Codes in How to Tell a True War Story Essay

Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” is from his novel of collected interrelated stories titled “The Things They Carried” (1990). O’Brien uses his own Vietnam War experiences to create grotesque and beautiful scenes and events. With the help of Roland Barthes’ narrative codes, O’Brien lucidly illustrates a clear picture of events to provide the reader the feeling of being there. O’Brien’s skilled writing abilities provide detail throughout this piece, however, the use of the cultural, connotative, and antithetical codes dominates the text.

Cultural codes are a broad, thematic approach to descriptive writing in literature. In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien compares war to hell. While O’Brien does not suggest the religious and cultural meaning of hell, he uses it to create the connotation of the gloomy, dark, and scary side of war. In contrast, O’Brien recounts the bomb blast on page 619 as a kind of illumination as “Sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree”. While the readers know that sunlight did not come from under the man’s feet and blast him into the tree, instead it is used in a spiritual way as if the light of heaven is taking him and raising him up in the sky. The use of the cultural code connects the reader to the death of the soldier.

Some uses of codes are not as easy to spot as others. O’Brien uses the connotative code in this short piece so skillfully and precisely to really give an excellent feeling and tone to the imagery of the story. The Connotative codes deal with the secondary meaning, suggestion, and implications of words and phrases. On page 622 the statement “I can’t believe it with my stomach” is made. Using the connotative code to decipher that phrase, one can see that the narrator does not believe what was just told to him as his “stomach” is his gut instinct that is telling him not to believe it.

The antithetical codes in “How to Tell a True War Story” are expressed through verbal ironies. O’Brien groups opposing words, ideas, images, and even characters to show war’s contradictions. In O’Brien’s description on page 623 he goes on about the effects war has on emotions by saying, “war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” As O’Brien writes this the reader can sense all the emotions that one can go through while in war, showcased with the use of the antithetical codes. O’Brien also demonstrates antithetical codes, too, on page 624 while explaining how one’s feelings change once in war. Things the soldiers to believe in now twist into something else. On page 624 O’Brien writes, “The old rules are no longer binding, the old truths no longer true. Right spills into wrong. Order blends with chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery.” One of the codes here may throw the reader off a bit. They all seem to make sense except “ugliness into beauty”. O’Brien is saying that things one used to think as horrible and disgusting before war may now see as beautiful and good. For example, killing of another man outside of war is thought as horrible and unjust. But, if it’s the soldier’s life or a countryman’s life on the line than the portrayal of killing is looked at as heroic and brave.

To be able to recognize Roland Barthes’ narrative codes correctly, one must have a good understanding of the codes. As a Harvard grad and Vietnam War veteran, he was able to write and describe the Vietnam War in ways that no one else has ever been able to do. Thanks in part to O’Briens use of beautifully incorporating the narrative codes throughout his writings.