William Timothy O’Briens Novels :: William Timothy OBrien Essays

William Timothy O’Brien's Novels William Timothy O’Brien has written many stories during his lifetime. The first of which he wrote when he was nine years old. "Timmy of the Little League" was an autobiography of a youngster involved in sports (Myers, 143). As Tim was growing up, he took a break from writing. He began again while serving in the Vietnam war. When he began writing again, he quickly readapted to an autobiographical style of writing. These wartime stories are what has made O’Brien one of the leading writers today. His style is often compared to other factfiction writers; such as Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner (Myers, 144). It is said by critics that O’Brien uses a lot of the same plot ideas as used by these other famous wartime authors. Even though similar plots are used, O’Brien uses his own experiences to make the stories realistic and inspirational. The same basic themes runs throughout all of O’Brien’s stories. According to Thomas Myers, all of O’Brien’s work contains these basic principles: "the continual interplay of fact and imagination in fiction and in life; the compulsive, absurd, noble quest for human truth; the difficulty in defining and obtaining the elusive quality of courage; and ongoing human need for fragile, made up, explanatory device we call story." With all of these elements together Tim is trying to write stories that fill his description that "War stories aren’t about war-they are about the human heart at war." While serving in the South China Sea, O’Brien wrote poetry and short vignettes about what he was experiencing. After returning from his Vietnam tour-of-duty, O’Brien wrote If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. This autobiography is an account of a soldier facing death and searching for courage. O’Brien "offers a particular version of himself who is both a participant telling one man’s story and a symbolic emissary of his culture who exchanges traditional and pop culture myth for hard-earned knowledge of personal transgression and historical experience."(Oates, 438) O’Brien wrote about searching for personal courage while fighting a war he did not believe in. He also touches on the fear he faced as he grew from a naive young boy into a war-torn man. Some of the poetry and vignettes O’Brien wrote during the war show up in If I Die in a Combat Zone." O’Brien wrote this novel to help tell the public about the real horrors and fears that go along with war. This and the rest of O’Brien’s novels are used to show Americans the falsehood of the idea that war is glamorous. The same themes shows up in O’Brien’s second book.