O'Brien's 'The Man I KIlled'

O'Brien's ' The Man I Killed ' is very descriptive and well written. Most war movies contain similar genres of action and violence, with less emphasis on individual character description. O'Brien story on the other hand, describes his characters in debt to make the war more interesting. He incorporates description to make it different from a "normal" war story. The description he uses is clear throughout the whole story, for example, "The butterfly was making its way along the young man's forehead, which was spotted with small dark freckles. The nose was undamaged. The skin on the right cheek was smooth and fine-grained and hairless. Frail-looking, delicately boned, the young man would not have wanted to be a soldier and in his heart would have feared performing badly in battle." (141) I am not familiar with war stories the way I am with war movies. After reading a war story as opposed to viewing a war movie the impact is completely different. When viewing a war movie, all the visions are present for you to see and understand. But when you are reading a war story the visions can be altered depending on the reader and how the description is interpreted. Reading a war story was easier to understand and less gory.