Anyelina Brito Gonzalez

What are some of the tools OBrien uses as a writer to make the reader feel the
immediacy and reality of the war? How does he work with tension?

It is important to start saying that the changes that Tim O'Brien establishes in the
narrator's voices make readers confused because it is difficult to differentiate what is
real and what is not. One of the main techniques that the author of this novel uses to
portray the reality of the war are the changes between the narrative voices. The novel
starts with a third person narrator that narrates several experiences and facts about some
soldiers during the Vietnam war. All of a sudden, in the following chapter, the narrator's
voice changes to first person narrator: it is a character who also appears in the first story
but who was not named, O'Brien. This first person narrator is almost like a witness, not
an active character like the other soldiers.
O'Brien eventually uses the omniscient third person narrator to reflect the feelings of
pain and guilt (for example when he blames himself for Kiowa's death) with a very
convincible tone that gets us into the battlefield and the character's minds. He works
very well with the manipulative and emotional tone showing the readers that he is very
familiar and close to the war. These characteristics can be seen when O'Brien is telling
some stories confidently. The author proves that he understands this subject in a very
deeply manner.
Tim O'Brien's character in the novel is the one who is always listening to
everyone's stories but the reader do not get to know a lot about his personality. He
notices many details like how the light moves in the trees, the beauty of napalm, etc.
This means that Tim, the soldier who fought in Vietnam, is not a real person. He is a
fictional character. But although it seems that it is better that the main character could
be a real person to increase the realism, being invented adds more veracity to the war's
storytelling. When O'Brien says that real war "It's about love and memory. It's about
sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen. (How to
Tell a True War Story.106)", he really shows the readers that this book is not about
heroic actions, war tactics or tension; it is a book about moments of terror, fear,
boredom, desperation to see their families again and survival. It is not possible to
generalize about what war is because war encloses lots of situations and stories. That is
the truth of story.