The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Soldier’s Cry
Guilt ladened souls trudge through the battlefield. When the last gunshot rings through the stilled air, for the soldier, the war is not over; within oneself is where the true battle lies. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien fights the memories of his own war trodden past by transferring his emotions from his scarred heart to the pure paper. Esteemed filmmaker, Errol Morris, is also able to portray this contrast in the sharing of such memories through the stories of Robert S. McNamara in The Fog of War. These artists distinguish between the emotions of memories by the repetition of events and the structure of how a memory is presented to the audience. Tim O’Brien and Errol Morris’s purpose is to express how one must expose

Tone can be established through the structure of sentences, the use of rhetorical strategies and word choice. In the chapter In the Field, O’Brien repeats the word “and” in his initial response after Kiowa’s death, to create a dramatic effect on the reader. The tone is therefor tragic and urgent. For example, O’Brien described the young soldier’s reaction as, “No sense of direction, though, and the field seemed to suck him under, and everything was black and wet, and he couldn’t get his bearings....” (page 163). The memory of Kiowa’s death is expressed as a concrete event with a clear conclusion and without remaining questions. The use of polysyndeton evokes the powerful emotions connected to the death of Kiowa. This conveys how O’Brien did not know how to react at first. It was almost as if he didn’t know how to think or act after the death. One could argue that it should not have happened, yet there was no way of returning to life before the catastrophic event. By exposing the raw shock he endured, O’Brien is releasing the guilt and doubt wound tightly around the image of Kiowa. Similarly, Errol Morris was able to express emotion through tone by his focal point. For example, when the casualties of the war were declared, Errol Morris flashed news reports, revealing words in bold such as “Killed”, “Houses Destroyed” and “Captured or Missing”. This is similar to the use of polysyndeton because it provides a straightforward honest recall, evoking shock and pain from the audience. The word “killed,” has a similar connotation for all beyond the context of the situation. By removing general words, a better understanding is gained. This benefits McNamara because the bare emotions of the moment are shared and recognized and