The Man I Killed and Ambush Response
In The
Man I Killed and
Ambush, O'Brien presents the same story twice, from two different perspectives. What are
these two perspectives, and why do you think O’Brien repeats the same story
twice? What is the effect of layering the narrative this way? Be specific. 300 words minimum.
Due Monday, May 8th
Post it here or email it to me if you can't post it. You will be graded for completion. I will not be accepting late work for this assignment.
O’Brien presents the story from the perspective of him as a soldier in “The Man I Killed” and from the perspective of him as a civilian and father after the war in “Ambush.” In “The Man I Killed,” he also only tells of the aftermath of his actions, whereas in “Ambush” he concretely describes the events that led up to the happenings of the first story. I think that O’Brien repeats the same story twice because it adds effect and emphasizes how important it might be to O’Brien and the book. However, he doesn’t exactly tell the same story twice. The two overlap, but each one also contains valuable details and descriptions not mentioned in the other one. For example, the first contains the descriptions of and other soldiers’ reactions to the VC boy after he was blown up by the grenade: “’Oh, man, you fuckin' trashed the fucker,’ Azar said. ‘You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like Shredded fuckin' Wheat’” (80), and “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (79). The second story, “Ambush,” contains descriptions of the preceding events, like “I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing. The grenade was to make him go away—just evaporate—and I leaned back and felt my mind go empty and then felt it fill up again. I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it” (84). Essentially, he adds suspense by kind of telling the story backwards, making the reader want to know how it happened as opposed to what happened. By repeating the same story twice and by layering it, O’Brien creates a more detailed account of what happened, and he is able to repeat things said in one in the other. This probably carries the message that he wants the reader to know exactly what he saw and exactly how he felt in the moment that he had killed the boy.
ReplyDeletePage numbers are different because I used an online version of the book.
"The Man I Killed" describes the events that occurred directly after Tim O'Brien kills his first Vietnamese soldier. He describes the mutilated body, intentionally repeating the "star-shaped hole" in his eye socket and the "slim, dead, almost dainty" remains of his body to emphasize these images. In this chapter the other soldiers comes over to the dead body and makes a joke about how if there was a dead body test this dead body would get an A+. This attempt to lighten the mood is not successful because O'Brien doesn't respond and continues to ignore Kiowa's friendly comments. In the middle of the chapter O'Brien talks about his victims backstory-- a man with little interest in the war, who aspired to be a mathematician. The story shows how O'Brien is unable to let go of what he did especially because he didn't kill a soldier, he killed a man who was about to graduate from a university and live with his wife. The perspective of this chapter is very gruesome, especially for the reader who sympathizes with O'Brien and the dead soldier and who contextualizes the guilt and cruelty of the death. The chapter "Ambush" is written as a reflection on the series of events mentioned in "The Man I Killed". O'Brien's daughter initiates his memories of the past when she asks her dad if he ever killed a man during the war. He says no although he remembers what he did very clearly, regardless of how hard he tried to suppress his memories. O'Brien has evidently suffered a lot since killing the soldier. The perspective of this chapter is reminiscent on the past and it has a negative perspective on war more so than on the act of killing. I think O'Brien chooses to reiterate "The Man I Killed" to mimic the way his action of throwing the bomb has repeatedly reappeared in his life in different ways. It also shows how one event can have such a profound impact on someone's life, regardless of time and being removed from the stressors of that event.
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DeleteIn “The Man I Killed” O’Brien presents the story through the perspective of one who is in the army or a soldier. On the other hand, “Ambush” is presented through the perspective of a veteran, father, and writer. O’Brien repeats the same story twice to create emphasis and attention. “The Man I Killed” depicts the scenery and descriptions after the bombing at the trail, whereas “Ambush” describes the story from the beginning. “Ambush” shows how the event was led up. For example, O’Brien starts with him being on guard at the ambush sit. In this chapter, it is written, “Shortly after midnight we moved into the ambush site outside My Khe….The grenade was to make him go away—just evaporate—and I leaned back and felt my head go empty and then felt it fill up again” (O’Brien 137). Also, “Ambush” uses details do describe metaphorically and figuratively how Tim felt as the Vietnamese scholar approached him. Although “The Man I Killed “mentions the effects and setting after the bombing, “Ambush” gives the resulting psychological effect on his mental health. At the end, it concludes, “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t” (O’Brien 128). Repeating this story twice shows the reader that this event is engrained in his memory and is an important part of his life. The effect of this is that the reader gets a deeper knowledge on his reactions and feelings towards the man he killed. In each chapter, there is a different emotion of feeling expressed by Tim. For example, Tim states,” And for years, despite his family’s poverty, the man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics” (O’Brien 122). This implies that there is guilt within Tim. In the next chapter, Tim writes, “In ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it, but now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man step out of the morning fog( O’Brien 128). The reoccurrence of this event shows that there was a feeling of responsibility, regret, and compulsion. Repeating the story also fills in any vagueness within the previous chapter.
ReplyDeleteIn “The man I killed” Tim O’Brien presents the story in the perspective of someone who is there, experiencing and seeing everything that just happened. He describes exactly how the body looked, as we see when he writes “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star shaped hole his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips...His rubber sandals had been blown off.” (O’Brien 118). On the other hand, in “Ambush”, Tim O’Brien tells the story from the perspective of someone who is remembering what happened. In ambush, Tim O’Brien is reflecting on his experience while telling his daughter the story of what had happened. In addition, in “Ambush”, O’Brien mostly focuses on what he did that caused the bomb to explode and kill the soldier instead of focusing on how the soldier looked after the explosion and the aftermath of the event. This is probably why O’Brien writes the story two times. The first story is talking about the aftermath and the second is talking about the events that caused the grenade to be thrown. By layering the story like this, the reader is able to connect with the event more. If Tim O’Brien would have put it all in one story, then we would have just read over it, thinking that it was just another war story. But, since he put it in two chapters, the reader can understand that this was a very important moment for O’Brien and had a very big effect on his life.
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ReplyDelete“The Man I Killed” and “Ambush” revolve around the same event: O’Brien’s killing of the Vietnamese soldier. However, the manners in which this incident is depicted vary considerably between these two chapters of The Things They Carried. “The Man I Killed” focuses on the aftermath of the young man’s death and the speculations regarding his life that are incited in O’Brien, while the actual killing is described in “Ambush”. The first chapter that delves into the death of the soldier, “The Man I Killed”, sheds light on the mentality adopted by O’Brien immediately following its occurrence. One would not be able to fully grasp the extent of O’Brien’s confusion and guilt as he examines the corpse of the young man. The chapter in its entirety is merely an in-depth description of the dead body, O’Brien’s predictions of what his victim could have turned out to be, and Kiowa’s desperate and fruitless attempts to stabilize his battalion member’s emotional state. O’Brien’s detachment from his surroundings, as he looks upon the man’s lifeless body with despair, is exemplified by Kiowa’s periodic and never-honored requests that they talk: “[...] ‘Why not talk about it?’ Then he said, ‘Come on, man, talk.’” (O’Brien 124). “Ambush” recants this story as it really happened, or how O’Brien took the individual’s life. This chapter details what the man had been doing, the physical setting in which the man died, the means by which O’Brien killed him, and other physical aspects of the soldier’s demise. In this chapter, O’Brien considers his mental state directly before and during the incident, contracting the “The Man I Killed”, which elucidates on it after the man dies. By offering two differing perspectives of O’Brien’s killing, the reader is better equipped to comprehend both O’Brien’s internal and external settings at separate time intervals: immediately before, during, and immediately after the man’s death.
Tim O’brian writes two stories about the same event to adds emphasis on the importance of the event to him. In “The man I Killed” the perspectives is from O’brian as the one killing the Vietnamese man during the war. In “Ambush” It is from O’brians perspective after the war when hes back home. In The man I killed”, Tim describes how he feels about killing the man. “He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics”. He starts to humanize the man which gives him more compassion towards him. Although he also puts examples on how others found it funny that he blew the man up. “you scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like shredded fuckin’ wheat”. This was Azir he feels no compassion towards the VC man. He starts ambush by his daughter asking if he ever killed man. He says no but explain that that he will tell her when she is older. He writes the stories to help himself get over the experiences. The purpose of rewriting the stories in different perspectives is to give the audience the whole picture. In ambush he gives us before and after he killed the man and in “ the man I killed” he mostly just explains the action of killing him. The present tense gives us his raw emotions and more gruesome details its just about that one scene of the killing. and from the past perspective he gives us a more evened out, less emotional story. By having both of them it wraps it together and gives us the full story.
ReplyDelete-Lana Peric
In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, there are two stories, “Ambush” and “The Man I Killed”. These stories are from two different points of view, but they are about the same story. The point of view for “Ambush” is coming from Tim O’Brien in the future, looking back on his life and the war. Tim O’Brien describes this time as peaceful and nice. He is looking back on his family after the war. This is important because he says that he “has never killed a man”, but in the next sentence he said “when my daughter gets older and asks me again, I will tell her the truth”. The point of view for “The Man I Killed” is coming from the same soldier, O’Brien. He talks about how traumatic it was for him when he threw the grenade at the Vietnamese man. The soldier in “The Man I Killed”, he describes the bombing as dirty and bloody. He tells us about the flies buzzing around the dead man’s head and how the man’s sandals were blasted off of his feet. The soldier tells us how he takes the Vietnamese man’s belt, sandals, and pouch of rice, so that he could use that stuff instead of letting it go to waste. Also in “The Man I Killed”, the soldier tells us about the Vietnamese man’s life, his life and his loves for math and how he wanted to become a math teacher. It’s kind of weird though because he did not know the man, he did not know his life. He is just assuming these things to make himself feels worse and humanizing him. He is giving him a back story and making his story a “true war story”, as he describes in previous chapters. In “Ambush”, the description of the killing is not as graphic as the description in the other story.
ReplyDelete-Sam Bosch
ike lobel
ReplyDelete9 krypton
by using two views of the same event Tim O'brian is able to tell the story of the kid he shot and the story of how he feels about killing the boy, this makes the reader feel more sad about the death of this kid and it also furthers the devastation that the war has brought on Tim. "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole"(O'brian 1990) this description was told in the view of tim so the reader see's what tim see's and thus experiences the gruesome nature if the war. the other story takes a different view as in it is him reflecting on his actions many years after he killed the man " I want to tell her exactly what happened, or what I remember happening" (O'brian 1990) in this story he is reflecting on it and remembers it in extreme detail, by remembering that much detail the body must have burned a image into him so he could never forget. both stories put images into the readers head but one is a reflection and the other is first person. by stating the story twice the reader learns the importance of this story.
In “The Man I Killed” O’Brien presents the story from the perspective of himself in the war fighting as a soldier in the Vietnam War. In “Ambush," on the other hand, he presents the story from the perspective of himself more than twenty years after the war, looking back and recounting the event. Both stories are centered around the same event, which is when O'Brien kills a young Vietnamese soldier, and at points they do overlap, but he tells it twice because each one has certain bits of important information that the other does not have.. The first story, "The Man I Killed," goes more into detail of what happens after the death. For example, it describes his appearance, as O'Brien says, "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole," (120) and it shows how the soldiers react to his appearance, as he writes, "'Oh, man, you fuckin' trashed the fucker,’ Azar said. ‘You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like Shredded fuckin' Wheat’” (119). In this story, O'Brien also speculates about the life of this dead soldier, almost profiling him in a way. While "The Man I Killed" describes the aftermath, "Ambush" describes the beginning. He tells about what led up to the bombing, writing, "Shortly after midnight we moved into the ambush site outside My Khe," (125) and, "The grenade was to make him go away—just evaporate—and I leaned back and felt my mind go empty and then felt it fill up again. I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it" (127). O'Brien essentially tells the story backwards. In doing this, he makes the reader wonder about why the action occurred in the place, and it builds up a sense of suspense. Also, by telling it twice, he provides a more detailed account of the story.
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ReplyDeleteIn “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush”, O’Brien tells the story of the first person he killed in the war. In “The Man I Killed”, O’Brien does not tell the events of the killing, or what led up to it, but rather only shows the aftermath of the event. In this story, O’Brien projects a backstory onto the man that he killed, and in doing so he humanizes the Viet Cong, and reminds the reader that those soldiers were people too, just like our own soldiers. This story contains vivid descriptions of the aftermath, as well as the reactions of the soldiers around him, such as Azar’s expletive- riddled response upon seeing the corpse of the VC soldier. Azar’s casual response showcases a detached and nearly sadistic mindset that was prevalent in many soldiers when it came to death in the war. It seems to be the only way for them to bear with the gruesome images and events that stay with them for the rest of their lives. Kiowa attempts to reassure O’Brien that what he did was justified, and while that is the case, this does nothing to reassure O’Brien. “Ambush” is from the perspective of O’Brien as a veteran of the war, long after the end of the war. This story describes the events that lead up to him killing the VC soldier, and descriptions of those events. The story is repeated in this way to emphasize to the reader just how emotionally scarring it was for O’Brien to take a human life, even if his own was directly in danger. It still haunts him long after the war, and despite knowing nothing about the man that he killed, he projects a life story onto the dead man. It reminds the reader of the hellish and traumatic nature of war, and the sense that no matter if you win or lose the fight, it will leave you with scars, both literal and metaphorical, that may never heal.
ReplyDelete-Cassin
In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, He writes two stories called The Man I killed and Ambush. Both stories present the same situation twice but from two different perspectives. O’Brien does this to show emphasis on the importance of the event to him. In The Man I killed, the perspective he shows is killing a Vietnam soldier from the spot during the war. In Ambush, it is O’Brien’s point of view when he’s back home from the war. In The Man I killed he talks about how he feels about killing the man. He says how “He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics”. He then starts civilize the man which gives O’Brien more compassion to the man. He also talked about how others thought it was funny with the way he killed the man. He blew the man up. O”Brien states, “Look… you laid him out like shredded f****** wheat”. A soldier who said this named Azir has no compassion towards the Vietnam soldier. In Ambush, the point of view is from O’Brien in the future from the war. His daughter asked him if he’s ever killed someone and he said that he didn’t but if she ever asks again then he’ll tell her the truth. The general purpose of retelling the story but in different points of views is to show the readers the whole plot of the story. The Man I killed gives the actual details and action of killing the man. Ambush just gives us the sense of before and after the experience of killing the man. Also in the The Man I killed, he gives us more gore details. The future tense just gives us more details. Both help us understand the true story.
ReplyDelete-Sascha Newman
In Tim O’ Brien’s novel “The Things They Carried”, he vividly describes main character Tim O’ Brien’s, experience killing a person in the war. O’ Brien dedicates two chapters to this traumatic experience, writing from two different perspectives. In both stories, the point of view remains the same, but the perspectives shift from O’ Brien’s victim, to O’ Brien himself. In the chapter “The Man I Killed”, the story is told with details of the victim’s life and outside surroundings of the scene. O’ Brien introduces the story writing from his man character’s point of view, describing the scene. He repeats the appearance of his eye “his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star shaped hole” to exaggerate the grotesque images that can stay with a human throughout the war. Then, O’ Brien begins to depict a life for his victim. He describes his family, where he lives, his education, and inner thoughts. This acts as a coping mechanism for the main character. O’ Brien using his imagination to build a life and empathize with his victim gives him closure in killing a man. In this story, he also includes dialogue in order to justify he is aware of his surroundings, but is drawn and distant from them because of his focus on the victim. In his second story, “Ambush” O’ Brien writes and tells the story from his personal encounter with the victim. He uses vivid imagery to describe the incident, along with his personal thoughts about it. He writes “I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty.” He includes his thoughts and images that he viewed in the very moment, along with reflections of the war story. The two perspectives contribute to the literary technique of imagery, which exaggerates the long term effects of war flashbacks. It also allows the reader to sympathize with the characters.
ReplyDelete-Sofia K
In my opinion, the man in “The Man I Killed” and the man in “Ambush” are two different men. In “The Man I Killed”, I see a soldier who was just acting based on reflexes whereas in “Ambush”, I see a father, who is trying to figure out if the story, that came about based on reflexes, is really best to be sharing with his daughter. “The Man I Killed” is the story from after the man died and “Ambush” is the story from the mere beginning. O’Brien repeats the story to show the difference 20 years can have on someone that has been through a war and has killed someone. I also think he repeats it because it’s the way he copes with killing someone and just being in a war itself. I wouldn’t say it’s the same story though. There are some features that aline with each other but I feel as though there are two different stories. “The Man I Killed” contains some pretty gruesome stuff such as, “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was damaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear,.............the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips…….”(O’Brien 118). “Ambush” has more “sincere” things such as “I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified….. It occurred to me then that he was about to die. I wanted to warn him”(O’Brien 127). By telling the “same story” twice, it makes us as readers really think and try to understand why O’Brien would do what he did, in telling the story similarly but differently and not doing it in the same way we’d normal think it’d be. That way being the what came before the Vietnamese man approached first and then explaining what happened after. It’s sort of a cliffhanger and it also leaves us with a lot of questions.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Tim O'Brien tells the same story twice to show his emotional appeal. He's contradicted. In "Ambush", O'Brien talks about how he tries to forgive himself. He starts out with a quote from his daughter, Kathleen, because she asks her father if he's ever killed anyone. He says how it was hard for him to answer. She mentions how O'Brien keeps writing war stories. He keeps writing them because he killed someone. "Ambush" has more emotional appeal. He says at the end that he still tries to forgive himself and sort of forget that he had probably ruined someone's life (128). He also says that he sees the "ghost of the boy on page 128. He also describes how the boy he killed died, which he did not touch on in "The Man I Killed." Though, in "The Man I Killed", he describes how the dead dude looked, and how it appealed to him. O'Brien even describes what he looked like twice or more. Kiowa tries to understand why O'Brien is sad because of the death of the man, but fails miserably and admits he doesn't understand. Furthermore, O'Brien tells the story twice to show how he felt at the time and how he feels after the man's death.
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