Tim O'Brien: Life and Works
On the footsteps of Erich Maria Remarque and other notable writers that described their experiences in different wars came Tim O'Brien, who writes about his adventure in the Vietnam War. It is not surprising that many writers find war a suitable subject for a novel. Indeed, this provides the perfect framework for characters meeting with limit situations, where their instincts come out and are best manifested. A strange environment, giving birth to unlikely friendships and acts that would not be believable otherwise. However, as O'Brien himself noted in an interview, "writer need not go to war or experience similarly catastrophic events to find subjects"[1], giving examples from local ...
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the war and he had just received a scholarship for graduate school at the Harvard University. As he himself puts it, "I didn't want to die or kill anybody in a war"[2]. The choice was finally made, out of "fear of embarrassment"[3]: Tim O'Brien just couldn't say no and he points out that he was a coward to go to war and not to have the courage to refuse.
Tim O'Brien served as a front line infantry soldier and received a wound in battle. It was obvious that many of the feelings of the American public of the war, a war where "certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons"[4], as O'Brien puts it, were shared by the novelist. The horrors of the Vietnam War turned him from the idealistic graduate to a cynical character. Not only have that, but the fact that he had made a choice he didn't believe in made him reevaluate his perspective.
Returned from Vietnam, O'Brien went on to Harvard where he became a graduate student. The opportunity to do an internship at the ...
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lesser concern for the way facts are actually laid out. For example, following this comparison, "For whom the bells toll" comes to mind. In that novel, Hemingway is primarily concerned with telling the story, all the other literary elements, such as the description of the characters, come from the way they act in certain conditions and are directly related to the story line.
In the same way, O'Brien seems to be a "natural storyteller"[6], with a foremost interest to tell the facts. These do not necessarily come as they have happened in reality, because this is not actually the author's goal. The journalistic style takes over here and many of the facts he tells are simply expressed ...
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"Tim O'Brien: Life and Works." Essayworld.com. August 24, 2016. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tim-OBrien-Life-and-Works/105831.
"Tim O'Brien: Life and Works." Essayworld.com. August 24, 2016. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tim-OBrien-Life-and-Works/105831.
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