The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

The symbols in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” are essential to understanding the soldiers and their lives during the Vietnam War. At the opening of the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross would dig into his foxhole and read the letters while imagining romance with Martha; however, at the end of the story after the death of Ted Lavender, he “crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters” (402). The inner feelings of Cross would be mistakenly ignored without the help of symbols throughout his travel through Vietnam. O’Brien uses the emotional and physical weight carried by the soldiers as a representation of their personalities and how they prefer to cope with the war. The

She is cute, fresh, perky, and flirtatious while she is also steady, attentive, sharp, and patient. These are the characteristics of Mary Anne Bell, the girlfriend of Mark Fossie in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. This book is a collection of short stories about the experience of United States soldiers in the Vietnam War. One thing that the men carry into Vietnam is innocence, but for the ones who survive, this is not something that they carry home. The ninth chapter of the book, titled “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” embodies this loss of innocence through the story of Mary Anne Bell told by Rat Kiley, a medic in Tim O’Brien’s company. While at first it seems that this chapter serves as an amusing relief to the darkness and death of the war stories, this chapter about Mary Anne actually reveals her as a symbol of the arrogance the Americans feel, but quickly forget, during their service in Vietnam.

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.

Unlike most war stories, in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” the war in Vietnam is not glorified and instead, the story is believable and raw. The horrors of war that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his squadron experience in an unfiltered, yet emotionally detached way that molds the structure and the language. This story, through its structure and techniques, displays the idea of how disillusionment and loss of innocence create unimaginable burdens for the American soldiers. O’Brien portrays the characters’ burdens with a monotonous and lulling tone through the use of flashbacks, setting, imagery, and metonymy.

Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is about a platoon of seventeen soldiers that are in the Vietnam war. The focus of the story is on First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross going back and forth from Vietnam and his memory for Martha, “an English major at Mount Sebastian” (323). The narration bounces around during the telling of the story, as if the story is being told from memory years after the war. The narration of the story is told around the death of one of the soldiers, Ted Lavender. As the platoon “humped” (324) through the Vietnam wilderness outside the village of Than Khe, the narrator gives the reader lists of military issued equipment and what each piece weighs. “They would never be at a loss for things to carry” (332) for these lists changed depending on the mission and the soldiers mental state, as does their weight. Along with their military issued equipment they also carry personal belongings, as well as emotional baggage. This essay will analyze the personal and emotional things they carry and whether they are helpful or a burden.

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.

The Things they Carried written by Tim O’Brien not only talks about the main character Tim O’Brien, but this short story also talks about all of the other soldiers in his group. When you are a soldier overseas you will most generally be carrying a lot of equipment, but you will also be carrying loads of memories and feelings and I think that was what O’Brien’s point that he was trying to get across. Numerous of these things are intangible, including responsibility and fear, while some other items are very detailed physical objects, including ponchos, AK-47s, and even some hygiene items like dental floss and hotel-sized soap. There was an endless list of items that each soldier had to carry to survive, but the metaphor here is the physical strain that each soldier has to endure. When reading this I believe that O’Brien, the author, wanted to use metaphors to help the reader feel like they were there in the story and make them feel how these soldiers felt while they were serving.

What is revolution? Revolution is a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something. To have a revolution it takes a spark to ignite it and followers to support. Readers can come to see that it is human nature for people to revolt against something they believe in. Many times a revolution starts a war. Tim O’Brien expresses revolution through a memoir about the Vietnam War. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, rhetorical language was used to communicate the characteristics and qualities of revolution.

Cross commanded Alpha Company in the Vietnam war carrying the responsibility for his life, the lives on of subordinates and the success of the mission details they enacted. Cross often thought about life before the war and when he did, his thoughts often dwelled on a junior at Mount Sebastian college, a girl he graduated with named Martha. At the bottom of his rucksack protected by plastic, laid letters from her, a girl he fantasized about loving him (O’Brien 1). When Alpha Company marched, his mind wandered, he could not or did not wish to leave his attention to the war before him. He would fade in and out of reality, barking orders to his men before slipping away into his day dreams where he needn’t carry a thing (O’Brien 3). April 16th was no exception, the company was on mission to destroy the tunnel systems in Than Khe; while one of his men crawled into and explored a possibly dangerous tunnel First Lieutenant Cross slipped into a day dream. He did not survey the area looking for immediate threats, as Ted Lavender regrouped with his company a bullet penetrated the back of his head and tore out his cheekbone from his skull. As quickly as the shot occurred, Lavender was dead (O’Brien 5). Cross and his soldiers collected their fallen comrade’s body, waiting for a helicopter to take Lavender back to the states in a wooden box and Cross cried. Jimmy blamed himself, “he had loved Marth more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien 7). With that realization, Lieutenant Cross burned his memories of Martha at the bottom of a foxhole. Cross became a soldier and commanding officer first and foremost, a person second. He no longer allowed the day dreams, looked at the foreign landscape with realistic eyes and commanded his men firmly to help his men and their

In the event of American soldiers deployed to Vietnam, soldiers had to face hardship to fight for their country. Critics have different opinions about O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” story about soldier’s dedication to serve the military and items by variation symbolizes the strength and emotions to the characters. Steven Kaplan analyzes and retold a little bit of the story while Alex Vernon described in spiritual way of the soldiers fighting on the battlefield. Kaplan best explains the story of “Things They Carried” to soldiers’ symbol based on physical and emotional toughness.

In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, he uses the theme of relationships and the different forms they take to instruct the reader on how these relationships affect individuals. In O’Brien’s story, he splits his experience in life and the Vietnam War into various sections in order to retell his experiences as well as his fellow platoon members all the while teaching readers various themes and truths about love, life, and war. The tale jumps around from his time before the war, the war itself, and the aftershocks. In life, there are various types of relationships experienced between two beings; this act of bonding between two persons is rather powerful and strange for such a daily occurrence, that other forms are often overlooked. When one thinks of relationships, it is often depicted as two lovers, such as Mark Fossie and Mary Anne Bell who would do anything for a love so pure, but it’s also important to take other forms of relationships into consideration. Tim O’Brien demonstrates this idea in his gripping novel, The Things They Carried, through the different members of the platoon and how they each interact with each other and with themselves; indicating the importance of the relationship with oneself, the sense of comradery between the men, and even political relationships of the countries involved can determine the survival rate of the soldiers involved.

In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien created several allusions that each character endured during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story were vast representations of the things the soldiers carried both mentally and physically. The things they carried symbolized their individual roles internally and externally. In addition to the symbolism, imagination was a focal theme that stood out amongst the characters. This particular theme played a role as the silent killer amongst Lt. Cross and the platoon both individually and collectively as a group. The theme of imagination created an in depth look of how the war was perceived through each character which helped emphasize their thoughts from an emotional standpoint of being young men out at war.

While all the characters in O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” brought heavy physical baggage, they also all carried heavy emotional baggage, made up of love, fear, and longing among many other things. In the beginning of the story, the author lists the literal things that some of the men carried with them in the war. The things that these men carried seemed somewhat strange at first, but as the story proceeds, it is easier to understand why they brought things such as pantyhose with them. The baggage carried by the soldiers Cross, Lavender represented emotional issues that weighed them down while they were at were. This story conveys what soldiers have to deal with along with the stress of being at war.

“The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien, is a story of becoming a man. Taking place during the Vietnam War, this piece of literature is reflective of the author’s personal war experiences. Tim O’Brien blends fiction and autobiography in this story and realistically portrays the horrors of the Vietnam War. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, also known as the protagonist of the story, is responsible for the lives of his men. The story opens with a list of all the things Jimmy carries, one of them are letters from a girl named Martha and a longing for her love. Jimmy’s world is distraught when Ted Lavender gets killed and blames himself for the tragedy.

One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the