Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story" highlights many aspects of PTSD that affects how he presents the story to his readers. Besides his continual repetition of the story of Curt Lemon's death, I focused on another aspect of the Lemon story. While telling the story of Lemon's death, O'Brien focuses heavily on the sunlight on Lemon's face as he was thrown into the air by the land mine. He makes Lemon's death seem almost beautiful as he describes the last moments of Lemon's life. I think the description of the light encompassing Lemon's body is another manifestation of PTSD. The horror of watching another soldier, a friend, be brutally killed can definitely cause some mental repercussions. It seems like the focus on the light around Lemon is a way for O'Brien to distance himself from the horror of death. The light is beautiful compared to the brutality of Lemon's death. Though O'Brien must continually relive the death scene, it is the sunlight that probably makes the death a little easier to experience.
Another manifestation of PTSD is seen in the story of Mitchell Sanders about the group of soldiers who heard music, talking, and opera while silently listening for enemy movements. The story is so unreal and unbelievable that it hints at symptoms of PTSD. Creating stories, even if they are untrue, add to the drama of the soldier's tale. The soldier may not even remember what is real and what is fake when retelling a story. As O'Brien says, "In war you lose your sense of the definite... in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true" (O'Brien 78). By not telling stories that are true (or even real) O'Brien shows that war can make a person lose the sense of reality, through no fault of their own. Even if they do add or detract fictitious events from a story, it still shows that they are trying to create a reality that they never experienced during the war. This new reality can make the story they tell (and possibly relive in their mind) more exciting for the audience or easier to relive for the storyteller. Finally, the story of the buffalo hints at the effects of the brutality of war upon a soldier almost instantaneously. Whether Kiley actually shot the buffalo multiple times or whether it was an instantaneous kill or whether it never actually happened, the story hints at the affect of PTSD upon soldiers. O'Brien makes the story sound so brutal, probably mimicking the brutality of the war he experienced.
I really like that you brought the Mitchell Sanders story and related it to PTSD. While reading the story, that part really stood out to me and I immediately connected it with PTSD. As Sanders goes back to O'Brien and confesses that he lied about certain things, O'Brien understands because he seems to be doing the same thing. Even though it does seem very far-fetched, I can tell there is some truth to the story, and it could even be something that completely related to Sanders.
ReplyDeleteI was also particularly interested in how O'Brien puts so much focus on the sunlight on Lemon's head each time he re-tells the story. I definitely saw it as a symptom of PTSD because in a way he was avoiding the actual death of Lemon and was trying to think of Lemon's death actually being something beautiful instead of something horrible. I also noticed how at some point in the story he admits that he wishes he remembered the exact story of Lemon's death, it shows the amount of memory loss the war brought O'Brien. But it's also a little weird because he also does remember this event, even after 20 years have past. It really shows how much he's thought about this event and relived it frequently and he's very confused about the truth of his story even though he knows it happened( Lemon's death) I found the story very interesting, really showed the effects of PTSD in story-telling. -Marissa DeQueant
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