The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

” Jose Garcia
Prof Correll
Eng 112 -008
Oct 22 2014

In “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien describes a more personal experience of the difficulties soldiers face during war. In the other hand, Komunyakaa tells us in his poem the type of challenges veterans have long after they were in war. Although sometimes when we think about war, we think being the strongest physically can be enough to be a warrior, but we tend to forget that mentally we need to be equally strong. Komunyakaa uses vivid imagery, diction, and a sad tone throughout his poem and is able to show the reader his sadness and confusion while the speaker is visiting the Vietnam Veteran Memorial. O’Brien uses diction, imagery and a burden tone to connect with the reader in a more

personal way. The poem “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa and the story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, involves soldiers who were involved in war who were not only physically hurt, but mentally harmed during war and long after it was done.
Both Tim O’Brien and Yusef Komunyakaa focus on conveying the confusion and lack of concentration veterans and soldiers have during and after war. Komunyakaa uses visual imagery and metaphors to reveal soldier’s emotions to help the reader have a better understanding of what they go through. For example, in the poem “Facing it” he shows confusion of himself by saying “I’m stone” “I’m flesh” (line 5). He is telling us he is two different persons, one is trying to tell himself not to cry because he is a “stone” and the other one reminds him he is “flesh,” that he is
human and still has feelings. Komunyakaa lets us know the difficulties he goes through when he attends to the Vietnam Veteran Memorial. Similarly, in “The Things They Carried” O’Brien shows how Jimmy Cross creates an illusion of how he pretends Martha loves him as much as he loves her, when she writes him. The letters were sign with “Love” but it “was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant” (1002). They both pretend, Jimmy Cross pretends he has someone that loves him waiting for him at home and that might just be enough to keep trying to stay alive. The speaker in the poem pretends he is “stone,” a machine, to bury his feelings and to not feel miserable.
Concentrating in battle without wondering off to other imaginary places was a great challenge for Jimmy Cross, and the speaker in Komunyakaa’s poem had the same problem but in the Vietnam Veteran Memorial long after war. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien explains the challenges Jimmy Cross faces when after five minutes Cross moves into the tunnel to examine it, all the sudden he starts to think about Martha (1007). He tried to concentrate but his love for Martha was too much for him (1007). Cross cannot concentrate in the hole he is because “he wanted to know her intimate secrets – why poetry?” ”Why so sad?” ”Why the grayness in her eyes?” “Why so alone?” (O’Brian 1007). The use of the word “why” and the repetition really shows the audience how Cross cannot concentrate and is clearly more worried about Martha than he is about his men. Jimmy Cross wonder off thinking about the “Jersey shoreline when Martha saw the pebble and bent down to rescue it from geology.” He was with Martha at one point and would come back to his cruel reality in seconds. In “Facing It” the speaker struggles with the same problem, while he is in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial “Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s/ wings cutting across my stare./ The sky. A plane in the sky”(lines 22-24). Here the speaker is going back to war in Vietnam where he is seeing planes but in reality he is only seeing birds. He is in two places at the same time, similar to Cross.
Through the duration of combat and long after, soldiers often feel guilty because friends die in front of them, and they were powerless to stop it; they question why it was not them who died instead.

For instance, in “Facing it”, line one, Komunyakaa describes his black face fading (1), and “hiding inside the black granite” (2). The sad tone he says it with, shows some shame he has of making it out alive while thousands of others did not. He feels shameful for existing among the names listed. Half way down the poem, Komunyakaa begins to scroll “down the 58,022 names/, half-expecting to find/ his own in letters like smoke” (lines 14-16). This shows that he feels guilty he survived while so many did not. In the same way, O’Brien shows how Cross feels guilty for the death of Ted Lavender. “He felt shame. He hated himself. He loved Martha more than his men and as a consequence Lavender was now dead” (1009).He uses diction and a burden tone to get his point across the reader by repeating “he”. He blames Martha, but at the same time he blames himself for loving her so much. He burns Martha’s letters and photographs because according to him she is the reason he has been in another world (O’Brien 1013). You also see some symbolism when Cross realizes he can’t burn the blame (1013). In an article written by Rena Korb, an English major who has written for a wide variety of educational publishers, Korb states that “Jimmy Cross’s ideals of home, fantasies of a girl back home, simply

serve as deadly distractions.” Korb is right on point because at the end of the story Cross realizes he has been putting his men at risk while fantasizing about Martha. In addition, most of the soldiers who went to war went because they wanted to keep their reputation of men (O’Brien 1012). O’Brien also mentions, soldiers “carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed no to” (1012). They did not want to be there, but carried the guilt of not being able to express how they feel so they won’t be looked as cowards.
After horrible war battles, seeing and remembering close friends die, soldiers like Jimmy Cross try to tell themselves they will be just fine, but veterans who went through that experience like Komunyakaa reveal that those events hunt them down for life.

In “The Things They Carried” after a long period of negligence, Jimmy Cross is determined to perform his duties (O’Brien 1014). Cross seems to be more concentrated, he knew “it wouldn’t help Lavender but from this point on he would comport himself as a soldier” (O’Brien 1014). After all he is been through Cross still finds courage to keep doing his job. On Paragraph 2 O’Brien describes how Cross is going to overcome Martha’s memories and fantasies, by using repetition. He uses “he would” seven times to convince the audience Cross will bury Martha’s love for good (1014). In an article written by Rena Korb, an English major who has written for a wide variety of educational publishers, Korb states that “Jimmy Cross’s ideals of home, fantasies of a girl back home, simply serve as deadly distractions.” Similarly, In “Facing it”, Komunyakaa obviously had terrible experiences regarding his close friends, for instance, “I touch the name Andrew Johnson (17), I see the booby trap’s white flash (18). As he scrolls down and comes across with the name “Andrew Johnson” he remembers him being killed by a bomb. The use of Imagery on these lines is important because the use of color white and the flash brings the bomb’s explosion to life.

After many years of the event, the flashbacks still disturb Komunyakaa, so it is not as easy as Cross describes he will move on.
Veterans and soldiers not only have to be physically strong but mentally strong to survive in war and long after. Komunyakaa was in the Vietnam War and managed to make it out alive without physical damage. But now after surviving the most difficult battle, his flashbacks about war hunt him down. He struggles when he visits the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, he feels guilty for being alive while friends like “Andrew Johnson” were not fortunate like himself. In “The Things They Carried” by O’Brien, a similar guilt hunts Jimmy Cross for the death of Ted Lavender. Cross was too distracted in his own world, fantasizing being with Martha. If it would not been for Martha, Lavender could have been alive according to Cross. Despite the guilt, Cross tries to be mentally strong and sounds more convinced. Although Komunyakaa and Cross continue with their lives, it doesn’t mean they won’t remember those close friends they lost in battle.