In Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story," his use of
repetition and nonchalant descriptions of horrific events point to signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.) His parts of repetition are told with
such detail that he seems to be reliving these moments as he tells the story.
PTSD is common with war veterans resulting in an array of side effects,
including reliving the traumatic event through recollection. In this case,
O'Brien keeps referring back to the moment his fellow soldier and friend, Curt
Lemon, triggered a booby-trap that lead to his death. This event is repeated in
his story, sometimes sporadically, because of the psychological trauma it
caused O'Brien.
O'Brien recalls Lemon’s brutal death and other horrific events with
such ease that it reflects emotional numbness, a common symptom of PTSD. Another
example of this numbness is when he describes the killing of the baby water
buffalo. In this section of the story, his fellow soldier, Bob Kiley, is trying
to cope with the death of Lemon. In order to do this, Kiley captures and shoots
away the limbs, face, and stomach of a baby water buffalo. As this is
happening, he mentions that the platoon, including himself, is watching and not
doing anything to stop Kiley from slowly killing this animal piece by piece.
The ease by which O’Brien tells these gruesome situations demonstrate the
emotional numbness he has developed towards these events.
Very nice post! I really like your point about the baby water buffalo story and how it illustrates soldiers’ numbness to violence. I myself had a bit of a hard time reading that part of the passage because it was so barbaric toward a defenseless animal, but I feel that such a reaction illustrates how war can utterly skew one’s perception of brutality when compared to noncombatants. Soldiers have an entirely different sense of violence than the average civilian because they are exposed to it so frequently. Ernie Pyle, an American war correspondent and journalist during WWII, once reported on the images of war: “Dead men by mass production — in one country after another — month after month and year after year. Dead men in winter and dead men in summer. Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they become monotonous. Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you come almost to hate them.” In class we discussed soldiers in Afghanistan becoming numb to the sight of stray dogs being shot. We also discussed that the woman that Rat Kiley wrote to probably did not respond because she was horrified at the stories he told rather than amused as Kiley had been. I feel that this aspect of how war so radically changes a person is very important for writing war stories.
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