ipl-logo

The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

899 Words4 Pages

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien tells the stories of multiple war veterans who have served in the Vietnam War. It takes a very in-depth approach to explaining the veterans’ experiences, feelings, and views both during the war, and after the war. Throughout the novel, readers learn that things you either do, or don’t do in life, can make you feel the same way as the war veterans. O’Brien uses symbolism and regretful tone to teach readers that the results of your actions in war can lead to you experiencing shame, remorse, and guilt for the rest of your life. O’Brien uses symbolism to show that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross has to deal with the survivor’s guilt of letting his platoon member, Tim Lavender, die in the warzone. Cross is often …show more content…

This situation with soldiers using this type of tone to explain how they feel shows up many times throughout the novel, but it is most apparent in this situation due to the war being over for more than twenty years, and O’Brien still felt the same way, or even worse than before. When explaining his current point of view on the death of the soldier, O’Brien states “Even now I hadn’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it, but 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 step out of the morning fog.” (O’Brien 128.) With the tone being used in this quote, readers already know that the actions you commit in war have the ability to stick with you for the rest of your life, but they also learn that although a significant amount of time has passed, that doesn’t necessarily mean that becoming comfortable with the situation will become easier, because O’Brien and his other platoon members are the perfect examples of this. Dealing with situations like these can even become harder as you progress throughout life because every time you think of a resolution, more and more questions arise about what you should and shouldn’t have done. Readers recognize that the things they do, or don’t do in life can make them feel the same way as the war

Show More
Related

How Does Tim O Brien Use Juxtaposition In On The Rainy River

1125 Words | 5 Pages

As we come to the end of the chapter, we find one more quote that juxtaposes how his conflict continues to stay with him despite the war being over. "I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to war. "(O'Brien, 55).

Read More

The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

222 Words | 1 Pages

1. What person have you put yourself in the place of? I put myself in place of the man on the horse in the far left of the picture. 2. What does this person smell?

Read More

Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

1292 Words | 6 Pages

In the short story, “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien focuses on this to show that everyone fighting in a war has a story. He spends the story describing the man he killed and searching for justification of his actions. He carries around guilt with him because of it, and his fellow soldiers try to help him justify and come to terms with his action by saying things like, “You want to trade places with him? Turn it all upside down= you want that? I mean, be honest,” (126) and “Tim, it’s a war.

Read More

How Does Tim O Brien Use Story Telling In The Things They Carried

1094 Words | 5 Pages

Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are". (O'Brien 38) O’Brien uses his stories to reach his audience. There are generations of people who have no clue what war is really like, whether it is because of our misconceptions based on what media portrays or the fact that there are people who have not served in the military. Some people might know about Vietnam and know the outcome of the war, but they don’t have the experience and real life understanding of how that story ended. They might not be able to fully understand the feelings of a soldier.

Read More

How Does Tim O Brien Use Anaphora In The Things They Carried

507 Words | 3 Pages

O’Brien is clearly emphasizing the true culture of war. He does this to illustrate the development of a soldier’s mind from when they first apply to the military to after they do (or don’t) survive and come back

Read More

The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

740 Words | 3 Pages

Soldier’s Cry Guilt ladened souls trudge through the battlefield. When the last gunshot rings through the stilled air, for the soldier, the war is not over; within oneself is where the true battle lies. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien fights the memories of his own war trodden past by transferring his emotions from his scarred heart to the pure paper. Esteemed filmmaker, Errol Morris, is also able to portray this contrast in the sharing of such memories through the stories of Robert S. McNamara in The Fog of War. These artists distinguish between the emotions of memories by the repetition of events and the structure of how a memory is presented to the audience.

Read More

Vietnam War Pros And Cons

417 Words | 2 Pages

O’Brien is trying to present young warriors in war as fragile living creatures who are blood and bone, not fantasy fighters who bring glory to the cause, “This idea of the deified nation, a replacement god of abstract principle that can be honored and worshipped through war, has been gradually ousted from its place as the center of the American story” (Ooms 42) That is what the many sides of the story are in conflict while purporting to be the one true version of what happened. No one’s account is really reliable. All of the accounts are based on individual impressions including those of solidarity among the soldiers. O 'Brien demands that outdated stories of grit and valor be put aside to make room for a new kind of war story.

Read More

Things They Carried Innocence Quotes

886 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien goes into great depth in this small quote on how loss of innocence and war can affect people in the war. The quote “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t” shows how war is so different from what any human experiences at home. After that small quote he follows it up by bringing up how you have to use normal stuff to show how crazy these things are and how much of a pole it can have on somebody during a war. The way that war is treated for many is mostly the mental part that is struggling. But for many "War is hell, but that's not half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love.

Read More

The Effects People Don 'T See In The Things They Carried By Tim O' Brien

986 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien notes, “ Even now I haven't finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it, but 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 step out of the morning fog. (128)” Tim O'Brien himself still thinks about the hard gruesome moments of war even many years after it happened.

Read More

Turnipseed Compare And Contrast Essay

757 Words | 4 Pages

The isolation among ones peers while at war can be seen perfectly in O’Brien himself after being wounded and given desk duty, essentially separating him from his Alpha company. What came out of this separation was what O’Brien described as “anger, partly, but it was also a sense of pure and total loss: I didn’t fit anymore” (O’Brien 188). Much like Turnipseed, O’Brien had become an outsider looking in on his fellow soldiers, the same in which he had trekked through the bush with just weeks earlier before being shot. It is out of this fear as a result of isolation that consequently causes rash decisions to be made that these men would not likely make outside of the environment of war. Much like when Turnipseed pulls his M-16 rifle on his driver due to his unwillingness to slow down on the bumpy roads of the Saudi Arabia desert (Turnipseed 74).

Read More

PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1504 Words | 7 Pages

This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

Read More

Prestige During The Vietnam War

880 Words | 4 Pages

At first Mr. O’ Brien wants to flee to Canada even though he knows that he won’t be able to see his family again or that he won’t be able to come back to the states. However, when he is only twenty yards away from the border, he can’t risk the embarrassment from his hometown and the whole universe, so he goes to the war. During the war, Mr. O’ Brien figures out that the only reason that any of his fellow soldiers are at the war was so their prestige wouldn’t go down. He goes so far as to say, “Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to… They died so as not to die of embarrassment.

Read More

Examples Of If I Die In A Combat Zone

1179 Words | 5 Pages

This quote stated by O’Brien shares how himself and other soldiers felt about the war, and how they felt like their fight and war tactact was overall useless for the United States. O’Brien also mentions that he feels frustrated that the government would let thousands of Americans' lives to end just for a war that had no benefit or meaning for the country. O’Brien is a great representative for American soldiers who served in the Vietnam War because of the emotion and frustration he felt about the war and the war’s

Read More

The Man I Killed By Tip Ibrien Analysis

718 Words | 3 Pages

This quote is also showing O 'Brien 's intentions about not wanting to be in the war. Even though it was a soldier O 'Brien killed, he will always think of the man as being a regular man. Throughout “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush” we are shown through Tim O’Brien’s first hand experience the regret soldiers can feel both immediately after the war and also many years later, reminding us that quilt is forever. The soldiers who fight for our country have hardship forever after being in the war and killing someone.

Read More

The Things They Carried: An Analysis

688 Words | 3 Pages

“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

Read More

More about The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

Open Document