How Does Tim O Brien Use Anaphora In The Ghost Soldier

After being drafted, several thoughts came to his mind. O’ Brien thought about how his life will be if he goes to war. He states, “I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do- charging and enemy position, taking aim at another human being” (44). It seems that O’Brien thought about his principles and morals as a human being. He believes killing innocent people was not a heroic act; it was an act of shame. On the other hand, he clarifies that not all wars are negative, “There were occasions, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve it ends” (44). He considered to fight only in the cases were war is necessary to achieve a significant purpose. O’Brien uses examples of Hitler, referring him as an evil and one of the reasons he would have validated a war, and even joined the military if it were necessary. Yet, he does not want to play hero in a war that had not sense. For that reason, he decided to run away from his draft.

Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. “The Man I Killed” describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally.

Furthermore, O’Brien himself admits he went to war not out of courage, but out of embarrassment and cowardice. In the chapter “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien received a draft letter for the Vietnam War. He was in shock, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. A mistake, maybe—a foul up in the paperwork. I was no soldier… I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness” (41-42). Obviously, O’Brien did not want to go to war. However, he was

Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, is about a platoon of soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war and the life of the alpha company. This book also talks about the experiences each soldier has during the war. This war created many lasting physiological and emotional effects on the soldiers that is shown throughout the novel in the various stories told by O’Brien. O’Brien’ purpose is that the Vietnam War created lasting emotional and physiological effects on the soldiers. My purpose is to explain how O’Brien effectively uses repetition and description to support his purpose.

Prior to learning he was drafted into a war he hated, we are told that he had recently graduated from college (38). O’Brien says, “I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong” (38). The previous quote shows his confusion towards the war, he then goes on questioning the war by saying, “Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression?” (38) which furthermore provides an example of his uncertainty towards the war. While facing confusion, O’Brien also believed he was “too smart, too passionate” (39) for the war, he claims his drafting was “a mistake, maybe— a foul-up in the paperwork” (39). Both of the quotes show man vs. society conflict. Since O'Brien had recently graduated and received a full scholarship at Harvard, he felt like he was on top of the world, like any other person would if a war was not going on then, society was focused on something he didn't believe so he did not want to accept the harsh reality that he had just been drafted. The narrator also faces man vs self conflict, O’Brien wants to get out of the draft but, he says, “There was no happy way out...my health was solid; I didn't qualify for CO status — no religious grounds, no history as a pacifist” (41). O’Brien knows that it would be illegal to not follow the law of the draft but he also knows that he does NOT want to

O’Brien knows this. He does not shy away from long, thoughtful passages that explain the basic realities of battlefield life. Look at In the Field, when Jimmy Cross tries to think of what precisely caused Kiowa’s death. “You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going into it... In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever” (O’Brien 169). This passage articulates the immediacy and constant danger of war. Every moment, every river or rainstorm could mean death. That is what Lamott might call “meat-and-potato truth” to the soldiers. A concept so poignant can easily transcend words, and if O’Brien had had any reluctance to delve so deeply into how the Lieutenant thinks, it could have been lost in translation. Only through O’Brien’s intimate musing comes a shadow of enormous reality, the “meat-and-potato

In his novel, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O’Brien attempts to discover an appropriate definition of courage by reflecting upon his comrades, philosophers, and himself. Throughout the novel, O’Brien grapples with whether to be courageous by staying and fighting even though he is fighting a war in which he deems as wrongly conceived and poorly justified, or be courageous by standing for what he believes is ethical but become a deserter. Through the influence of others and self-contemplation of the definition of courage, O’Brien exemplifies the extremity in which America viewed courage as a necessary characteristic for an American soldier to possess during the Vietnam War.

Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp

O’Brien understood that Rat Kiley wasn’t the only one that was terrified of seeing the dead bodies and being in war. He knew that the other soldiers felt the same way and empathized with them as well. For O’Brien, as “the nights got freaky,” “it was a sad to watch”(210) the soldiers trying to survive. Rat Kiley could no longer hold in the pain and hurt he was feeling which led to him shooting himself in the foot. O’Brien was understanding and didn’t blame him though. He understood that everyone was afraid, not just Rat Kiley. The other soldiers were just better at coping with the

Throughout the chapter of Ghost Soldiers, O’Brien objects vengeance but is confused by acceptance through morbid imagery, vindictive tone, and an unexpected shifts of inner thoughts to illustrate unity even after a mistake was made in the warzone. O’Brien begins to tell when Rat Keiley was the medic for their group. He describes getting shot and Keily coming to treat O’Brien. Afterwards, he begins to thank Keily for saving his life, and for making him feel completely better. His wounds needed to be healed, so he took about 1 month off, but once he returned, Rat Keily was wounded and sent off to heal.

Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.” (38). The fact that O’Brien hates this war so much is just one of the reasons that sparked his plan to evacuate to Canada. He just simply doesn’t believe that there is a unity of purpose when it came to history or law. This leads into the beliefs he has when it comes to politics and how he claims he is politically naive, as well as being a liberal. But hate isn't the only characteristic shown. O’Brien displays how fearful he is as well.”It was a moral split. I couldn’t make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile.” (42). He explains that he didn’t want to just leave his family and friends and he feared losing the respect of his parents.Law and ridicule was feared as well

Dealing With Fear Tim O’Brien writes a short story about himself named, “On the Rainy River,” which deals with his fears and the struggle to make decisions for his life. One day he receives a draft notice for the Vietnam War. However, he decides to escape by running away to Canada. He stays at the Tip Top Lodge for several days, and meets Elroy Berdahl. When O’Brien is faced with a dilemma to make a decision, Elroy serves as a hero in his life.

By taking the young man that he killed and making up a backstory for him on the spot such as a like his family, a wife, a love of mathematics, he is making the young man not Other by sheer force of will.. He's making himself relate to the young man. And he goes further by saying that the young man's greatest fear, and the reason he went to war, was the same reason that O'Brien himself went to war:, fear of disgrace. O'Brien has more in common with this soldiervietnamese man than he does with people back home.

One of the effects Tim O’Brien wanted readers to understand was that war was horrific. In the short story “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?,” it says, “Though he was afraid,

O’brien speaks on a true war story and how it “is never moral, it does not instruct, nor encourage virtue,” (65). These stories show the true colors of war and how it can only be immoral because of the chaos and violence it creates. To O’brien war is ambiguous, and this can be credited (ethos) to his experience of being a soldier in the war. A man called Rat tells a clueless soldier that “[he] [doesn’t] know human nature, [he] [doesn’t] know nam,” (93). This War in Vietnam is changing people altering their state and implying that human nature is only immoral.