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Because the book is a memoir, there was less concern with overarching strategy and more with Sledge’s personal experience during the part of the war he fought in. The argument in Sledge’s book is how war wears on a soldier’s spirit, mind, and body. Because of the way that he describes the war, it allows the reader to personalize the war experience and imagine the feelings as if they were truly there. The description of war through a memoir can be used as an accurate telling of what war is on a personal level and this helps historians understand better when they are studying about war, but aren’t really there. Sledge discusses the traumatic experience of watching a marine use a flamethrower on a pillbox, a concrete dug-in guard post, occupied by Japanese soldiers.
Beah describes the difficulty of readjusting to normal life and the struggle to find a sense of belonging and purpose. Beah begins his essay by describing the surreal experience of returning to his village after the war. He writes, "Everything seemed so normal, and yet it was all so surreal." Beah had spent years as a child soldier, forced to commit acts of violence and witness unspeakable atrocities.
In the third chapter of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the author uses diction, symbolism, and imagery to foreshadow the Joad’s family journey to California through the connection with the turtle’s minutest movement. The turtle’s every movement portrays several circumstances that the Joad’s family have to overcome, in order to reach their goal to find reasonable jobs. Both the turtle and Joad’s family is traveling towards the southwest with different levels of obstacles waiting ahead of their journey, thus will provide discomfort with the lack of speed they have to succeed each and every problem. Also we can infer that the Joad’s family is moving really slowly and cautiously, because turtles are meant to be slow on land. So the author uses numerous rhetorical devices to correspond with the endurance of the turtle and the Joad’s family.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
In Steve Kaplan’s The Undying Uncertainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he writes, “the facts about an event are given; they then are quickly qualified or called into question; from this uncertainty emerges a new set of facts about the same subject that are again called into question--on and on, without end” (Kaplan). Again, this uncertain questioning process catalyzes the storyteller to question his memories. In order to succeed in telling a war
He uses this rhetorical device to inform his reader that there are many aspects of war that may have been known to exist individually, however, he emphasizes that the key to understanding all war stories is to first understand that each of the attributes listed, among many more, co-exist. He tells the reader that war in not simple, nor is there one word to describe it. By keeping his sentences and phrases succinct, O'Brien leaves little room for interpretation by the reader and therefore, more room for understanding of what he is truly attempting to emanate. Through variant diction such as "fun," "pity," and "terror," along with the lack of any superfluous components, O'Brien allows himself to not only keep his sentences small, but also delineate the differentiation among the many aspects of war. He uses simple diction to keep the reader from exerting too much focus on any one description because, again, his words are not meant to be examined individually, but rather as a whole.
The novel focuses on coping with the death and horror of war. It also speaks volumes about the true nature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the never-ending struggle of dealing with it. In the
Diaries are a way people keep records of events or their experiences (OED). This is a symbol the author uses for Norman's reflectiveness in the novel. Repetition emphasizes a point for reflection as reflection often repeats key words and situations. O'Brien uses repetition of the scene in "Speaking of Courage," noting the number of revolutions Norman makes as he drives along a lake, "It was his eighth revolution around the lake," to show Norman Bowker's constant thought over Kiowa's death with each revolution Norman continues to replay the memory. In "In The Field," Kiowa's death is repeated again with its focus on detail rather than reflection, emphasizing the memories.
The Wars is a symbolic masterpiece that illustrates the great impact war brings on the microcosm of society and how individuals juxtaposed to the war are affected. The novel itself requires active reading; because without it, the novel would seem very simplistic; however, after further examination, readers can evidently recognize the complexity of Robert’s character with the aid of many heteroglossic components, techniques, devices, and the reworking of literary conventions. Robert’s physical, mental and emotional journey he endeavours, followed by the constant re-evaluations of his truths and becoming a more proficient soldier, can be seen through a formalist perspective with the use of foreshadowing to signify Robert’s transition from a sane to insane soldier; the utilization of animal imagery highlighting Robert’s development through the horrific experiences of war; and the several themes in the text to illustrate Robert’s evolution as a soldier through his inner
Repetition is a strategy used to attract a person 's thoughtfulness regarding a sure thought. Consider school. On the off chance that an instructor needs to express what is on her mind, is she going to say it once? No, she is going to repeat it various times so it starts to sink in. The same works with the repeated verses in this epic.
He begins listing simple things, such as the moon, how the grass swayed from the wind of a helicopter, and a red clay trail. Then it grows more serious, from listing a hand grenade to the sight of a young dead man that he killed. The contrast from the petty memories to the young dead man makes his killing stand out. The purpose of the comparison and contrast is to emphasize the abrupt brutalness of death and fear during a war. The significance of the repetition of his age was to show how much time has passed from serving in the Vietnam War, but is still affected by the memories.
Bruce Dawe ultimately exposes the brutal hopelessness of soldiers caught up in foreign conflicts and its impact on family and friends. The poem, Weapons Training, is an entailment of a sergeant desensitising a
Throughout the poem “New Orleans,” Joy Harjo utilizes repetition in order to emphasize her message. One example of repetition paired with a metaphor as well outlines her reasoning for visiting the city, “My spirit comes here to drink. / My spirit comes here to drink” (Harjo 98). Harjo is comparing one’s ancestry or past with a nourishing drink.
Du Fu’s poems mirror this despair that he lived through and told a story on the surface but there was more meaning underneath. In “A Song of My Cares When Going from the Capital to Fengxian”, Du Fu describes a journey where he is trying to escape the destruction of the rebellion only to find that it was everywhere. Through the poem, he uses the harshness of the journey as an analogy of the ruin of his country that he once thought could protect him and was wealthy but ultimately ended up failing him.
In the poem, “A Hymn to Childhood,” Li-Young Lee talks about having fragmented individuality from childhood due to war. He is lost in perception of a traumatic childhood caused by war and a normal naïve childhood. Lee depicts the two diverged childhoods from his memory through the use of antithesis to emphasize the world perceived by a self fragmented individual. Throughout the poem, he consistently presents two opposing ideas to show what it feels like to grow up with emotional trauma.