Reading #11, Question #2

[Ralph Recto]

In other stories (specifically, In the Field and Good Form), O'Brien
argues that story-truth sometimes tells war experiences more
truthfully than happening-truth. Do you think this is the same case in
remembering people who have passed away, or does it detract from the
real life that they lived?

[Emily Richards]

That's a good question, Ralph. I personally think that in the case of
remembering the dead, telling story-truth does take away from the real-
truth. While O'Brien thinks that by telling the story-truth provides
more emotion than the real-truth, I think that it changes the person
to the point where the audience doesn't understand who the person
really was. We don't see the person they truly were, and in a way,
O'Brien refuses to see that as well because he changes the person,
even after they are dead. I also believe that it takes away from the
life they lived because while the soldiers should be honoring the
dead, they are making jokes and making up stories, refusing to accept
the death of their close friends and the people they really were.
Instead of focusing on the life they lived, O'Brien wants to focus on
the life he creates after they died, making them into the person he
wishes they were. He would probably disagree with this statement
because I think he found death too real to accept, so he creates ideas
and stories to keep the dead alive. He says, "'Maybe it's too real for
you [Tim]?' 'That's right,' I said. 'Way too real'" (O'Brien 214). By
creating story-truth for his dead friends, he never truly accepts
their death, and I think that detracts from the lives they lived
because O'Brien can never really honor their true lives without
altering their story, although for him it was too hard to accept as it
happened.

[Lakey]

That's a really good question Ralph. Personally, I would rather
remember real stories of a person's life after their death. It gives
the truth about that person imparticular. If one made up stories
about someone, then it would detract from the person's real life. I
could not bring myself to believe made up stories about someone,
because deep down I would know that they aren't true. O'Brien
remembers how he, "willed her [Linda] alive" (O'Brien 225). He tells
us, "I inveneted my own dreams" (O'Brien 230). This is in some ways a
good way to remember a person, thinking about them a lot and never
forgetting who they were to you, but also he put her in stories that
never happened and changed her, therefore forgetting who she really
was. Remembering people who have passed away by making up stories
about them makes one think of them differently, therefore forgetting
who they really were. In this way story-truth detracts from a
person's real life.

On Feb 27, 1:40 am, Emily Richards <emilynicholericha...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > real life that they lived?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Moria]

Lakey and Emily, you two make great points, but I disagree.

While it is important to remember people and events exactly as they
happened and how they lived, it is more important to remember what you
thought of them and to remember things they way you saw them in your
mind. It did not matter to Tim exactly what happened with his friend
Linda, he often focused on events that he wished could have happened
and imagining times that she would talk to him, even after she died.
"In a story I can steal her soul. I can revive, at least briefly, that
which is absolute and unchanging. In a story, miracles can
happen" (O'Brien 224). Through stories, O'Brien could make things
happen that never would. He often imagined Linda comforting him about
her death. And although rarely any of the events he discusses
happened, they were real to him. And they are what he chose to
remember Linda by.

On Feb 25, 8:43 pm, Ralph Recto <recto.ra...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Rosemary]

I agree with Moria. I think O'Brien imagines more moments with Linda
because he wants to spend more time with her and he wants comfort. I
do think this affects the reality of her life, but, for O'Brien, it's
necessary to help him move on. His fellow soldiers did the same with
the men who died. Their stories about the dead may have varied, but
the differences were caused by the different ways each man coped with
their grief. The men made their stories so convincing that "you'd
never know that Curt Lemon was dead" (227). Their stories did take
away from the person's real life, but I think for the soldiers it was
necessary to their sanity that they convince themselves the person
wasn't really dead.

[Austen Stevens]

A very thought-provoking question, Ralph- I have to agree with Moria
in thinking that the lives of the dead, or more importantly our
efforts to remember them and keep them alive in our thoughts, do not
necessarily require that the events imagined actually happened. While
remembering actual instances and events is comforting in the act of
remembering the individual, sometimes just remembering the feelings
that were experienced when with these people, and channeling those
feelings into stories, can provide that same comfort to us, a means of
bringing that person back to life. As O'Brien states in the novel,
when he is making an effort to keep Linda alive in his imagination,
"if I tried to explain it, or even talk about it, the thrill and
mystery would be gone. I didn't want to lose Linda" (O'Brien 231).
Through his composition of stories, O'Brien says "as a writer now, I
want to save Linda's life. Not her body- her life" (O'Brien 223). This
feeling of attachment varies from person to person, but the goal is
the same- retain the images, thoughts, and feelings/emotions
associated with those passed in order to "bring them back," to
preserve the individuals' effects on us. We seek to save this link
that once existed, not necessarily by reliving what happened, but by
taking those associated factors and creating for ourselves a
perception of what could happen, and of who those people really are to
us.

[Kelly Candeto]

Good question, Ralph! I believe that O'Brien's story-truth and
happening-truth don't just apply when he's telling a war story. He
applies story-truth to many of his memories and it seems to have just
become a part of his life to make up stories about people. I believe
he does it for Linda and all of his fellow soldiers that died during
the war as a way of remembering who they really were. He dreams of
situations and imagines how his departed friends or acquaintances
would react in them. I believe that it is only a way for him to keep
them alive in his mind, and not meant to detract from the real
memories of them. "That's what a story does. The bodies are animated.
You make the dead talk" (O'Brien 219). O'Brien's stories and made-up
memories of his friends are only a way for him to let them continue to
live on. While sometimes he does get confused between what actually
happened and what he believes to have happened, i don't think the
story-truth that he tells about the departed detracts, or is meant to
detract, from the reality what they really did do in their lives