Show:
Characters
What Short Story Has This Plot?
Who Am I?
Literary Terms
Vocabulary
100
The platoon leader. He is obsessed with a young woman back home, Martha (who does not return his feelings)
Who is Lt. Jimmy Cross
100
We are privy to a conversation between Cross and O’Brien, reminiscing about the war and about Martha. O’Brien asks if he can write a story about Cross, detailing his memories and hopes for the future; Cross agrees, thinking that perhaps Martha will read it and come find him
What is Love
100
"You just don't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don't know… Sometimes I want to eat this place. […] That's how I feel. It's like this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I'm out at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark—I'm on fire almost—I'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can't feel like that anywhere else."
Who is Mary Anne Bell
100
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
What is hyperbole
100
perceptible by touch
What is tangible
200
A soldier who O'Brien says attempted to save Kiowa the night he died, After the war he briefly assists O'Brien in writing a story about Vietnam, but he hangs himself with a jump rope in an Iowa YMCA facility, leaving no note
Who is Norman Bowker
200
O’Brien gets drafted straight out of college. He is reluctant to go to war and considers fleeing the draft; he even goes so far as to make his way toward the Canada–US border. Near the border, he encounters an elderly stranger who allows him to work through his internal struggle. O’Brien is given the opportunity to escape; however, the societal pressures are too much for him. He then goes to war ashamed with his inability to face the consequences of leaving.
What is On the Rainy River
200
Who's the blank in this? - "A while later, when we moved out of the hamlet, she was still dancing. "Probably some weird ritual,"___ said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance"
Who is Azar
200
a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing
What is euphemism
200
devoutly religious
What is pious
300
Devout Baptist and a Native American that occasionally feels contempt and distrust towards white people, killed when camping out in the "shitfield."
Who is Kiowa
300
After finishing the story, “In the Field,” O’Brien says, he and his ten-year-old daughter visit the site of Kiowa’s death with an interpreter. The field looks different from his memory of it, but he leaves a pair of Kiowa’s moccasins in the spot where he believes Kiowa sank. In this way, he comes to terms with his friend’s death
What is Field Trip
300
All about hyperbole. Lying, for him, isn't about lying, it's about improving the truth
Who is Rat Kiley
300
make a systematic list of (items of the same type)
What is cataloguing
300
extreme patriotism
What is jingoism
400
He dies from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He is notorious for using tranquilizers to cope with the pain of war
Who is Ted Lavender
400
O’Brien passes on the legendary (and almost certainly exaggerated) tale of Rat Kiley’s first assignment, near a river called this. The area being so isolated, the story goes, one of the soldiers flies his hometown girlfriend in by helicopter. At first, she cooks, cleans, and tends to the soldiers’ wounds but gradually, she assimilates into Vietnamese guerilla culture and disappears into the jungle
What is Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
400
“I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.”
Who is Tim O'Brien
400
comic style that makes light of themes that are generally considered serious or taboo
What is black humor
400
the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions
What is catharsis
500
Tim's daughter, an observer to O'Brien's stories
Who is Kathleen
500
O’Brien uses examples of tales from his fellow soldiers to illustrate the fact that truth is a delicate and malleable thing when it comes to telling war stories. After all, anything can be faked... but generally, only the worst events can be proven real. He concludes that in the end, the truth of a story doesn’t matter so much as what the story is trying to say
What is How to Tell a True War Story
500
He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole
Who is The Man Tim O'Brien Killed
500
elements in a literary work using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humor
What is wit
500
the faculty or power of using one's will
What is volition