This is when the horror of war, the shock of participating in a battle like this begins to set in. The speaker is charging alongside the color-guard of the regiment, when suddenly the speaker hears the color-sergeant let out a groan. This cry by the color-sergeant comes after the speaker hears bullet strike him and “crush the bone” of his comrade. There is shock as the speaker gives an idea of how close to the man was when he died, stating “I could have touched him as he died” (36). This death and the blood spilled from the victim’s mouth act as a religious ceremony, marking this site once wicked as sanctified (38).
After Ted Lavender was shot in the head, his compadres “were waiting for Lavender’s chopper, smoking the dead man’s dope”, and joking about his death (20). If this calamity had happened in civilized society, the reaction would have been one of horror, disbelief, or grief, instead of their attempts to make light of death. To distance themselves from the death, they would use “a hard vocabulary” like “lit up, zapped while zipping” and “greased” to pretend that the death they see and make is just in a play-not real (22). As a rule, soldiers are supposed to be the toughest of the tough, but their response to death shows the loss of morality. For example, when Kurt Lemon died, Rat tortured the baby water buffalo because he was extremely upset.
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”.
Death will always complement war. This is seen clearly in Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Man I Killed”. In this tale the Main character, Tim, is vividly describing in his mind the enemy Vietcong solider he just killed life story before his death. He details everything, from the visible wounds on the soldier’s body to a fantasy of the man’s life. Meanwhile, to soldiers in Tim’s platoon acknowledge that he killed this man and try to speak to him about it.
Storm of Steel gave us many gruesome deaths, even describing many mutilated death that they had to observe. Witnessing death did not affect soldier harshly as an average person would. An average person would scream or be traumatized of the situation. Junger describes, “Arms and legs and heads stuck out of the slopes; in front of our holes were several limbs and bodies…” (98). He had taught us that soldiers had to adapt to seeing people pass away during war.
Deaths of War No one ever thinks about what a soldier goes through when they lose someone from their platoon during a war. The emotional and physical burden a death brings, as shown in All the Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, can bring out the guilt and fear in a young man, who was thrown into a war. The first death witnessed in Tim O’Briens platoon was Ted Lavender.
Death is always associated with the occurrences of wars. No matter what, there is no escaping the fact that people will die in battle. Throughout the book The Things They Carried there are scenes of extreme violence, and heart crushing deaths. Witnessing someone you know being killed, or even killing someone you do not know is very traumatizing to a person and their life, but it's war and that is just how it is. Tim O’Brien uses many examples from the war for his story to emphasise the theme of Death, and violence and that no matter what it is no one's fault, and everyone fault.
In the poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” Randall Jarrell develops the extended metaphor of a killed soldier in a turret gun to describe the tragedy from a miscarriage. Randall Jarrell introduce the poem’s mood, melancholy, based on the title which indicate war with the words “death” and “Turret Gunner”. This immediately send white and black images of balled up men waiting for their inevitable death. The men that can’t do anything but wait and hope like a baby in a womb. The extended metaphor is formally introduced with “From my mother's sleep I fell into the State … fur froze.
Accessed 23 April 2018. Mays, Kelly J. “Chapter 1 Understanding the Text.” The Norton Introduction to Literature 12th Edition, edited by Spencer Richardson-Jones, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, pp 92 & 1421. McGuire, Thomas G. and Bryan Doerries. "Bryan Doerries Discusses the Theater of War & the Palliative of Shared Suffering."
Death is something that occurs often in a war due to the violence and dangerous areas. Everyone takes on the thought of someone dying in different ways, whether they maintained a close relationship with the person or not guilt could become an instant reaction of the persons' death because of a feeling of maybe being responsible for the death that occurred. The thought of maybe being responsible for one of the soldiers that you have spent day night serving with could leave an enormous amount of guilt in one person. When witnessing a death or anything traumatic it is easy to blame someone else or even yourself for the tragic accident. Multiple characters in the book The Things They Carried demonstrated the guilt and responsibility of another
The harsh and brutal side of the military and war is clear through Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. From the detailed descriptions of the soldiers’ procedures to the shocking twist shows us the heartlessness that war (in this case the Civil War) can hold. In the exposition of this story, the sentinels are described as being in a “support” position, “a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body” (21). This not only sets the scene for the reader, but it shows us the respect with which the soldiers seem to be treating Farquhar’s hanging. However, Bierce then calls death a “dignitary,” who is treated with “formal manifestations of respect” (22).
American Redemption Through Destruction In World War Z (2006), author Max Brooks depicts an apocalyptic "zombie" pandemic that terrorized the world. It went by many names, "The Crisis," "The Dark Years," "The Walking Plague," and "The Zombie War." The unknown narrator (assumed to be Brooks) structured the book in a series of vignettes in hopes of the personal attachment that will enable people to prevent repeating history. Through a book based on memories, Brooks challenges many flaws within the government and its people.
Powers and Crane had both used structure in their pieces, however, Crane had mostly used irony, as his document was almost entirely flipped, having the center of the text, “War is kind”. What Crane did not add was the scattered text, which Powers used incredibly. The reader mostly, if not completely speechless having read it. Powers uses imagery to paint a picture of an intense feeling of guilt and trauma, almost like a short, mild recap of what actually
Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has a memory overflowing with the horrors of many battlefields and the helplessness of those trapped within them. He applies this memory to write War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, where he tutors us in the misery of war. To accomplish this goal, Hedges uses impactful imagery, appeals to other dissidents of war and classic writers, and powerful exemplification. Throughout his book, Hedges batters the readers with painful and grotesque, often first-hand, imagery from wars around the globe. He begins the book with his experience in Sarajevo, 1995.
Also, the author symbolizes heaven by using “amphibian empiries”. That shows the author is relaxed about the death and the soldier, or toad, is in a better place. The audience can also infer the author has PTSD from war. The last sentence says “in the wide and antique eyes which still appear to watch across the castrate lawn, the haggard daylight steer.” This imagery lets the audience see that the author is probably sitting and remember seeing all the accidents that happened in the war.
