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Rhetorical Devices In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The Things They Carried was a very powerful and emotional book from the authors first person perspective. While he managed the art of good story telling by keeping the memories of his platoon mates alive through his stories, he also achieved good story telling by the use of specific narrative elements and rhetorical devices. Many people never really notice these specific things in novels or books until they are pointed out. So, what are these devices and how would they have any effect on the way he told the stories? To begin with, during the first chapter, Tim O'Brien uses anaphora as a rhetorical device. Throughout the whole chapter, he consciously repeats the phrase "they carried" and "the things they carried". “They carried all the emotional baggage of men that might die. They carried…”. (pg.20) Additionally, the phrase "he would" is used multiple times on page 24 at the end of the first chapter. “But from this point on he would comport himself as an officer…”. O'Brien repeats these three phrases to emphasize his point. I think the phrases "they carried" and "the things they carried" are stressed continuously in order to really state the fact that war can be burdensome and grueling. These words are thrown at the reader repeatedly because they hold weight. …show more content…

Enumeratio is a rhetorical device that lists several details or aspects of something, often to emphasize its importance or to induce emotions in the reader. O'Brien uses enumeratio to illustrate how soldiers' obsessions, fears, and memories could shape their identities and alienate them from the world they once knew. The use of lists to emphasize the weight of physical and emotional objects, the soldiers' fears and anxieties, and their yearning to return to normalcy creates a poignant and realistic representation of the psychological cost of

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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a novel that emphasizes symbolism in chapter 7, “How to Tell a War Story” the character/narrator Tim O’Brien expresses The struggle that affects a soldier in the war. “He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt it” (O'Brien, 75) In Chapter 7 How to Tell a war story, the story expresses the grief that Rat Kiley goes through.

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In The Things They Carried there was a lot going on in my essay. I had a weak thesis to, I did not explain how the rhetorical devices O’Brien used was significant to the audience, and I did not have a conclusion. First, for my thesis, I kept most of the order I had before, but deleted the metaphor part and moved it somewhere else. Also, in my body paragraphs, I was skipping important ideas such as the most important: the audience, I had to make sure I wrote about how O’Brien’s rhetorical devices affected them. Such as when he use polysyndeton it was so that the readers understand that soldiers did not have one feeling throughout the war but multiple.

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The Things They Carried by American author Tim O’Brien, who was drafted in the Vietnam war, describes the experience of the American infantry fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien utilises various rhetorical devices to illustrate the immense emotional & physical burdens the soldiers were to bear to enlighten the reader about the true horrors of war. For example, O’Brien employs asyndeton & polysyndeton in sentences listing the many things the soldiers carried. “They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades…,” (O’Brien). The lists of items carried carry on, overwhelming & exhausting the reader of the physical burdens of war.

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Tim O'Brien uses intentional narrative and rhetorical devices in his book "The Things They Carried" to advance various themes within it, such as storytelling, memory power and emotional baggage. O'Brien examines each theme through these narrative devices. O'Brien effectively explores these themes through imagery. His vivid descriptions bring home both physical and emotional burdens that soldiers carry, such as Lt. Cross's love for Martha being like "a stone in his stomach" (O'Brien 5). Such images create a powerful depiction of emotional weight soldiers carry with them and highlight its importance within military lives.

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This brings focus specifically to the things the men are carrying, both tangible and intangible, without deemphasizing the narration. O'Brien gives only straight forward descriptions in these sections and the writing is nugatory of any feeling or sentiment whatsoever. On the other hand, when describing the intangible items, the writing is automatically perceived as more in tune with the emotions of the characters in the novel. The author's writing tends to be taking more sentimentality in these segments and adds a great deal of emotional weight for the reader. The soldiers all clearly want to escape the reality of what is going on around them in the war.

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Tim shows the reader a plethora of experiences that each soldier had, whether it be sad or happy, and how it affected them individually in different ways. As O’Brien describes the tangibles, he also discusses the different objects each soldier had whilst they were on their tour. Tim states how, “…every third or fourth person carried a Claymore antipersonnel mine – 3.5 pounds with its firing device…they carried fragmentation grenades – 14 ounces each…they all carried at least one M-18 colored smoke grenade – 24 ounces…” (O’Brien 7). Repetition is utilized throughout this quote and is used to engross the reader about what the true setting and circumstances were for the soldiers.

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Holden carries the emotional baggage of his loneliness and the death of his little brother. In The Things They Carried the main character, Tim O’brien, is a soldier of A-Company in the Vietnam War. He doesn’t really agree with the motifs of the war but must fight in order to survive.

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In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, imagery emphasises the fears of the characters and the importance of the settings. O’Brien focuses on sensory imagery and graphic context to characterize the characters, while writing with emphatic syntax. By emphasizing the writing and using the specific types of imagery, he provides an accurate representation of what war is like. When writing with imagery, his style and use of language changes to provide complexe feelings and situations. The exaggerated and strategically placed sensory imagery creates an empathetic mood.

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If The Things They Carried is known for one thing, it is a depressing anthology of war stories. If it’s known for two, the second would be the constant ever-present pondering as to the truthfulness of the stories. O’Brien, in a claimed effort to get the reader to understand the truth of what he felt instead of what he experienced, made the events of the novel ambiguous as to their truthfulness. This is a nearly foundational element of the novel that permeates throughout the entire book, sowing the first seeds of uncertainty in “How to Tell a True War Story” where the idea of story-truth being more accurate than happened-truth is introduced through Rat Kiley, and culminates in “Good Form”, where O’Brien explicitly says his story of killing the Viet Cong man is false. The concepts of courage and heroism are dwelt upon in certain parts of The Things They Carried, and the novel makes the two ideas gray instead of black and white, smearing the hard-line definitions seen in classical stories, making the characters seem heroic or courageous in one story and immoral and cowardly in the other.

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The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.

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Employing softer language conveyed that the soldiers are trying to detach themselves from the horrors of war. For instance, words like “grease…offed, lit up,” and “zapped while zipping” were used instead of “killed” (604). By deliberately repeating the phrase “they carried” and “the things they carried” at the start of several sentences, it is evident that O’Brien uses anaphora as a rhetorical device in his writing in order to assert the fact that war can be burdensome and grueling. These phrases are stressed repetitively throughout the story to denote the weight of war also becoming heavier for the soldiers the longer it continues. Another rhetorical and stylistic device used to emphasize the tone is the asyndeton.

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747 Words | 3 Pages

Synthesis Essay In the Vietnam war, there were many soldiers at war with each other, and most soldiers were not prepared for the fight. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien was in the Vietnam war when he was young. The book was not in order but he still talks about his experiences while in the war. His purpose for writing this novel was because he wanted younger audience to know what happened in the war and what the soldiers experienced.

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A lot happens in Tim O 'Brien short story "The Things They Carried", at first, the reader speculates what the short story is about and why it is called "The Things They Carried". The narrator Tim O 'Brien tells and describes all the things that the men have to carry while "in-country" during the Vietnam War in the1960 's. The text 's artistic value comes from its plot, characters, conflict, and style. In the plot of the story the protagonist, Tim O 'Brien starts by describing circumstances that happened while he was in Vietnam. In the beginning of "The Things They Carried" we are introduced to each character by the things they carry.

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carry,” tells a story about the lives of young men during war. The narrator tells his story from first person, marking all of his adventures and experiences of his companions. O’Brien crafts his piece through the use of repetition, symbolism, and metaphors to convey the idea of physical and psychological hardships of soldiers during war. Though the literary device of repetition, O'Brien portrays the physical and psychological hardships of a soldier.

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