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Soldiers Home and How to Tell a True War Story are short stories written about the wars. In the Soldiers House, Hemingway narrates the time after the First World War, and OBrien connects the events with the Vietnam War. In a comparison of OBriens description of war with Hemingway, it can be noticed that they have a lot in common. OBrien sometimes uses postmodernism, interspersed with almost poetic fragments built on repetitions. In both analyzed works, the topic of the soldier life consequences for men and their perception of reality is raised.
Another common element used in the stories is exaggeration. It is used to increase the expressiveness of speech, the ability to concentrate on a certain object (Meyer and Miller). For example, OBrien uses hyperbolic expressions, even the initial phrase This is all true is later refuted, but attracts the readers attention. Another example is the reaction, when Rat does not receive an answer for his letter: The dumb cooze never writes back (OBrien para. 7). In Hemingways story, the narrative is conducted on the third side, but the main character of the soldier is prone to exaggeration. His lies were quite unimportant lies and consisted in attributing to himself things other men had seen, done or heard of, and stating as facts certain apocryphal incidents familiar to all soldiers (Hemingway para. 5). They used this technique to draw attention, and emphasize contrasts the horrors of war and ideas about it, peaceful and military life.
However, where Hemingway has the absurdity of war adjacent to triumphant masculinity, OBrien does not have any in his memory it also becomes absurd and carries absolutely nothing but bewilderment, pain, and destruction. Almost every stereotypical male act ends in shame and self-dissatisfaction. Burned after the senseless death of a comrade, a village with civilians is not at all the triumph of the winner, who showed to the enemy their own power. It is the senseless anger of a cruel child who understands that he is wrong, but does not want to restrain himself. A nose broken in a fight is not a reason for pride, but a paranoid expectation of revenge from someone to whom the nose was broken.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. Soldiers Home. So Many Books, 2020. Web.
Meyer, Michael and D. Quentin Miller. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 12th ed., Bedford/St. Martins, 2019.
OBrien, Tim. How to Tell a True War Story. North Dakota State University, 2020. Web.
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