The Coffee Room Soldier Analysis Essay

The purpose of the intertextuality approach to writings is to think and analyze the relationship between two works. Although “The Coffee Room Soldier” and “The Things They Carried” are from different experiences and two different stories about war, both correlate to each other in having similar tones and emotions about their experiences. The poem “The Coffee Room Soldier” is from a nurse’s view of war and tragedy and the short story “The Things They Carried” is a short story, both have similar thoughts and emotions about war. In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses a very interesting style when writing this story. The tone and emotion throughout the entirety of it is very emotionless and has a feeling of numbness. For example, “…How the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement.” (3) This line symbolizes how the tone is very gloomy and sad and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was so numb and used to the feeling of seeing dead bodies. The word “cement” is used to describe his body which in tales that he is used to seeing this happen a lot that he relates it to cement. “The Coffee Room Soldier” best corresponds with “The Things They Carried” because in the “Coffee Room Soldier” Penny Kendall writes a line “I initially stepped casually over his shattered body” (Stanza 2 line 2) which is very nonchalant especially when the author writes “casually.” This makes the reader do a double take and wonder “How could someone be casual about stepping over a dead body?” Even though in this poem it’s a

It sets the mood and portrays a sense of numbness and an emotionless feel. “The Things They Carried” and “The Coffee Room Soldier” relate to one another because of these tones and emotions between them. This gives the reader a better understanding of the point the author was trying to make and to better understand what the soldiers went