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

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 and effect, then you would believe the last thing Lemon believed, which for him must’ve been the final truth” (467). This is the point at which the narrator finally understands that he cannot recount the event satisfactory enough to make the readers truly understand.

The narration gets more intense when the story about the baby water buffalo is told. This graphic depiction of cruelty and torture is the result of Rat’s reaction to Lemon’s death. He takes out his frustration and hurt on the innocent creature and slowly kills it off by shooting it numerous times. Then the narrator switches back to commentary and explains how two-sided war is and that in order to write the story right it would have to include both parts. He even states that “in a true war story nothing much is ever very true” (466). This provides yet another reason why telling true war stories is impossible. Directly following this, the narrator gets more desperate to get across the truth and retells the story of Lemon’s death, not the beauty of it, but the horrible aspects of his remains being stuck up in the tree.

After many recreations

Some topics in this essay:
Mitchell Sanders, Lemon Rat’s, Vietnam War, war story, true war, true war story, War Story”, war stories, Tim O’Brien’s, tell true war, lemon’s death, tell true, True War, Tell True, describing war stories, telling true, literary technique, telling true war, story lemon’s, stories impossible, writing war stories, writing war,