Rhetorical Devices In The Things They Carried

They carry many things, they carry a massive amount of weight on their shoulders. However, the heaviest thing that they carry cannot be touched. The intangible weight of fear, loss, anger, and guilt far outweigh any tangible item that they could possibly possess. The Thing They Carried is not only an eye-opening collection of war stories, but it is also a love story, a memoir, and a tribute to the unimaginable things that happen to our soldiers in war zones. War changes men, makes them different, and when they come home they are not the same person and they often have trouble readjusting to the life of a civilian.

In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses many short stories to describe his experience in Vietnam. The story that captured many aspects of writing was “How to Tell a True War Story” because it acts as a guide to writing a true story. O’Brien uses many different rhetorical strategies, narrative techniques, and establishes a theme in this story to help develop his characters and story line.

Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

Tim O’Brien has been contributing to the genre of historical fiction with his creative genius for decades, but his most renowned and perhaps his finest book is The Things They Carried, published in 1990. The novel consists of numerous short tales Add more intro before the thesis The first chapter of the novel, “The Things They Carried,” shares several literary features with chapters “Spin,” “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong,” and “The Man I Killed,” including anecdotes, theme, and symbolism.

Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old

War has fascinated since the beginning of time for what they reveal about the human condition in its worst squalor as in its greatness. “Maybe Vietnam is best seen through a shattered helicopter windshield. “Chickenhawk” is one bloody, painfully honest, and courageous book”, recognizes Martin Cruz Smith. “Chickenhawk” is Robert Mason’s narrative of personal experience which deals chronologically with his training in Vietnam. Through this description of war, Mason distinguishes the physical part of war and the psychological phase. He also demonstrates that the expressive aspect controls the physical. Consequently, this indication has remained intact. Tim O’Brien in his fictional story "The Things They Carried," voices the idea that the psychological burdens overshadow the physical pain that the soldiers must carry: "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (O’Brien 926). O’Brien claims that horror, longing, responsibility, and uncertainty that the soldiers experience outweigh the physical agony that they must resist to survive, loads that are lightened only a little by the willing to return home.

In the story ‘’The Things They Carried’’, Tim O ‘Brien shows the life of a platoon of young American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Even though they meet many kinds of uncertainties about nervous atmosphere at a war zone or fear of other peers’ laughing, the young soldiers do not often talk with each other and hide their fear and fantasy. Although sometimes Cross and Lavender are seemed to cope with their difficulties, there still exists some uncertainties in their minds. Moreover, Lavender and Cross are still distracted by uncertainties. Cross spend much time determining virginity and truth of love of Martha so he does not care about his fellow soldiers constantly. In term of

Often in the years following a war the notion of warfare is warped by common conceptions or cliches so that it no longer resembles the realities that the soldiers experienced. However, Tim O’Brien uses his own personal experiences from Vietnam to create stories which exhibit the real situations that these soldiers faced. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, demonstrates this unfiltered reality through multiple literary elements and the creation of fictional stories in order to portray the war accurately. Courage and valor are often associated with the idea of war and are often expected to be traits that all soldiers live by.

In “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, it is evident that the psychological impact of what the soldiers went through was heavier than all of the supplies and equipment they carried. Wartime can be much harder on some men than others, it is a true test of resilience. Some soldiers were driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to have a reason to continue to fight. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery. Sadly, it is not until the completion of the story where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is brought back to reality by the tragic death of his soldier and friend, Ted Lavender, and ready to face the tasks

When a soldier goes overseas to serve for the military, he will carry many things with him. He'll carry not only his equipment, but his memories, his fears, and the weight of all of his emotions. His loves for his family and for his country are musts, and he will bring all of the memories he can with him. What soldiers carry onto the battlefield is something that many people at home rarely think about. Tim O'Brien wrote the award winning short story “The Things They Carried” to show his readers the weight that the soldiers carry with them while serving ("Author: Time O'Brien." ).

Death is a distinctive motif in Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, and in relation to this extract. The author develops this theme situating the extract in between stories of Ted Lavender’s death, showing how violent the war is physically and psychologically, while displaying what people become of it. He begins describing the soldier’s methods of dealing with death, while using an extended metaphor to accentuate this act. The passage continues to describe a fellow soldier’s death and how they joke to mask the pain of death. In the concluding paragraph the psychological trauma of the men is highlighted through the idea of their emotional baggage. This extract shows that war is not just about killing the enemy, as it is just as much of a war with yourself.

After the Vietnam War, soldiers suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder in countless numbers. The trauma they saw, endured, and witnessed forever changed and scared their lives. Men, like Tim O'Brien the author of the novel The Things They Carried, suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder and it took them years to regain their lives after their return home. In the excerpt from his novel, O'Brien shows the reader how the men endured this mind-altering experience in the jungles of Vietnam through the details of all the items the men carry.

The Things They Carried is a war novel telling the story as well as the inner world of a group of soldiers during and after the Vietnam War. This is also a war novel, it is not bloody and violent. There are no heroism, scenes of slaughter, or senses of torture in this story. However, while I‘m immersed in the author’s story, i find that Norman Bowker was suffering from the pain of unable to speak about the horrors of war. Norman drives around the lake so many times, he has no capacity to talk about his war story with any others, miserably commits suicide in the end.Telling out the story about war experiences is one of therapy to help traumatic because a traumatic can be cured through language, making it possible to avoid feelings of helplessness.