Irony In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The Things They Carried is a story made up of stories about how the men carried their war stories and their truths—during the war and after the war.

Traumatized Literary devices are what make the story come alive and give the reader a feeling of actually being there. The literary devices increase a reader’s interest in the story and also helps keep the audience engaged. They help create a more fascinating plot. In the short story “Ambush” by TIm O’brien uses them to develop a character so much more. Mr. O’brien used internal conflict, external conflict, and flashback to put the reader in the character’s “shoes” throughout the story.

Tim O'Brien was a young American soldier fighting in the Vietnam war. Him and every one of the soldiers carried a weight on their shoulders and experienced fear, stress, love and longing. There's always a different meaning behind the stories in The Thing They Carried. Tim O'Brien uses irony, symbolism, and imagery to describe the emotional and psychological burdens that soldiers went through.

In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses many short stories to describe his experience in Vietnam. The story that captured many aspects of writing was “How to Tell a True War Story” because it acts as a guide to writing a true story. O’Brien uses many different rhetorical strategies, narrative techniques, and establishes a theme in this story to help develop his characters and story line.

“His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole...,” writes O’Brien as he studies the deceased enemy (118). Throughout the novel, the author shows consistency with repeating stories and lines in a way to present a greater image. He reminds the reader of details the elaborate his larger view. When he writes of the man he killed, he wants the reader to imagine themselves in his shoes, as he imagined himself in the enemies’. As he carefully studies the dead man, he imagines how the boy found himself in the war. By relating American society to the boy’s village of My Khe, he bridges similarities connecting the two by a culture that promotes defending one’s land and ways of life. By saying, “he would have been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege,” he shows there is minimal difference between how most Americans view the military and the duty of the villagers in My Khe (119). Although he had not known the exact history of the boy, he attempted to illustrate in his own mind what his life may have been like prior to the invasion. The inability for O’Brien to walk away from the body as Kiowa continued to pry him away says he was troubled by the similarities. Despite Kiowa saying it could have been him lying lifeless on

The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.

O’Brien fought in the war and named his fictional character after himself. It is the truth of his real life juxtaposed to the truth in his

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien expresses the importance of a story-truth, as opposed to a happening-truth by use of literary elements in his writing. The novel is about war and the guilt it leaves on everyone involved in the war. Story-truth is not exactly what happened, but uses part of the truth and part made up in order to express the truth of what emotion was felt, which an important thematic element in the novel is. The three literary devices he uses to express this are diction, imagery, juxtaposition, and hyperbole. All of these elements allow the reader to identify emotion that is expressed in each story, as though that were the complete truth.

The Things They Carried is more than just a story about the Vietnam war. A focus has been placed on the real soldiers who lived through it. With the use of repetition, figurative language, and described imagery O’Brien is able to illustrates his story. WIth these three things, we are able to understand the physical and emotional side of a soldier at war.

Tim O’Brien’s, The Things they Carried is a riveting tale of struggle and sacrifice, self indulgence and self pity, and the intrapersonal battles that reeked havoc on even the most battle tested soldiers. O’Brien is able to express these ideas through eloquent writing and descriptive language that makes the reader feel as if he were there. The struggle to avoid cowardice is a prevailing idea in all of O’Brien’s stories.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is truly a storytelling masterpiece that has hidden life lessons surrounding the entire novel. Throughout the book, O’Brien uses several rhetorical devices in order to successfully capture the attention of his reader, and thoroughly rein them into the story by their emotions. O’Brien has the marvellous effect of allowing his words to place the reader in the events he is describing alongside with him, whether it be by feeling the emotion he’s feeling, or seeing the things he’s seeing. The chapter “Love” within the novel, The Things They Carried, is a perfect example as to how O’Brien’s storytelling pulls readers into his writing by their emotions. “Love” shifts from a calm, refreshing tone, to a depressing,

The Things They Carried was written by Tim O’Brien and throughout the novel he uses the technique of repetition frequently. One example of repetition is when he repeats the characteristics of the man he killed. During the entire chapter of The Man I Killed O’Brien often just repeats how the man's “jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole,…” and many of the other features of the man (118). The use of repetition during this scene shows how Tim could not wrap his brain around the concept that he actually killed someone. O’Brien uses the stories to keep the readers absorbed in the novel. He wants the readers to keep coming back for more even if some of the stories are not true. The reader wants to keep reading after completing each chapter because each story gets more interesting as they go further into the novel.

The Things They Carried is about the psychological effects the Vietnam war had on the soldiers. The author, Tim O’Brien, has witnessed the war and is the main character. Tim describes the effects of the war on a mental level. The story starts off describing TIm’s life before the war. Tim was drafted and thought “why me” and fled to Canada. After a week on the border of Canada, Tim went back and decided to go to Vietnam. Tim soon realized that he was

In this passage O’brien demonstrates his own character traits. As a writer, he has a strong ability to understand what others are feeling and sympathize. When he kills the young soldier, he creates a story around him, imaging the soldier as having similar struggles to his own. He deeply regrets the soldier's death because he feels that neither of them really wanted to be fighting in this war and relates his own life story to the fictional one he creates for the soldier.

The book The things they carried is a book written by Tim O’Brien, this story tells