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Rhetorical Language In The Things They Carried

Decent Essays

What is revolution? Revolution is a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something. To have a revolution it takes a spark to ignite it and followers to support. Readers can come to see that it is human nature for people to revolt against something they believe in. Many times a revolution starts a war. Tim O’Brien expresses revolution through a memoir about the Vietnam War. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, rhetorical language was used to communicate the characteristics and qualities of revolution.
O’Brien first showed the revolution in himself. Before this war it was uncommon for a man to not want to fight in the war because they always had a reason to and felt it was their duty. The Vietnam War …show more content…

Many men also agreed with O’Brien in not wanting to fight because they did not know what they were fighting for. Some men thought fighting for their country was a duty they had to uphold. As Norman Bowker stated, “his father would have nodded, knowing full well that many brave men do not win medals for their bravery, and that others win medals for doing nothing” (135). Bowker grew up in a military family and could not run from the war. It was a revolution for him because war was all his family had known and he was the only one to ever not want to experience it. O’Brien uses logos because it is accurate that some soldiers earn something they do not deserve. He mainly uses pathos because he wants the reader to feel Bowker’s emotions and sense of helplessness to help shape the revolution. From Beah readers learn Ishmael feels as if they have no control over their future, they only know how to survive (87). The only thing they know is, “My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed” (116). This shows revolution because he is a young boy and he is experiencing war which is not normal, this should not be his mentality. He is using ethos because this war actually happened and this is what he remembers first hand. Bowker and Ishmael have the mentality that war is the only thing they know. War has revolutionized the thought process of innocent men and boys and has changed their human

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