Good Form: Why? Also, re:The Man I Killed
by kenny.wong ~ September 24th, 2010. Filed under: Uncategorized.I know we went into great detail about real vs. fiction etc, in regards to “Good Form”. I also know that Tim O’Brian is using a literary technique of the untrustworthy narrator, or one that is subjective, that cannot be truly trusted. And yes, I know that isn’t the point.
But then, what is really the point? O’Brian could have very well done without his small confession, and he could have written the text without telling us it didn’t happen, but it did “happen”. There has to be a point to him writing this, and not omitting it, and I think that this meaning was glossed over during class discussion.
Why did he put the effort into telling the reader that it didn’t happen, but it “happened”? He takes away slightly from the empathy and sensual imagery, telling us (blatantly) that descriptions are fictional. Why?
Also, in regards to “The Man I Killed”, I actually believe that the “man” in the title refers to the speaker, Tim, and not the man he literally killed. I mean this in a literary sense. Given that Tim does not speak whatsoever, shocked, it reminds me of the words of Jarhead which we often quoted: “A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he’s finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son’s diaper; his hands remember the rifle.” I feel as if the shock of actually killing a man killed a part of him. He is changed.
September 24th, 2010 at 11:11 am
I agree with Kenny. The “man” in the title is both the speaker and man he literally killed. The emotionally charged manner in which he imagines a life for the man proves just how shattered he is. The physical description repeated over and over again of just how disfigured the man is is indicative of the fact that the speaker just can’t completely accept or own up to what he has just done. It’s as if he tries to get past it, to accept that it HAD to happen, but every time he is almost ready to move from that spot, he remembers the gut-wrenching state the man is in. Then he repeats “his eye was the shape of a star,” which exemplifies just how disturbed he is.
September 24th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
You pose a good question, Kenny: What is the point? I think O’Brien’s writing style is exceptional; leaving me on the edge of my seat throughout the story, from cover to cover. On the other hand, this anticipation was completely frustrating (I think Sheeba will agree). Is the story real? Is it made up? Are the details fictional and the general story true, or is it all a fabricated love and war story made to teach us a lesson (the lesson being that we must LISTEN)? I personally think that this book is a nonfiction story, an almost autobiographical one, that the author wants everyone to believe is fictional so that we can revel in his cleverness and creativity. No offense, O’Brien; you are brilliant, but you are no Kafka. But I digress. Whatever the truth may be, the point of the author’s “trickery” is to show us and make us FEEL the story; feel the sensations, try to comprehend the perceptions, and look into the memories. It’s the subjective versus the objective that he wants us to see, and how language plays a key role in story-telling. He is essentially telling us a story of story-telling. Tricky, but brilliant nonetheless!
September 26th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
I agree with all of the above about how frustrating it can be to read a heartfelt tragic story that is not necessarily true, especially when it renders so much emotion from the reader. As Maja stated, it is Tim O’Brien’s objective to make the reader feel the story. Although he goes about this in a very deceptive way, I would agree that he was successful in making me empathize with him and to the best of my capability understand his experiences. He also talks about story truth and actual truth, which I found quite insightful. When you are experiencing something so dramatic, like in wartime, you sometimes will not be able to identify between actual truth and your truth from your own eyes. You sometimes let your emotions and past experiences interfere with being able to tell what the actual reality is because you are not yourself. Even though there were many other fellows soldiers with O’Brien in Vietnam, I can guarantee that no two soldiers had the same exact experience. Take Azar, for example. He acted much more carelessly and heartless with any sensitive experiences than Kiowa or O’Brien seemed to. “The Things We Carried,” is told from the eyes of the author’s experience and whether we get story truth or actual truth, the feelings and empathy that arise should not be jeopardized.
September 26th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
I think the point I’m trying to make about Good Form is being lost. My question isn’t why or why not I should be frustrated reading this, because I’m not. My question is, why tell the reader he is “not telling the truth”, when he doesn’t have to. Honestly, would you have doubted to genuineness of the accounts being told? Sure, you won’t, because the way it is being told is beyond the narrator’s scope. So, why does O’ Brian do it then?
I’m not talking about textually, when it comes to fiction I’m always trying to figure out subtext, what the author is actually “saying”. In “Good Form”, O’ Brian is definitely saying something…it almost reminds me of stream of consciousness or post modern thought. Or I could be wrong, and this is just a good book about Vietnam.
September 27th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
I think we forget that O’Brien is the author, not the narrator. There is a separation there, although we may not (want to) see it. The book is explicitly “a work of fiction” (seriously, check the second page, it’s there, right under the title). The characters, the details, even Tim O’Brien as the narrator is totally fictional. But perhaps O’Brien the author anticipated that many people would simply take his book for face value, for what they were expecting to get – war stories from Vietnam, and true ones at that, because who would lie about war? So he threw in a vignette about falsity and reality in war stories just to mess with his readers, to see how well they’ve been paying attention. Really, the fact that he as an author makes these statements in his writing (the truth is sometimes more false than something completely fabricated, I killed a man, but I didn’t really kill him, etc etc) is what makes his book all that much more interesting and multi-faceted. If he didn’t write them, we wouldn’t be here arguing about any of it; so perhaps his intention was to inspire passionate discussion and debate. Or, as Maja said, maybe he just wanted his readers to think he was really clever. The truth is, we might never know.