Tim O'Brien, "How to Tell a True War Story," and:

• Annie Dillard, "The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure"
• Jon Gertner, "The Futile Pursuit of Happiness"
• Jon Krakauer, "Selections from Into the Wild"

O'Brien and Dillard: I Know This Much is True

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed.

Tim O'Brien, How to Tell a True War Story , p. 389

It is all a stage – we know this – a temporary stage on top of many layers of stages, but every year a new crop of sand, grass and tree leaves freshens the set and perfects the illusion that ours is the new and urgent world.

Annie Dillard, The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure , p. 125

Both Annie Dillard's essay and Tim O'Brien's story suggest that we cannot understand the worlds in which we live by merely looking at facts; facts are less important than our ‘angles of vision' in helping us to understand how to live and how to function in the world. For this paper, I'd like you to consider if or when facts become irrelevant in the construction of our own narratives, the stories that we tell to make our lives make sense. Please develop a project that considers how truth, illusion and subjectivity interact in the construction of the narrative of our lives.

Your paper should respond to Dillard's essay and O'Brien's story in thoughtful, original and ‘connective' ways.

Other, related questions, to help your thinking:

•  What is the relationship between truth and fact?

•  When are facts and truth less important than other things?

•  What are they less important than?

•  Why are facts important and unimportant? What else counts?

•  How much fact do we need to get at the truth?

•  Why is truth and fact sometimes unimportant when compared to the illusions we create in order to live?

•  How do we use truth and fact to help us to live?

•  How might truth hinder us?

Heather Robinson, Fall 2005

O'Brien & Gertner: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

In the first paper, you explored the social consequences of eliminating “forecasting errors” from individuals’ experiences. At first glance, the essays by Gertner and O’Brien are radically different, both in the writing styles they employ and in their subject matter. How can we bring these texts into dialogue with one another? For this next assignment, I would like you to consider how O’Brien’s ideas about the messy concept of “truth” might change the way we think about the ideas Gertner’s essay presents. Both authors explore the relationship between an individual and the community to which he or she belongs, and both place special emphasis on the role perception plays in our individual and collective experiences.

 Assignment Question:

In what ways might O’Brien’s notion of truth alter the pursuit of happiness that Gertner discusses?

 In developing your position on the main assignment question, you may wish to consider the following questions, but you are not required to answer them in your essay:

• What are the specific words or phrases O’Brien uses to define “a true war story”? Does he ultimately settle on a comprehensive definition of truth, or does that definition remain elusive? What do you make of this?

• The issue of perception seems important to both O’Brien and Gertner. Why, and in what specific ways, does individual human perception matter for each author? What roles do our perceptions play in our actions and in how we experience things?

• The researchers in Gertner’s article refer to forecasting errors that may (or may not) render the pursuit of happiness a futile one, while O’Brien questions whether it is futile to try to achieve “truth” in narrative. According to these two texts (not merely your personal opinion), are happiness and true stories ultimately illusions?

Jenna Lewis, Fall 2005

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O'Brien & Krakauer: Truth?

Both Jon Krakauer and Tim O’Brien, in the assigned readings, stress the importance of trying to arrive at the truth of what happened to their central characters. In “Selections from Into the Wild,” Krakauer does a great deal of investigation in his attempt to determine the truth about why Chris McCandless felt the need to escape into the Alaskan wilderness, and why he died in the endeavor. Similarly, although “How to Tell a True War Story,” is actually a work of fiction, Tim O’Brien stresses repeatedly that he is seeking to arrive at the truth about what happened to him and his fellow soldiers during the Viet Nam War.

How do you define and understand the “truth”, in light of the truth that both Krakauer and O’Brien are trying to arrive at in their work? Does it mean the same thing to you as it does to either or both authors? Do you feel that one of them is more successful than the other in his attempt to arrive at the truth? Why or why not?

Mary-Jane Oltarzewski, Fall 2005

For more assignment ideas involving this essay, please visit the O'Brien link-o-mat.

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