Edgar Valdespino

English IV
Ms.Carroll, Mr.Kelly

The truth about “Ambush”

By now you have probably picked up the few lies and changes that were made
throughout the stories that O’Brien shares out, just to find out that they’re made up. As said
before by Tim, he lies within himself because he doesn’t want to constantly remind himself of
the horrible and tremendous things that he went through. At the start of the chapter “Ambush”,
Tim is encountered by his nine year old daughter and gets told why does he keep writing stories
and also asked if he’s ever killed anyone. Tim of course, at the time said no, and stated that he’d
just wait till she was older so that he can tell her the truth. In this case, the talk about the truth is
different. He had taken into consideration that she’s too young to be talking about rather or not
he killed anyone. That incident was a brief example of O’Brien using different set of diction, due
to the fact that the structure was different as opposed to the different times when O’Brien is
talking upon “truth”.
In the previous chapter “the man I killed” O’Brien doesn’t narrate the story in first
person, he avoids directly confronting the young man's death as opposed to “Ambush” where he
narrates the chapter in first person recounting the story. Now looking back as to why O’Brien
was using different word choice was because of the story’s intended audience. But O’Brien still
goes into full detail regarding the man he killed and the way he felt, making it entirely intact. In
the passage O'Brien said the following: “I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing.”
In this way, “Ambush” differs greatly from “The Man I Killed.” Though its intact narrative,
complete with observations, is constructed nominally for the benefit of Kathleen, “Ambush” is
definitely for O’Brien’s sake as well.
Throughout the chapter, O’Brien goes on and talks about his way of feeling, and gives
the reader a taste of what he was thinking during the moment. He remembers how he lobbed the
grenade and that it seemed to freeze in the air for a moment. As mentioned in the text “ I
remember the grenade seeming to freeze right above me for an instant”, now going back to how
O’Brien was feeling at the time, perhaps he was trying to indicate his momentary regret even
before the explosion detonated.
Overall O’Brien’s change in diction made the chapter ambush different as opposed to
different chapters that we’ve read. “Ambush” is marked by clear narrative control and a strong
sense of perspective​.​ Not​ ​only that but also the reader is able to get a sense of guilt, as O’Brien
tends to express himself a lot during the time and caring too much for what he does. Like
mentioned before, he gets asked by his daughter if he’s ever killed anyone, however, insists that
he has never killed anyone. Reflecting on his lie, O’Brien pretends Kathleen is an adult and
imagines that he might tell her the entire story of My Khe. 20 years later and O’Brien still
happens to come across the young man coming out of the fog, as if this memory that he once
experienced happens to haunt him till this day, due to the fact that he thought that they
(vietnamese soldiers ) were propelled by another power outside of them—the power of guilt and
responsibility and impulse and regret. This is probably as to why O’Brien can't cope with the fact
that he killed the man.