Three Messages From Ambush
An Analysis of Three Messages From Tim O'Briens’ Ambush
Why is literature so important? Why is it able to so efficiently intrigue the feeble minds humans possess? Tim O’Brien states in his story The Things They Carried, “But this too is true, stories can save us”. O’brien couldn’t be more correct in his observation; literature, or more specifically, stories, can save minds from the void of darkness called life. Stories are an escape to other worlds, situations, and experiences. O’Brien, a young lad fresh out of vietnam, draws out his experiences in the Vietnam war through his short story, Ambush. In this story, O’Brien displays a fictional war experience similar to a real life experience of his own. Through Tim O’Briens’ Ambush, three messages can be derived.
The short story Ambush highlights in detail that war manipulates people. War, another term for destruction, serves one purpose, to settle a dispute. Although it may sound simple, war is anything but that. War is a malicious and pitiful rendition of…show more content… Tim, when stationed in Vietnam, finds himself alone with a sleeping comrade left with only a couple grenades. Consequently, a man suddenly appears from the fog, and the events that follow are quite enticing, “The grenade was to make him go away-just evaporate- and I leaned back and felt my mind go empty and felt it fill up again. I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it”(812). Tim didn’t have the intention of killing this man, nor was he planning on throwing a grenade so quickly. Subsequently, this is a great example of how war can change people, and sometimes people who really no intent to kill. In Tim’s case, he had pulled the pin and thrown a grenade at a man who hadn’t even raised his barrel off the ground yet! War can change people, it can manipulate their minds and cause them to kill “enemies”, who really aren’t even
