Telling a True War Story

According to Tim, people tend to easily consent the ‘facts’ given of what took place during war (O’Brien, 173). Many people do not consider fallacy existence vis-à-vis the actual story of happenings in the war. Few people acknowledge that ‘facts’ of a particular incident normally change through wards of people. “Saving the Private Ryan” film by Spielberg Steven features facts of war story (King, 182). It is difficult to describe war in full using the language of human; Steven had to revise his stories so as to make sense from it. He included parts that did not happen and some parts that actually occurred so as to make the stories appear more credible. According to the text of O’Brien of “how to tell a true war story” he recommend that people have to stop paying attention to the typical stories of war and scrutinize contradictory and unbelievable aspects of stories of war, that is a more precise means of gaining truth about war (O’Brien, 176). The movie of Steven follows some of his dimension but also decide not to follow the path of Tim in some areas.

Tim explores the connection between war events and the art of narrating those events. However Tim does not make a conclusion on exactly what is a true story of war (King, 183). He sees that a person cannot as well generalize a story. Tim feels that war can be seen as anything from beauty and love to the most callous event ever experienced. Meaning is not necessary in the story. Readers tend to lose interest in the stories that they feel are not authentic. Some readers feel that Tim text lack power and validity without the use of violence and language that is crude. Narrator of the story holds the success of the story. Honesty and sincerity are very subjective, accuracy or correctnes...

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... 185). Truth is flexible and uncertain in postmodernism. It is pursued but never understood. It follows therefore that the creative use of uncertainty and truth as devices of rhetoric by O’Brien adds a fresh element to conversation of postmodernism. As an alternative of clarity searching, like analyzing truth to separate fact from fiction, it is worth perhaps to dwell on uncertain space between fiction and fact, between perception and reality. Through this, truth becomes a stylistic tool as well as goal that are mysterious.

Works Cited

King, R. “O’Brien’s How to Tell a True War Story.” The Explicator. New York: Spring, 1999.

O’Brien, T. “How to Tell a True War Story.” English 213 Course Reader. Washington: Winter 2006.

O’Brien, T. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003.