Irony in Tim O’Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story Essay -- How to Te

Irony in Tim OBriens How to Tell a current War StoryThis is true. (OBrien, 420) with this simple statement which also represents a first, three-word for contendd paragraph to Tim OBriens compact business relationship, How to Tell a full-strength War Story, the designer reveals the main problem of what get out follow. equity when looked up in a dictionary, we would probably find definitions similar to distressfulness and honesty on the one hand, and correctness, accuracy or reality on the other hand. When looking at these definitions, one can make push by dint of two groups of gist While sincerity and honesty are precise subjective, correctness or accuracy are supposed to be aim by nature. One can be sincere and still non report the truth, due to the simple fact that one does not cheat either better. Accuracy, however, is supposed to represent facts, bits and pieces of information that paint a look of an force, untouched by cerebration or attitude. In his short chronicle, OBrien unravels step by step the irony in the double meaning of truth, implied in this first statement, This is true, to the referee which is then woven through the immaculate written report. By difficult to characterize what constitutes a true contend story, but never really achieving this goal, the true irony of his short story is revealed. Even though in some instances giving away his opinion explicitly, the sheer contradiction of honesty and reality becomes even more microscopic in an implicit way by following OBriens explanations throughout the story while he deconstructs his first statement. The incongruity surrounded by his first statement and what is truely shown in his examples does not need any explicit statements to drive home his message.An interesting combination of recalled events and editorial commentary, the story is not set up like a traditional short story. One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of How to Tell a real War Story is OBriens choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who readiness just as well be the author himself. Because How to Tell a True War Story is told from a first-person spot and OBrien is an actual Vietnam veteran, a certain authenticity to this story is added. He, as the expert of war leads the reader through the story. Since OBrien has experienced the actual war from a soldiers point of view, he should be able to present the truth about war... ...r because it seems impossible to reconstruct an event from this objective point of view. Maybe the point of telling stories is not trying to recreate the reality of a past event, but it is the message that matters because that might be in the end the only thing that does not ineluctably depend on single details of the story, but on the general picture of an event. That is why to OBrien another important component of a war story is the fact that a war story will never pin down the definite truth and tha t is why a true war story never seems to end (OBrien, 425). OBrien moves the reader from the short and simple statement This is the truth to the conclusion that, In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself and therefore its safe to say that in a true war story nohting much is ever very true (OBrien, 428). These two statements frame the entire irony of the story, from its beginning to its end. Almost like the popular saying A wise man admits that he knows nothing.Works CitedOBrien, Tim. How To Tell a True War Story. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.