How To Tell a True War Story?

A detailed Summary of How To Tell a True War Story?

Tim O'Brien's short story "How to Tell a True War Story" is his fictional depiction of one of the narrator's experiences in the Vietnam War. This first person account of a tragic death of a friend is the example that the author uses to prove his theme of the impossibility of being able to actually express a true war story. By writing many separate narratives and then connecting them with a common theme, O'Brien uses an interesting literary technique to prove his point. It is the many retellings of the same basic event that gradually portray how difficult it is to write a war story and manage to express all that it contains. Interjected with each retelling are paragraphs describing what war stories are like and each additional section also proves the same point that telling a true war story is impossible.

The plot line of the text is difficult to follow due to the scattered and separate sections included, but when carefully analyzed still conforms to the basic pattern of most literary works. The basic needed information was given in the beginning, by describing the strong friendship between Rat Kiley and Curt Lemon through Rat's letter to the late Lemon's sister. It starts at the end of the

After many recreations of the same story and many attempts at describing war stories in general, O'Brien has to finally come to the conclusion that it is impossible to tell a true war story. His ironic title and tremendous effort of the narrator to avoid this fate are not enough to prevent the fact that it is completely hopeless to even try to explain every aspect of a true story. O'Brien's creative literary technique is a very strategic way of subtly proving his theme in an fascinating way and with each of his attempts at writing the story, his point is even more greatly strengthened.

Then the last aspect of the work is a short denouement as the narrator brings the story back into the present and describes how an elderly lady reacts to the story when she hears it. O'Brien makes a final reflection, "in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war" (467), meaning that there are so many aspects of war stories that it is impossible to characterize what they all mean. Each story reflects back on life from the simplest issues of "sisters who never write back" (468) to the most complicated ones "love and memory" (468).

Finally, the turning point is reached when the narrator realizes that he can't get the story quite right and it will never really be entirely true. His last description of the event was his climax because in it the speaker says, "if I could somehow recreate the fatal whiteness of that light... the obvious cause

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Approximate Word count = 979
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels