Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay
They Things They Carried
English 111 2pm
Tim O’Brien authored the novel “The Things They Carried” a novel filled with short stories about the Vietnam War. The first passage in the collection lists the numerous things the solders in O’Brien’s platoon carried. Varying from weapons, to thoughts of loved ones back home. Distorting the line between the tangible and intangible, O’Brien writes about the things like bibles, pantyhose, moccasins, and pictures. Things the men carried tangibly, but are used to give them something to think about other than the waning darkness of the war, that making them intangible. The intangible things are used to escape the war; weighing heavier than anything tangible possibly could. Specifically, they are burdened with death. The men carry the intangible burden of death, something always on their minds and weighing more than anything tangible they could ever carry. They did what they could not to acknowledge death, each using their own techniques try and put a spin on and lift the emotional baggage of war and war’s mortality. To truly understand the men’s view of death in the war, we must pay attention to …show more content…
Greased they’d say, offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn’t cruelty just stage presence. They were actors.” (Pg. 19) The way the men avoided really thinking about death. It was an ominous shadow of losing a member of the platoon. The men didn’t want to deal with the thoughts that surround death so they choose to lighten their attitudes toward it. Putting a spin on it. As noted in the book, “The war is like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.” (Pg. 31) The solders did all they could to escape the inedibility of death, though the emotional baggage stayed with them for the rest of their lives. O’Brien says that in Vietnam, the soldiers devised ways to make the dead seem less dead; they kept them alive with
English 111 2pm
Tim O’Brien authored the novel “The Things They Carried” a novel filled with short stories about the Vietnam War. The first passage in the collection lists the numerous things the solders in O’Brien’s platoon carried. Varying from weapons, to thoughts of loved ones back home. Distorting the line between the tangible and intangible, O’Brien writes about the things like bibles, pantyhose, moccasins, and pictures. Things the men carried tangibly, but are used to give them something to think about other than the waning darkness of the war, that making them intangible. The intangible things are used to escape the war; weighing heavier than anything tangible possibly could. Specifically, they are burdened with death. The men carry the intangible burden of death, something always on their minds and weighing more than anything tangible they could ever carry. They did what they could not to acknowledge death, each using their own techniques try and put a spin on and lift the emotional baggage of war and war’s mortality. To truly understand the men’s view of death in the war, we must pay attention to …show more content…
Greased they’d say, offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn’t cruelty just stage presence. They were actors.” (Pg. 19) The way the men avoided really thinking about death. It was an ominous shadow of losing a member of the platoon. The men didn’t want to deal with the thoughts that surround death so they choose to lighten their attitudes toward it. Putting a spin on it. As noted in the book, “The war is like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.” (Pg. 31) The solders did all they could to escape the inedibility of death, though the emotional baggage stayed with them for the rest of their lives. O’Brien says that in Vietnam, the soldiers devised ways to make the dead seem less dead; they kept them alive with