• Engelsk
  • Uddannelse: HHX
  • Karakter: 12 tal
  • Ord: 1224

Indholdsfortegnelse
Summary:
Analytical essay:

Optimer dit sprog - Læs vores guide og scor topkarakter

Uddrag
Summary:
The short story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien opens with the narrator who is a former soldier being asked by his 9-year-old daughter if he had ever killed anyone.

The narrator finds this a very difficult question. He denies it because he thinks it is the right thing to do at the moment.

However he hopes that she will ask again when she is older so he can tell her exactly what happened when he was a solider. After this the story takes us back in time.

The flashback shows us the narrator in a war in Vietnam. The narrator and his platoon are resting in a forest and suddenly he sees a young man during his watch.

After seeing the man the narrator is in an inner conflict with himself about what to do. He then decides to pull the string in a grenade and throw it.

Analytical essay:
We all know the feeling of guilt. The way it rips our conscience apart and makes us flee to the nearest corner of the room.

Most people try to avoid it but it can be difficult since actions are often controlled by one’s fear and impulse.

In the short story “Ambush” from the collection of short stories “The Things They Carried” from 1990, Tim O’Brien tells a story of a man who is experiencing exactly this.

The main character in the short story is the narrator. The short story is told from his point of view “I remember slapping them, wondering if I should wake up Kiowa and ask for some repellent.”

This makes the reader more connected to the narrator which is very evident to do in this short story as one of the intensions is to give the reader an insight into which struggles soldiers have to go through in and after a war and which traumas this can cause.

The narrator is being described as a very caring person and a seems to be a good father “My daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed anyone (…) I did what seemed right, which was to say, “Of course not.””

This is an example of him protecting his daughter from the brutal truth. He is being asked a very difficult question but he handles it very well which can indicate that he is a good father.

He also places her on his lap after she asks him this question which is a sign of love and affection. The narrator is also filled with guilt after what happened in Vietnam.

“Now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog.”