The prose” How to Tell a True War Story” is a piece which shows us what war truly is and the lesson that war is actually teaching us. This prose successfully destroys the misunderstanding of maybe many of us towards wars. The author is not denying war is not bad. He admits the general idea that war is nasty, thrilling, grotesque and terrible. However instead of “generalizing” war in a one-sided negative way, he also points out in war we also find “beauty” and ironically only when war brings us close to death, we find the truth of what exactly our life is. This prose brings us to realize actually quite a number of things. First, of course, the truth or the hidden meaning of war is not as simple as we usually think. It is not like black and white, which we can distinguish it easily. In wars we see things that are nasty or things that we rather not to see or experience, but contrastingly because of wars, we see the goodness in life and how valuable peace is. Second, the author exposes how contradicting people can be. Is it ironic we only know something is valuable to us under the condition that we already lost it? So in some sense, the author is trying to bring out a message that we should cherish what we are having now because it will be too late if we only realize that truth after we lost it. This essay will focus on not just the theme of the prose, but also the whole structure and the techniques. The whole prose uses a number of well- planned compound sentences and parallel sentences for contrasting. Also the use of “you” in the prose is a special characteristic in this prose which this essay will also focus on.
In the first paragraph, only one question is used. The use only one single question “How do you generalize?” as the opening paragraph of the prose, it successfully rises the curiosity of the readers towards the prose and provide space for the readers to think towards what exactly “generalization” is to them. The question itself is an interrogative...