The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
7. Towards the beginning of the

novel, O’Brien reveals a few of the things the men of the Alpha Company carried. However, in this excerpt O’Brien discusses their intangible burdens, burdens with just as much weight as tangible ones. 9. “They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.” It is important to notice the unusual statements O’Brien makes in this excerpt. It is commonly believed that a soldier leaves for war to prove his dignity, his courage, and his patriotism for his country. However, O’Brien, a war-torn soldier himself, shares a contradicting perspective. He reveals that a soldier’s greatest fear is the fear of embarrassment; more specifically, embarrassment of not fighting or dying as a war hero. But what makes this excerpt even more interesting is O’Brien’s word choice. The word “blush” in particular. 8. Additionally, blushing is the reddening of the face as a sign of embarrassment or shame. O’Brien also uses the phrase “blush of dishonor” to emphasize the embarrassment a soldier would feel if he declined to serve his country and to add visual imagery. This makes the reading experience more enjoyable because it allows the reader to get a glimpse of how O’Brien thinks.
O’Brien uses concrete terms in the following quote to explain how the soldiers felt during the war. 9. “They imagined the muzzle against flesh. So easy: squeeze the trigger and blow away a toe. They imagined it. They imagined a quick, sweet pain, then the evacuation to Japan, then a hospital with warm beds and cute geisha nurses.” In summary, O’Brien reveals that most of the men have a hidden desire for self-harm to simply achieve friendliness in Japan, far away from the battle grounds of Vietnam. It introduces an effect long-suffering in warfare has left on the soldiers: the unwavering belief that ends always justified the means. However, what truly makes the quote interesting is O’Brien’s contradicting tone with what he is saying. 7. He uses words such as “easy, squeeze, quick, and sweet” to further emphasize the lack of judgment some soldiers had. O’Brien also creates a visual image as he describes a hospital in Japan, using the words “warm” for the beds and “cute” for the nurses. This goes to show how much the men desired immediate freedom from warfare.
7.

O’Brien’s repetition emphasizes how the soldiers carried things emotionally. He uses “They carried” to emphasize the importance of the phrase. He uses “They carried” to emphasize how the soldiers struggled when they were in war. Another form of rhetoric O’Brien uses to aid the reader is his repetition. He tends to begin most of the sentences with “They carried.” In addition to this O’Brien occasionally switches the word carried for other actions: “endured, kept, imagined, crawled, spoke, or did not submit.” This mixture of actions words/phrases, in combination with “they,” allows the reader to view the men in many different dimensions at once. Persistent men, cowardly men, delusional men and etc…. O’Brien adds to the reading experience when he does this and again allows the reader to truly understand the burden of the war through the eyes of the Alpha

Company.
In conclusion, author Tim O’Brien successfully brought the experience of the Alpha Company to life through his use of word choice, imagery, and repetition. He brought the reader’s attention through this war story. When O’Brien repeated “they carried”