The Thing By Tim O Brien Rhetorical Devices

War and The Power of Words

"My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see."

-Joseph Conrad

The Vietnam War began after Vietnam split into two parts in 1954: Communist North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem. Soviet Russia allied with North Vietnam, and the United States reacted by allying with South Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson began sending troops to Vietnam in 1964 to combat the Vietcong. Dedicated soldiers trudged through the dense jungles of Vietnam, they crawled through collapsing underground tunnels and braved burning villages. These are the circumstances under which Tim O‘Brien‘s narrative, The

Authors often use flashbacks as a means of adding background information into the current events taking place in their story. This is done by interrupting a specific activity within their story to give the reader additional information about a character's past, including his secrets, inner and external thoughts and emotions, conflicts, or significant events that have impacted their lives. In Tim O’Brien’s piece, he writes of a flashback had by Lieutenant Cross and Martha. Cross zones out of the war and thinks of when he kissed Martha after they went to the movies together. He recalls what she was wearing when he put his hand on her knee, and how he should have been braver that evening. This flashback serves as a way for the reader to connect with the character Lt. Cross. O’Brien uses the flashback to demonstrate the emotional toll war took on him. Cross focused on that evening with Martha because he did not want to focus on the war itself. Instead of focusing on the blood and gore involved with her he chooses to concentrate on Martha. The sexier image of Martha back home waiting for him was much more comforting than the reality of