Contradictions in Realistic Fiction

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews the above novels and looks at how truthful perceptions are hard won by the characters in each case. It examines how the protagonists in each story do not first perceive themselves or the world in a way that is commensurate with reality and how through the juxtaposition of reality and the character's dreams, a sense of truth is created and a sense of a character's final coming to terms with some self-knowledge is created at the narrative's closure. It looks at how all three protagonists swim in a sea of contradictions between a truth that can never be expressed or known to the outer world and to the strife they feel within themselves. In all three short stories, the true depths of the character's inner turmoil are never completely revealed to all. No one ever understands how much "The Kiss" meant to the soldier, O'Brien's soldiers never say quite what happened to their comrades during the Vietnam War and Leggatt leaves the tale a mysterious "floppy" had on shallow water.

From the Paper:

"Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story" also creates ironic juxtaposition between perceived reality and what is actually true. In this case, the juxtaposition is between the characters' real experience of war and the propaganda the characters were fed before they began to fight the war in Vietnam. As in Chekhov's short story, this juxtaposition ultimately proves embittering to the protagonists. The narrator of O'Brien's narrative states that in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe "Oh." True war stories do not generalize. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis.? "

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