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Realism In Where Have You Gone Charming Billy

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Realistic elements in a story create vivid images in the mind of a reader. An author may choose to write in the style of realism in order to show the reader a situation in a realistic and genuine way so that the topic of a story may be understood better. The use of realism creates believable emotions and ignite empathy in the reader. Realism, as used in “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy”, gives the reader an insight into the reality that the characters live. Tim O’brien uses the style of realism to demonstrate to the reader that a soldier fighting during a war was really very afraid and strongly affected by the danger that they faced rather than the common view that through their bravery soldiers are unemotional. Tim O’Brien uses the literary …show more content…

The use of imagery shows the reader more vividly the realistic feelings of fear that soldier may feel while fighting in a war. The graveyard that the narrator is marching through is described as “conical-shaped burial mounds and tiny altars made of clay and stone. The graveyard had a perfumy smell. A nice place to spend the night, he thought” (O’Brien 831). The vivid description of the graveyard and burial mounds shows the reader that the senses of the soldier were heightened due to his feeling of fear. The topic that is being described is also important because usually a graveyard is scary, but the soldier says that he would be willing to spend the night in it. This shows us that the fear that the soldier felt about getting killed by the enemy was stronger than his fear …show more content…

Repetition is used in t “pretending he was not in the war, pretending he had not watched Billy Boy Watkins die” (O’Brien 828) The author repeats many words and phrases in order to show the reader that rather than being brave and unaffected by the way he was trying to pretend as if he wasn’t in the dangerous situation so that he could overcome his fear. Informal word choice his eyes still wide open and scared stiff “The big soldier hissed at him to shut up” The author uses simple, everyday language in order to show the reader the realities of war from the point of view of the fearful soldier. Names of the characters: “Private First Class Paul Berlin” soldier died Billy Boy“ doctor “Doc Peret”. The names of the characters describe their position at war. While the narrator always states his name as a fool informal title, being a Private is actually a very low level beginning soldier, whereas the doctor who was educated and help a higher position is referred to as “Doc” and the life of the lost soldier is not respected with a heroic title of authority, but rather referred to by a nickname “Billy Boy”. DIction is a litarary device that effectively helps the reader feel like the story is real, it is used in the text to make us believe that what is happening is

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