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Tone In O 'Brien's Death, Be Not Proud'

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The tone in "Death, Be Not Proud" is confident and degrading of death. The narrator seems to poke fun at death's (clearly) invisible attempt at being threatening and dreadful by explaining the positive things about death and how it is nothing to be afraid of. The tone is forceful with its use of personification and alliteration by comparing death to a person: "Death, thou shalt die" and "Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me"(Donne).
In "The Things They Carried" the O'Brien writes, "They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity" (O'Brien). This quote is both dramatic and weary, and it sets the tone just by its references to the

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