Structure

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Beginning

The short story "Ambush" by Tim O'Brien begins with an introduction, in which the narrator’s nine-year-old daughter asks the narrator if he has ever killed anyone in the war, since he keeps writing war stories and she knows he was a soldier. The narrator answers her that he did not; but then imagines that she is older so he could tell her that she is right, and to confe…

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Middle

In a flashback, the narrator relates the event which has affected him so much, and which took place one night in the ambush site outside My Khe. The narrator is woken up by his comrade, Kiowa, for his turn to be on guard. He kneels in position in the undergrowth, lining up three grenades in front of him and watches the trail.

In the rising action, the narrator looks up and sees the young man come out of the fog. This creates the apparent exte…

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Ending

The tension falls as Kiowa tells the narrator the man would have died anyway, and that the narrator did his job as a soldier during the war. The narrator, however, is not comforted by these words, as he realizes that the young man might have passed by without doing anything, and the killing might not have been justified. This hints at the start of the narrator’s internal…