HOW TO TELL A TRUE WAR STORY

How To Tell A True War Story By Tim O'Brien

How To Tell A True War Story By Tim O'Brien

Introduction

The name of Tim O'Brien's short piece of writing "How to Tell a True War Story" is a pun. On one hand, O'Brien is inquiring how a listener can differentiate if a piece of writing is a factual retelling of events; on the other he summaries "how to tell" a conflict story. The significance of the name counts on the reader's position: If hearing to a conflict piece of writing, the name proposes, O'Brien will assist you to recognise if the piece of writing is real; if telling a conflict piece of writing, the name suggests that O'Brien will display you how to narrate a piece of writing well. The name, although, withstands paradigmatic balance. In other phrases, the book reader is drawn into the function of storyteller as O'Brien works to untangle the connection between detail and fiction.

Characters and Theme

O'Brien's phrase play in the name hinges on the delineation of "true," a phrase he values alternately all through the piece of writing to signify either factually unquestionable, or certain thing higher and nobler (O'Brien, 1991). He does this through three embedded narratives: Mitchell Sanders's narration of Curt Lemon's death; the narrator's recount of hearing Sanders's story; and Tim O'Brien's commentary on how to notify a factual conflict story. Each narrator assertions his piece of writing is an authentic retelling of happenings as they appeared in Vietnam, claiming the historicity of their narratives. For demonstration, Sanders inserts his piece of writing by asserting it is "God's truth" (O'Brien, 1991, p.79). Then he occassionally cuts off the piece of writing exclaiming its veracity: "This next part [...] you won't accept as factual [...]. You won't. And you understand why? [...] Because it happened. Because every phrase is wholeheartedly dead-on true" (O'Brien, 1991, p.81). Similarly, in the second embedded narration, the narrator endeavours to assure the book reader that he was in Vietnam hearing to Sanders's piece of writing firsthand when he blatantly states, "I learned this one, for demonstration, from Mitchell Sanders" (O'Brien, 1991, p.79). He extends by recalling where he learned the piece of writing, how evening gradually dropped, the confines of a muddy foxhole, and the garbling of a close by stream, and concludes, "The event was right for a good story" (O'Brien, 1991, p.79). The narrator frequently states "I remember" all through the route to propose farther that he really recalls Sanders telling the story. In the third narrative, Tim O'Brien recognises how he narrates the episode to an audience. He states, "I'll image Rat Kiley's face, his grief," for example, hinting that he was present at Lemon's death (O'Brien, 1991, p.90). In supplement, he states that whereas he may have distorted the minutia somewhat, "it occurred in this little town on the Batangan Peninsula [...]" (O'Brien, 1991, p.91). Tim O'Brien proposes here that he may have fictionalized past events; even as an eyewitness ...