Analysis of How To Tell a True War Story Essay

How to Tell a True War Story

The essence of a true war story can strike beautiful and dark feelings of despair and triumph in the pit of ones soul. The beauty comes from the detail and the reality of the images hitting your mind like a bullet hitting another bullet in mid flight. The darkness comes from the realization of the gut retching truth in the story. All aspects come together in Tim OBriens How to Tell a War Story.

Tim OBrien writes his short story How to Tell a War Story in 1990, giving him plenty of time to reflect on his past experiences in Vietnam fighting alongside his buddies. The author has compiles some of own personal stories of the field, telling them in first person. He uses other soul dredging stories from his friends creating a deep sense of despair. The author never strays from the purpose of his story. He uses the stories in his short story as an examplealmost like a template to show his point of the importance of telling a true war storyto show the true depth of the event. He uses his friends stories in the field, telling them in 3rd person as if he were right next to the reader listening to them for the very first time. This creates many main characters that each have individual traits that come out in their stories. The one most sympathized with is a character named Bob Kiley, but everyone called him Rat. In his story, he loses his best friend to a booby trap in the mountains of Vietnam. He writes a letter to Rats girlfriend telling her all the great things about Curt Lemon (Rats best friend that died). He spills his heart out writing this letter, coming close to tears. He loved Curt like a brother. The girlfriend never writes him back. The main plot line of the story follows this mans experience in the field as he watched his friend die right in front of his eyes. While Rat Kiley tells OBrien his emotional story, OBrien breaks off into paragraphs trying to explain the aspects of Rats story. He does this throughout the reading giving the reader a very rare insight into the makings and compiling of such a tragic story. He brings all of the influences and elements of a war story and puts them on the table to be analyzed. He tries to find the truth of each story, and sometimes realizes that the truth of the story doesnt really matter at all. Its the impact on ones life and the listener has to decide whether or not its true.

The tone of How to Tell a War Story is set out to be dark and sad from the first couple lines of the story. It starts out with a true story of a soldiers best friend dying. This first tone resonates throughout the entire story. Tim OBrien does a great job of using details in his story to create wonderful and terrifying images of life, death, grief, and pain. He uses symbols throughout his story like a baby water buffalo that represents the brutality of war. The author does a remarkable job of capturing the pure essence of each story. In-between each heart retching story he explains the elements and faults of the war story in general. He explains that truth in war is only what the story teller can perceive and that the aspects of the story conclude into one whole as the story teller visions it. Catherine Dybiec Holm (a published writer and editor with a masters degree in natural resources) says The elusive nature of truth and reality in war is made clear in OBriens How to Tell a True War Story.

The main theme of this story can only be describes as the seeking of truth and the use of imagination in stories. Diane Andrews Henningfield (an associate professor teaching literature and writing at Adrian College) nailed it right on the head when she said, As many critics have suggested, OBriens work is more about the quest for truth, the use of the imagination in telling the truth, and the art of storytelling in creating the truth than it is about the Vietnam War. All the elements in OBriens writings in this story come back to the theme of finding truth and relevance in the war stories. He uses the cultural relevance of the controversial Vietnam War to analyze the effects on the story tellers when they explain their views. He adds up all the details and personal accounts to compile a realistic image of the moral, truth, and reality of each story.

OBrien has done in this story what few have been able to accomplish. He has found the truth in a story with no truth at all. He has found messages in a story that was even the story teller didnt know existed. He has found the meaning of a war story by looking into the soul of those who were there.