Dominique Cain

6B Carter
AP Lit
TTTC Group 1 Questions
ESSENTIAL THEME

In fiction, truth is not a matter of fact but instead how one perceives and experiences truth.
Fact is what is accepted as the truth. Fact means conventional truth, recognized fact, majority truth,
and acknowledged fact (everyone knows that).
ESSENTIAL QUESTION

Why do people tell stories?

Telling stories are so central to the human culture as a whole, simply because its what humanity has
done for centuries. Telling stories encompasses a synergetic exchange between the person telling the
story and the taking the story in. Stories are identifiable forms and simple patterns for humans to
comprehend, and because we can identify with stories, we can find meaning through them. We use
stories to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others. Within the last
chapter (22) OBrien states that telling stories is like a form of dreaming, and as a writer when he
dreams he hopes the reader will dream with him.
RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Style: Why do you feel OBrien chose to write this book as fiction? Why does he call the book
fiction when so many of the stories seem autobiographical? What is the relationship between facts
and truths? Use specific textual support.
In Chapter 18 OBrien reminds the reader that most of the stories within the book never happened
even when the ones he seems fixated on as he repeats them over and over again throughout the novel.
Yet, each story still has a truth behind them. By creating scenarios based on facts, OBrien hopes to
make us feel how he felt. Inside the constraints of the physical actuality, the only truth that exists is
the familiarity of the experience itself, regardless of whether or not it adopts the form of nonfiction or
fiction. If people know about, understand it, or it is comprehendible, many people will accept it as the
"truth" (whatever that maybe). In truth, ones reality is what they, themselves perceive as real or as
"truth"; hence the idea that, one can only perceive their own reality.
Storytelling: Why does OBrien tell incidents several times and why are his recollections
different each time? You may want to consider how stories youve told change over time. Use
specific textual support.
Throughout the novel the reader can interpret O'Brien writing style is a constant stream of rare
recollections, and discontinuous observations that don't link with what is previously stated to the
reader. In Chapters 2 and 3 O'Brien explores the notion of how stories may lose meaning overtime
as people continue to tell them. He talks about how the process of how people remember events,
what remains in the mind, and what parts get left behind as people retell them. Each time O"Brien
retell's a previously told memory the tone, and meaning of the story changes. Much like the way
stories change based on the circumstance or person someone is speaking to. As motives for telling
the story change so does styles, feelings, gestures, phrases, and words.

Dominique Cain
6B Carter
AP Lit
TTTC Group 1 Questions
Philosophy and Personal Choice: Describe the distinction between "being braver than [one] ever
thought possible" and "not being so brave as [one] wanted to be" (153). Use specific textual
support.
In chapter 4 O'Brien provides commentary of the notion of bravery and how it changes through
experience. He states before the war he thought of bravery as "finite quantities, like an
inheritance" and it people would use it up by "stashing" it away whenever they deemed fit. He
thought bravery should be used in bits, and if it was wasted away on "little acts of daily courage",
one would not have enough to use when they really needed it. However his "theory" failed when
he must really muster up his courage. This brings the notion of 'where a person's duty lies'. Before
the war O'Brien questioned if one's duty was to their love ones, to their country, to God or their
religion. O'Brien finally decides that one's duty and courage can only be measured by themselves.
Later within the chapter O'Brien comes to the conclusion that he wasn't as brave as he wanted to
be because we joined the war, which went against his belief of that the war was wrong. However,
he was brave because he survived the war.
War: OBrien says: If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of
rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very
old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. Explain. Use specific textual support.
In chapter 7 O'Brien in a collection of insightful memories discusses the truth of war stories. He
conveys the idea that a "true war story" has little or nothing to do with what occurred in the story
but rather the moral of the story. Because the narrator can induce the listeners with whatever
feelings they deem fit by changing the way a story sounds or is told how "true" the story is doesn't
matter, but rather the if the listeners believes the story is true - if they do then the moral of the
story sticks rather than what actually occurred. For example when O'Brien romanizes Curt
Lemon's death, the reader can automatically assume that half of the story isn't true, but that
doesn't matter because the moral of the complexity of the war sticks.