The Man I Killed.” But O’Brien’s memory is crystal clear. He remembers how he lobbed the grenade and that it seemed to freeze in the air for a moment, perhaps indicating his momentary regret even before the explosion detonated. He has a clear vision of the man’s actual death that he probably could not have articulated so close to the occurrence. O’Brien’s simile about the man seeming to jerk upward, as though pulled by invisible wires, suggests that the actions of the men in Vietnam were not entirely voluntary. They were propelled by another power outside of them—the power of guilt and responsibility and impulse and regret.


Where else in the novel do you find references to the power of guilt , responsibility and regret?

Group 3 Tim O'Brien discussing "Ambush":

Male audience member (Frank Grzyb): Hello? I've read several of your books, and very curious about how much is real and how much isn't real. That's the first question. I find a lot to be real; you may have a different answer. The second question is I read a story that I find highly improbable, but it could be factual, knowing how weird Vietnam was, and that was, basically, about a guy who called and got his girlfriend to come into country, and she ended up in a Green Beret outfit, and I said, this could never happen, but Vietnam was so strange, it was liable to happen.
Tim O'Brien: Yeah. Well, I'll respond in two ways. One - excuse me, my cold is hitting me now - (coughs) Excuse me. Number one, uh, the literal truth is ultimately, to me, irrelevant. What matters to me is the heart-truth. I'm going to die, you're all going to die, the earth is going to flame out when the sun goes. We all know the facts. The truth - I mean, does it matter what the real Hamlet was like, or the real Ulysses - does it matter? Well, I don't think so. In the fundamental human way, the ways we think about in our dream-lives, and our moral lives, and our spiritual lives, what matters is what happens in our hearts. A good lie, if nobly told, for good reason, seems to me preferable to a very boring and pedestrian truth, which can lie, too. That's one way of answering.
I'll give you a more practical answer. The last piece I read for you, it is very, and it does approximate an event that happened in my life, and it's hard for me to read to you, at the same time it wasn't literally true in all its detail. It wasn't a hand grenade, it was a, was a rifle thing. We had circled the village one night - called it cordoning the village - and this stuff never worked in Vietnam-those vets who are here know what I'm talking about-these things never worked, but it did, once. We circled the village and we drove the enemy out in daylight, and three enemy soldiers came marching-the silhouettes like you're at a carnival shoot - and about eighteen of us or twenty of us were lined up along a paddy dike. We all opened up from, I don't know, eighteen yards or twenty yards away. We, really, we killed one of them; the others we couldn't find, which shows you what bad shots we were on top of everything else. Well, I will never know whether I killed anyone, that man in particular - how do I know? I hope I didn't. But I'll never know.
The thing is, you have to, though, when you return from a war, you have to assume responsibility. I was there, I took part in it, I did pull the trigger, and whether I literally killed a man or not is finally irrelevant to me. What matters is I was part of it all, the machine that did it, and do feel a sense of obligation, and through that story I can share some of my feelings, when I walked over that corpse that day, and looked down at it, wondering, thinking, "dear God, dear God, please don't let it have been my bullet, Dear God, please." Um, that's the second answer.

What does this reveal about the purpose of these two stories-- "The Man I Killed" and "Ambush"-- in the novel?

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

Tuesday, 9/1716

AGENDA:

Magic Realism and The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong

Video: A Soldier's Sweetheart:  http://vimeo.com/92513861

Magic Realism

"My most important problem was destroying
the lines of demarcation that separates what
seems real from what seems fantastic"
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A narrative technique that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. It is characterized by an equal acceptance of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Magic realism fuses (1) lyrical and, at times, fantastic writing with (2) an examination of the character of human existence and (3) an implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite.

 Characteristics of Magical Realism
Hybridity—Magical realists incorporate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism, with hybridity being a primary feature.  Specifically, magical realism is illustrated in the inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous.  The plots of magical realist works involve issues of borders, mixing, and change.  Authors establish these plots to reveal a crucial purpose of magical realism:  a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate.
Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective—The writer must have ironic distance from the magical world view for the realism not to be compromised. Simultaneously, the writer must strongly respect the magic, or else the magic dissolves into simple folk belief or complete fantasy, split from the real instead of synchronized with it.  The term "magic" relates to the fact that the point of view that the text depicts explicitly is not adopted according to the implied world view of the author.  As Gonzales Echevarria expresses, the act of distancing oneself from the beliefs held by a certain social group makes it impossible to be thought of as a representative of that society.
Authorial Reticence—Authorial reticence refers to the lack of clear opinions about the accuracy of events and the credibility of the world views expressed by the characters in the text.  This technique promotes acceptance in magical realism.  In magical realism, the simple act of explaining the supernatural would eradicate its position of equality regarding a person’s conventional view of reality.  Because it would then be less valid, the supernatural world would be discarded as false testimony.
The Supernatural and Natural—In magical realism, the supernatural is not displayed as questionable.  While the reader realizes that the rational and irrational are opposite and conflicting polarities, they are not disconcerted because the supernatural is integrated within the norms of perception of the narrator and characters in the fictional world.
english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html 



DISCUSSION GROUPS:
HMWK: POST A COMMENT TO THE INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS Level 2 and  Allegorical/Symbolic Question Level 3

"The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

Level 2:  Interpretive questions.
In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War? 

2. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story? 

3.  Find three symbols in this chapter and explain them.

4.  Find three specific quotes and scenes from the chapter that illustrate Mary Anne’s change.  Also, explain Mary Anne’s transformation.  Does she go crazy?  Or does she simply change?

5.  Explain the whole “cave scene”.  What is going on?  What has Mary Anne become?  Make a list of all of graphic imagery from that scene.

6. Does it matter what happened, in the end, to Mary Anne? Would this be a better story if we knew, precisely, what happened to her after she left camp? Or does this vague ending add to the story? Either way, why?

 


Level 3 Allegorical/Symbolic Questions   What does this short story tell the reader about the nature of humanity?  About war?


Basic Level I Reading Comprehension Questions
1. What was Rat’s reputation among the men of Alpha Company, when it came to telling stories?
2. What does Rat insist about his story in this chapter?
3. What was the military discipline like at the outpost?
4. Who were the Greenies and what were they like?
5. Who did Mark Fossie bring to the outpost?
6. What was their plan together, since elementary school?
7. What does Rat say are the similarities between Mary Ann and all of them?.
8. What did Mary Anne begin to do when casualties came in?
9. Where had Mary Anne been the first time she stayed out all night?
10. How did she change as a result of her conversation with Fossie the next morning?
11. How did she respond to Fossie’s arrangements to send her home?
12. When and under what circumstances did Rat see her next?
13. On pg. 106, what is Mitchell Sanders’ attitude about Rat’s way of telling a story?
14. What does Rat have to say about the soldiers attitude toward women?
15. What did the Rat, Fossie, and Eddie find when they entered the Greenies hootch?
16. What kind of jewelry was Mary Anne wearing?
17. What does Mary Anne tell Fossie about his presence in Vietnam?
18. What does Mary Anne say she wants to wants to do with Vietnam?
19. At the bottom of pg. 113, what does Rat say about "the girls back home"?
20. What is the metaphor that Rat uses to explain Mary Anne’s experience with war?

How to Tell a True War Story

AGENDA:

HMWK: Read "The Dentist" and "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" for tomorrow

Videos

Platoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPi8EQzJ2Bg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKpQB3bEPbI&list=TLpkj93aMlKiM 

Tim O'Brien:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C48fWkljK28 

http://prezi.com/i7pnwqaf45c2/the-things-they-carried-lesson-plan/


Read over the following summaries and analysis of "How to Tell a True War Story."  Then discuss with your group the key questions posted in red.  As a group find passages in the story that show the distinction between "happening truth" and "story truth".  Post a group comment reflecting the key points of your discussion and passages you may want to refer to later in your paper.  Why are ambiguity and paradox so important to the telling of these stories about the Vietnam War?




Memory and Reminiscence
Because ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is written by a Vietnam War veteran, and because Tim O’Brien has chosen to create a narrator with the same name as his own, most readers want to believe that the stories O’Brien tells are true and actually happened to him. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, O’Brien’s so-called memoir, If I Die In a Combat Zone, contains many stories that find their way into his later novels and short fiction. Thus, it is difficult for the reader to sort through what is memory and what is fiction.
There are those, however, who would suggest that this is one of O’Brien’s points in writing his stories. Although most readers would believe that their own memories are ‘‘true,’’ this particular story sets out to demonstrate the way that memories are at once true and made up.
Further, as O’Brien tells the reader in ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story,’’ ‘‘You’d feel cheated if it never happened.’’ This is certainly one response to O’Brien’s story. Readers want the stories to be true in the sense that they grow out of O’Brien’s memory. O’Brien, however, will not let the reader take this easy way out. Instead, he questions the entire notion of memoir, reminiscence, and the ability of memory to convey the truth.

Truth and Falsehood
Certainly, the most insistent theme in this story is that of truth and falsehood. O’Brien, however, would be unlikely to set up such a dichotomy. That is, according to ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story,’’ truth is not something that can find its opposition in untruth. Rather, according to O’Brien, because war is so ambiguous, truth takes on many guises. Even seemingly contradictory events can both be considered true. O’Brien uses the event of Curt Lemon’s death to make this point. O’Brien knows, for example, that Curt is killed by a rigged 105mm round. However, as the scene replays in his mind, O’Brien sees the event very differently. It seems to him that Curt is killed by the sunlight, and that it is the sunlight that lifts him high into the tree where O’Brien will later have to retrieve Curt’s body parts. Thus O’Brien distinguishes between the truth that happens and the truth that seems to happen.
Moreover, O’Brien likes to play with words and to undermine the logical connection between words. In Western philosophy, it is considered impossible for a word to mean itself and its opposite at the same time. O’Brien demonstrates it may indeed be possible. For example, when he writes, ‘‘it is safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true,’’ he is creating a paradox. If nothing is ever absolutely true, then even that statement cannot be absolutely true. The paradox suggests that while it might be possible to approximate truth, it must be told, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, ‘‘aslant.’’

Perhaps the most disconcerting moment in this tale occurs when O’Brien tells the story of the woman who approaches him after he tells this tale. Most readers assume that O’Brien the author is speaking, and that perhaps he is telling a story of what happened to him after a reading of his fiction. When the woman says she likes the story about the water buffalo, O’Brien is annoyed. Although he does not tell her, he tells the reader that the entire episode did not happen, that it was all made up, and that even the characters are not real.
Readers may be shocked. How could O’Brien have fabricated all of this? Then the reader may realize that O’Brien is playing with the truth again, for if everything in the story is fabricated, then so is the woman who approached him. This play with truth and falsehood provides both delight and despair for the reader who will never be able to determine either truth or falsehood in O’Brien’s stories in the traditional sense. As Stephen Kaplan suggests in Understanding Tim O’Brien, ‘‘[O’Brien] completely destroys the fine line dividing fact from fiction and tries to show . . . that fiction (or the imagined world) can often be truer, especially in the case
of Vietnam, than fact.’’

How to Tell a True War Story: Style
Point of View and Narration
One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is O’Brien’s choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who also carries the name ‘‘Tim O’Brien.’’ Although the narrator remains unnamed in this particular story, other stories in the collection clearly identify the narrator by the name Tim. Further, the other stories in the collection also identify the narrator as a forty-three-yearold writer who writes about the Vietnam War, ever more closely identifying the narrator with the author.
On the one hand, this connection is very compelling. Readers are drawn into the story believing that they are reading something that has some basis in the truth of the writer Tim O’Brien. Further, the authorial voice that links the story fragments together sounds like it ought to belong to the writer.


On the other hand, however, the device allows O’Brien to play with notions of truth and ambiguity. Does the narrator represent the author? Or do the narrator’s words tell the reader not to trust either the story or the teller? What can be said unequivocally about the Vietnam War? O’Brien’s use of the fictional narrator
suggests that there is nothing unequivocal about the war. Rather, it seems that O’Brien, through his narrator Tim, wants the reader to understand that during war, seeming-truth can be as true as happening-truth.
Ought the reader consider the narrator to be unreliable? After all, after pledging the truth of the story from the very first line, he undercuts that claim by telling the reader at the last possible moment that none of the events in the story happened. While this might seem to point to an unreliable narrator, a narrator who cannot find it in himself to tell the truth, it is more likely that O’Brien is making the point that the entire story is true, it just never happened. This distinction, while frustrating for some readers, is an important one not only for the understanding of ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ but also for the reading of The Things They Carried.
 
Structure
‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is not structured in a traditional manner, with a sequential narrative that moves chronologically from start to finish. Rather, O’Brien has chosen to use a number of very short stories within the body of the full story to illustrate or provide examples of commentary provided by the narrator.
That is, the narrator will make some comment about the nature of a ‘‘true’’ war story, then will recount a brief story that illustrates the point. These stories within the larger story are not arranged chronologically.
Consequently, the reader learns gradually, and out of sequence, the events that led to the death of Curt Lemon as well as the events that take place after his death.


This structure serves two purposes. In the first place, the structure allows the story to move back and forth between concrete image and abstract reality. The narrator writes that ‘‘True war stories do not generalize.
They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis.’’ Thus, for the narrator to provide ‘‘true’’ war stories, he must provide the concrete illustration. While the stories within the larger story, then, may qualify as ‘‘true’’war stories, the larger story cannot, as it does indulge in abstraction and analysis.

The second purpose served by this back-and forth structure is that it mirrors and reflects the structure of the book The Things They Carried. Just as the story has concrete, image-filled stories within it, so too does the larger book contain chapters that are both concrete and image-filled. Likewise, there are chapters within the book that serve as commentary on the rest of the stories. As a result, ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ provides for the reader a model of how the larger work functions.
The story that results from this metafictional (metafiction is fiction that deals with the writing of fiction or its conventions) structure may seem fragmentary because of the many snippets of the story that find their way into the narrative. However, the metafictional commentary provided by the narrator binds the stories together just as the chapters of the book are bound together by the many linkages O’Brien provides.

Tim O’Brien’s Criteria:
o A true war story is never moral.
o 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.
o If a story seems moral, do not believe it.
o Does not uplift
o No virtue
o Allegiance to obscenity and evil
o Difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen
o Cannot be believed… must be at least skeptical.
o Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t
o You can’t even tell it—it’s beyond telling.
o It never seems to end.
o If there’s a moral, it’s a tiny thread that makes the cloth, you can’t tease it out or find meaning without unraveling deeper meaning.
o You might have no more to say than maybe “oh.”
o Makes the stomach believe
o Does not generalize, abstract, analyze
o Nothing is ever absolutely true.
o Often there is not a point that hits you right away…
o Never about war.
 

Spin/On the Rainy River

AGENDA:

Platoon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXeP2_QH4tE

HMWK:  Here is the website for The Big Read with lots of interesting information and a 28 minute radio interview with Tim O'Brien:

www.neabigread.org/books/thethingstheycarried/radioshow.php
Read the transcript and/or listen to the audio.

Read "Friends" and "Enemies" and "How to Tell a True War Story" for Monday

The Things They Carried Chapter 3, Spin

Sometimes the war can almost seem sweet or fun. Azar gives a young Vietnamese boy a candy bar. Mitchell Sanders picks lice from his body and mails them to his draft board (which sent him to war) in Ohio. "On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance." Chapter 3, pg. 32 Some of the men play checkers: it gives them a reassuring sense of order. In the game, there is always a winner and a loser.

Topic Tracking: Effects of War 2
Tim is forty-three now, and he is a writer. He cannot forget the deaths of his friends, like Kiowa or Curt Lemon. But the war is not all horrible. Sometimes they would ask Ted Lavender how the war was that day, and if he was high, he would say, "Mellow, man. We got ourselves a nice mellow war today." Chapter 3, pg. 33 Tim remembers the time they hired an old Vietnamese man to guide them through a mine-infested area. There were mines everywhere, but no one got hurt, and everyone grew to love the old man, who also liked them. The war is also boring though, despite all the dangers. Tim feels guilty that he is still writing about it--his daughter Kathleen tells him he should write about ponies--but Tim knows he has to write about his own life. He tells the story of a soldier who goes AWOL (absent without leave). The soldier has a wonderful time with a Red Cross nurse, but after a while he goes back to the war, even more ready to fight than before. His friends ask him what happened, and he says, "All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back." Chapter 3, pg. 35 Tim heard the story from Mitchell Sanders, who was probably making most of it up. But nevertheless, it is true, because Tim knows exactly how the man in the story feels.
Topic Tracking: Truth 2
Tim remembers many fragments of stories from Vietnam: Norman Bowker wishing his father didn't want him to get medals so badly, or Kiowa teaching the others a rain dance, or Azar blowing up Lavender's adopted puppy. Tim also remembers even smaller fragments: the moon above the rice paddies, or Henry Dobbins singing, a hand grenade, a young dead man, and Kiowa telling Tim he had had no other choice. Tim thinks that stories link the past and the future. They help you understand who you are and where you're going.
Topic Tracking: Effects of War 3

Discussion "On the rainy river"

On the Rainy River slides:

http://www.curriculumcompanion.org/public/lite/mcdougalLittell/ml10/pdf/ml10_u4p2_rainy.pdf

Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck"
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15228

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/wreck.htm

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

The id, the ego, the super ego: Freud's theory

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personalityelem.htm 

A thought about symbolism: Elroy's role (from Shmoop)

On the Rainy River

So, O'Brien didn't really work in a meatpacking plant the summer before he went to Vietnam, and he didn't go up to the Canadian border to try to get away from the war and then chicken out and return home. It's a symbol for his mental state at the time. He can't get the nightmarish idea of slaughter out of his head – it's all he can think about – and so he thinks about running away. He's on the edge. Eventually, though, he backs off the edge. He doesn't go to Canada.
Elroy Berdahl is an important symbol in all of this, as O'Brien explicitly states:
He was the true audience. He was a witness, like God, or like the gods, who look on in absolute silence as we live our lives, as we make our choices or fail to make them. (On the Rainy River.74)
If Berdahl is God (or your deity of choice – atheists, feel free to use the universe as a stand-in), then God is ambivalent here. He doesn't push Tim to make one choice or another, and he doesn't judge Tim either way. He's simply there, watching, and his presence is felt.

In small groups, please discuss "On a Rainy River":

(1) How do the opening sentences prepare you for the story: "This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone"? What effect do they have on you, as a reader?

(2) Why does O'Brien relate his experience as a pig declotter? How does this information contribute to the story? Why go into such specific detail?

(3) What is Elroy Berdahl's role in this story? Would this be a better or worse story if young Tim O'Brien simply headed off to Canada by himself, without meeting another person?

(4) At the story's close, O'Brien almost jumps ship to Canada, but doesn't: "I did try. It just wasn't possible" (61). What has O'Brien learned about himself, and how does he return home as a changed person?

(5) Why, ultimately, does he go to war? Are there other reasons for going he doesn't list?

More questions for discussion:

Why is the first story told in the third person? What effect does it have on you as a reader to then switch to the first person in “Love”? O’Brien also uses the second person in this collection. For example, in “On the Rainy River,” the narrator, trying to decide whether to accept the draft or become a draft dodger, asks: “What would you do?” (page 56). Why does the author use these different perspectives?

Who is Elroy Bendahl, and why is he “the hero of [the narrator’s] life” (page 48)?


At the end of "On the Rainy River," the narrator makes a kind of confession: "The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war" (61). What does this mean?


Here is the website for The Big Read with lots of interesting information and a 28 minute radio interview with Tim O'Brien:
www.neabigread.org/books/thethingstheycarried/radioshow.php

Link for "How to Tell a True War Story":
http://prezi.com/i7pnwqaf45c2/the-things-they-carried-lesson-plan/

Postmodernism

Postmodernism/Metafiction

What is postmodernism?

The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-François Lyotard's concept of the "meta-narrative" and "little narrative," Jacques Derrida's concept of "play," and Jean Baudrillard's "simulacra." For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author's "univocal" control (the control of only one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature. A list of postmodern authors often varies; the following are some names of authors often so classified, most of them belonging to the generation born in the interwar period: William Burroughs (1914-1997), Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984), Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), John Barth (b. 1930), Donald Barthelme (1931-1989), E. L. Doctorow (b. 1931), Robert Coover (1932), Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991) Don DeLillo (b. 1936), Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937), Ishmael Reed (1938), Kathy Acker (1947-1997), Paul Auster (b. 1947)^[1], Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952).

Metafiction is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually using irony and self-reflection. It can be compared to presentational theatre, which does not let the audience forget it is viewing a play; metafiction does not let the reader forget he or she is reading a fictional work.

Metafiction is primarily associated with Modernist and Postmodernist literature, but is found at least as early as the 9th-century One Thousand and One Nights and Chaucer's 14th-century Canterbury Tales. Cervantes' Don Quixote is a metafictional novel, as is James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824). In the 1950s several French novelists published works whose styles were collectively dubbed "nouveau roman". These "new novels" were characterized by their bending of genre and style and often included elements of metafiction. It became prominent in the 1960s, with authors and works such as John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Robert Coover's The Babysitter and The Magic Poker, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and William H. Gass's Willie Master's Lonesome Wife. William H. Gass coined the term “metafiction” in a 1970 essay entitled “Philosophy and the Form of Fiction”. Unlike the antinovel, or anti-fiction, metafiction is specifically fiction about fiction, i.e. fiction which self-consciously reflects upon itself

Tim O'Brien

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=tim+o+brien+things+they+carried&FORM=HDRSC3&adlt=strict#view=detail&mid=478559C35396C31A5AFE478559C35396C31A5AFE

Literary Terms for Quiz Fri.

Literary Terms for Quiz next Fri.

1. Allegory
2. Alliteration
3. Allusion
4. Ambiguity
5. Analogy
6. Antecedent
7. Antithesis
8. Aphorism
9. Apostrophe
10. Atmosphere
11. Anaphora