Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

From pages 52 to 54, O’Brien creates a parable that shows the true nature of the fear hidden in us that latches on and doesn’t let go. He exhibits this through the repetition of this fear, the lack of any onlookers to judge, and the rhetorical questions asked. The main idea is that when confronted with a frightful idea such as war, you will feel your truest emotions and they will conflict with your thoughts and even other emotions, and of these fear is strongest.

Tim O’Brien uses saddening tone words to explain why he fabricated the entire novel, instead of telling the truth. O’Brien feels as though he is responsible for the deaths that happened in Vietnam, even if he did not do the killing. He believes that his “presence was guilt enough,”(171). This is why O’Brien formulates the false stories, to make the reader feel the same way he did in that situation, even if he has to bend the truth to do so. The author finds it necessary to put a face to the victim in order to make it more bearable. Otherwise, O’Brien is left with “faceless guilt” and “faceless responsibility,” (171). He also feels as if he holds the weight of all of the men that he could’ve possibly killed.

In the story on one of the very first pages Tim O’Brien was talking about how in your childhood everybody always thinks that they will amount to be a hero and maintain all of those qualities, however, all he felt was shame. Following this he was talking about how he felt as if he was a coward and how he didn’t assume that he had the courage to go against the grain. From all of this I was envisioning that he didn’t have enough guts to go to Canada for the reason that if he did, I don’t feel that he would have regretted his decision. Tim O’Brien would have done not only what he wanted; on the other hand, what he felt was right for him. Then later on in the story when Mr. O’Brien was expressing how horrible his job was at the meat packing plant was and how the pigs were en route to the slaughter I took it as is was of foreshadowing. I saw this as foreshadowing as a result of him being sent to war, it was as if he was the pig, the soldier, going to be slaughtered, at war, as if he had no chance or say in the situation he was about to be forced into.

In the fictional novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien vividly explains the fear and trauma the soldiers encountered during the Vietnam War. Many of these soldiers are very young and inexperienced. They begin to witness their acquaintances’ tragic demise, and kill other innocent lives on their own. Many people have a background knowledge on the basis of what soldiers face each day, but they don’t have a clear understanding of what goes through these individual’s minds when they’re at war. O’Brien gives descriptive details on the soldiers’ true character by appealing to emotions, using antithesis and imagery.

Often in the years following a war the notion of warfare is warped by common conceptions or cliches so that it no longer resembles the realities that the soldiers experienced. However, Tim O’Brien uses his own personal experiences from Vietnam to create stories which exhibit the real situations that these soldiers faced. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, demonstrates this unfiltered reality through multiple literary elements and the creation of fictional stories in order to portray the war accurately. Courage and valor are often associated with the idea of war and are often expected to be traits that all soldiers live by.

Good morning to you. My name is Jholar. I am a pre-dental student that came to Pittsburgh because University of Pittsburgh had the number one dental school in America. Spring of 2015, I was taking two classes which got challenging, so I made a smart move to drop the two classes. I tried seeking help over the phone from the Community College of Allegheny County, and my previous college in Atlanta, but I had no luck.

A key technique that Tim O'Brien used in order to express his attitude towards the war, was the one of repetition. We see a young Tim O’Brien try to justify his reasons for fleeing the USA by crossing the border to Canada and trying to explain his feelings by saying, “What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”. We see repetition predominantly used throughout this passage and it gives us a clearer indication of what his attitude towards the war actually was. The use of repetition makes the reader think about how they would have reacted in a similar situation.

When faced with a life or death situation, there is no time to think. Soldiers are forced to make life or death decisions in a split second. The aftermath of those decisions, however, can live with soldiers for a very long time. As O’Brien recalls the emotions he felt when he killed someone for the first time he notes, After he killed the soldier, O’Brien is paralyzed with the thoughts about the dead man’s background, his family and what his future might have been. O'Brien conveys the feelings of uncertainty experienced in the heat of intense life or death moments during war.

The effects of this issue are further reflected upon in Tim O’Brien’s war story The Things They Carried, where Vietnam War era veteran O’Brien narrates his fictional account of the war and its effects on its combatants as a way to cope with the inflicted grief and regret of battle. Throughout the story and through other veterans’ accounts, it is evident how storytelling can be an effective medium to assuage these mental effects of war on a veteran. Most prominently, war’s effects on soldiers are mainly physical with disabilities causing a lasting effect on those who once fought and now wish to adapt to civilian life. However, the idea of not being able to adapt completely lies with the lesser known effects of war inflicted disabilities, with PTSD mentally scarring soldiers for periods of their life and depression following suit. Like how hospitals and bandages heal bullet wounds, O’Brien proves how writing and storytelling serve as remedies to patch up the mental wounds caused by war.

War can be and has been proven to be a deeply scarring experience for many soldiers. Evidently, nothing can prepare them for warfare, seeing close friends die, and narrowly escaping death themselves. Yet, the worst part of it all is having to live with those memories for a lifetime and the inability to forget. “But the thing about remembering is that you don 't forget” (O’brien 34, 1998). The war which is fought in the minds of soldiers lasts a lifetime, and its effects stretch far beyond the actual battle that is being fought. War can significantly affect a soldier mentally, as seen in the novel “The things they carried” by Tim O 'brien, an interview with Richard Dlugoz, and the poem “Coming Home” by Joe Wheeler.

Dennis P. Kimbo once said, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” Despite the numerous obstacles of life, people can choose how they react. Today, many people are faced with the obstacle of life threatening diseases. By some diseases being incurable, the cloud of only having so much longer to live hangs over them. As a result, some may choose the option of euthanasia if it is available. In the contrasting pieces of writing, Kara Tippetts use of ethos about euthanasia is more convincing than Brittany Maynard use of logos.

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

He writes about the coping mechanisms the soldiers used to help them handle the war. O’Brien uses the literary elements of coping mechanisms, such as escapism through fantasizing and escapism through substance abuse, laughter and humor, and talking, as well as, repetition and imagery, to develop author’s purpose of describing and informing, O’Brien does this, so the audience knows that war was very difficult for the soldier’s and changed their lives.

Many men go into the to war fighting for their honor only to return to be trapped by their own thoughts and memories of the horrors experienced on the battle field. Kiowa, who is much more kind and patient, understands that everyone has different reactions to taking life. He knows he will never be able to put himself in Tim’s shoes, but he still tries to comfort him by assuring him he made the right decision. “You want to trade places with him” (981)? “This guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail” (982). While the solders try to comfort Tim, he stays quiet, continuing to look over the body. Locked up by thoughts of guilt, Tim is showing us no words can describe the reality associated with war.

“One day you are having lunch with some guys from another unit, trading stories about home and what you’re gonna do when you get back to the world. And then the next day they’re dead” writes Afghanistan veteran and retired US Army Corporal Eric Porter. He goes on to describe how war transforms a person, “Your view of the world changes, you have seen and done things no other person in the world would understand besides you and your fellow brothers at war” (Personal Communication, October 20, 2016). With great frequency, one encounters a veteran wearing a baseball cap that says “Vietnam Veteran”. A sullen, bearded face or a bright eyed warrior with wrinkles that tell friends’ death stories— each veteran must learn to process and cope with what he has seen. Violence destroys sanity in every war, but it is not the only culprit. Each major modern American conflict had its own calling card, an individual characteristic that in itself could cause nightmares, but when coupled with violence, irreversibly alters minds. In World War I, it was the trenches, an unsanitary formidable enemy of both sides. In World War II, it was the concentration camps, bastions for sub-human treatment of those a deranged leader viewed as inferior. In Vietnam, it was the jungle, and the various problems associated with guerilla warfare in such a diverse and unforgiving habitat. In his fictional piece The Things They Carried, Vietnam Veteran Tim O’brien uses stories to illustrate the realities of war.