Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

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War can not be fully described in just words, humans have to experience it to know how it really is. In passage 1 from “The Things They Carried”, a fictional memoir by Tim O'brien, the narrator describes the contradictory nature of war. O’brien uses rhetorical strategies to characterize the experience of war. O’brien uses imagery, anaphora, and paradox to guide readers understand the experience of war through fictional writing. First, O’brien uses paradox to generalize the Vietnam war. He uses “nasty”,”fun”,”thrilling”, “drudging”, “dead”, and “a man” to help the readers understand the letter. The paradox of this writing is that it states out the opposite terms of war. Tim juxtaposes ideas together to make it clear that war cannot be fully

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