ipl-logo

The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

766 Words4 Pages

Rhetorical Analysis Essay for ‘The Things They Carried’
Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carried,” tells a story about the lives of young soldiers during the Vietnam War. The narrator tells his story from first person, marking all his adventures and experiences of him and his platoon throughout his time serving in the war and after it. In his chapter, ‘In the Field,’ O’Brien uses metaphors, diction, and syntax to convey that experiencing direct contact with death brings you closer to life’s reality.
O’Brien introduces the chapter with describing the search for Kiowa’s body, who was killed by a grenade. He conveys that “the rain was the war and you had to fight it”. This metaphor emphasizes the battle they were in. Fighting the rain was like …show more content…

Tim O'Brien used strong language and harsh diction to emphasize Azar's point of view to his audience. Before finding Kiowa's body, Azar mocks that this was a humorous irony because it was "shit field" and that his body "was wasted in waste", clearly disassociating from the gruesome reality of his death. As soon as Kiowa's body was located, the sight of the actual body makes him feel terrible enough to apologize saying "those foolish jokes - I didn't mean anything". Tim O’Brien uses strong and direct diction to describe the severity of Kiowas death and the effect it had on the platoon. His use of direct language allows the reader to experience the scene from his and his platoon’s perspective. This occurrence during his service as a soldier brought him back to reality that he was in. He finally feels the guilt and pain that the other men have been carrying with them about this incident and about Vietnam in …show more content…

Cross approaches him and expresses sorrow, to which he asks, "What about Billie? "My girl, it's the only photo I have left," shocking Cross, who believed he was freaking out about Kiowa's death. Cross does not appear to be furious, even though the soldier is more upset by the loss of his ex-girlfriend’s photo than by the loss of his fellow soldier. The soldier exclaims, "she won't [even] send another one, she's not my girl anymore," in response to Cross's idea of asking her for another one. This incident in the chapter leads the young soldier to confront his reality: the girl he loves no longer loves him. He could pretend when he had the photo, but when he lost the picture, everything fell apart. O'Brien depicts the young soldier as no longer being in the reality of the conflict, but rather in his own life's reality, which he disliked but had to accept, leading the reader to finally understand by the end of the chapter that the war may not have killed them, but it ruined anything they had before, leaving them with nothing when they were

Show More
Related

  • Guilt In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    602 Words  | 3 Pages

    Azar’s crude attempt to make him feel better by congratulating O’Brien on the kill and comparing the dead boy to Rice Krispies; Azar ignores and or disregards the shame O’Brien feels. Kiowa is a little more patient with O’Brien’s pain, he can only sympathize with O’Brien to a limited amount. In the end, Kiowa wants more to convince O’Brien that him killing the enemy is not a big deal, that was a part of war, than in helping him work through his emotions as he says when he tells him he has a few minutes to cope, before they

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    644 Words  | 3 Pages

    It highlights the atrocities of war, how it consumes people, and the effect it leaves behind. In the quote, there is pain, sadness and acceptance. Even though I’ve never been to war and have never experienced anything on the level that Vietnam soldiers did, I feel like I can relate to, or at least understand, O’Brien and his situations. I feel like I know what he is going through; his thoughts and feelings are, in a way, my own. It is really remarkable when an author can get his readers to really feel and understand the characters in his or her novel; that’s what makes Tim O’ Brien such a great author and what makes “The Things They Carried” a must-read

    Read More

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

    986 Words  | 4 Pages

    He says in the book that writing everything down makes him cope with this traumatic experience. He uses his courage to help himself through hard times thinking about the war and everything he has been through. Soon after finding out about Kiowa's death Lieutenant Jimmy Cross wanted to go back to the fields to find him under any circumstances because no man would be left behind. He knew how good of a soldier and brother Kiowa is to everyone, but the thing is the field where he died has caused people to have many different emotions into finding him but that is the fear, shame, and courage that everyone has to face.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    1139 Words  | 5 Pages

    Employing softer language conveyed that the soldiers are trying to detach themselves from the horrors of war. For instance, words like “grease…offed, lit up,” and “zapped while zipping” were used instead of “killed” (604). By deliberately repeating the phrase “they carried” and “the things they carried” at the start of several sentences, it is evident that O’Brien uses anaphora as a rhetorical device in his writing in order to assert the fact that war can be burdensome and grueling. These phrases are stressed repetitively throughout the story to denote the weight of war also becoming heavier for the soldiers the longer it continues. Another rhetorical and stylistic device used to emphasize the tone is the asyndeton.

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

    1292 Words  | 6 Pages

    Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    899 Words  | 4 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.

    Read More

  • Fear In The Things They Carried

    763 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” explores the themes of fear and the emotional burdens we all carry. The Vietnam war took place in 1955 and forced a draft notice to be done. Many of the men who got drafted into the war were roughly in their 20’s meaning that they still had their whole life ahead of them but it was unfairly cut short. Consequently, through his illustration of events, O’Brien reveals the everlasting effects of needing to self isolate one’s emotions to cope with trauma.

    Read More

  • Repetition In The Things They Carried

    682 Words  | 3 Pages

    40% of the males in the baby boomer generation served in the Vietnam War, as seen in the New York Times article “The Baby Boomer War.” Many of these people came home from the war feeling responsible for the death of someone. In his novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien employs repetition to create the effect that almost all people involved in war feel guilty for someone’s death, even if it was beyond their control. The chapters “The Man I Killed”, “Ambush”, and “In the Field'' work together to produce this effect.

    Read More

  • The Ghost Soldiers Tim O Brien Character Analysis Essay

    844 Words  | 4 Pages

    This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried: An Analysis

    688 Words  | 3 Pages

    He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

    Read More

  • Cowardice In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1306 Words  | 6 Pages

    He was just a kid at war. He was twenty-four years old. He couldn’t help it” (11). Lt. Cross is a young man at war who has not even had the chance to be in love. His focus on Martha, instead of his men and war, suggests that he did not think through his decision to go to war.

    Read More

  • Imagery In The Things They Carried

    543 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the chapter when he describes the man he kills, he talks about the state of the dead body by saying, “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (O’Brien Chapter 11). This brutal and horrifying imagery displays an irrefutable element of truth to O’Brien’s writing. Not only does this imagery highlight the truth to his writing, but it also sheds light on the brutal truth about the war in Vietnam. By using imagery as such a strong rhetorical device in his writing, he gives the average person a taste of just how barbaric and cruel Vietnam felt for the people who experience the war first hand on either side of the fighting. Tim O’Brien gives a very detailed and intense description of his time fighting in Vietnam during their war with America.

    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

  • PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1504 Words  | 7 Pages

    Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).

    Read More

  • Emotional Appeal In The Things They Carried

    2034 Words  | 9 Pages

    He never focused on the facts or what had actually happened during the war, typically emphasizing the experience of the war, the experience of the soldiers. The storytelling and the emotion felt in and out of the anecdotes were always the prioritized focus, not the historical facts. Throughout the entire novel, his audience is constantly engaged in the series of short stories that connect them to a core theme of the novel. The tangible and intangible objects that the Vietnam War soldiers carried are the fundamental focus of this

    Read More

More about The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Open Document