O’Brien’s usage of rhetorical elements such as narration from different point of views (which is “made up” or exaggerated) and several rhetorical techniques provide support to the various arguments he makes in his work of The Things They Carried. The rhetorical mode of this book is mainly narration. It is made up of the viewpoints of several different characters and the story that follows. This “jumping” of several viewpoints is one of the things he argues about; and that is, the fact that “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth (171).”, according to him. This ideology is evident in his work because the narrations are almost all “made up”. He didn’t kill the “dainty young man” because he states about himself being young and looking
…show more content…
These include personification, parallelism, simile, metaphor, and symbolism. However, the most abundant and important technique he uses in the book are the various symbolisms. This includes the “pebble on the Jersey shore”, “Mary Anne Bell”, and “Kathleen”. The first symbolism the author includes is the pebble that Martha found, who was a character named Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had feelings for. The pebble was said to be found “where things came together but also separated (7)”. This symbolizes how the pebble was something that kept them attached, like the shoreline of the two different worlds where Cross and Martha belonged; but at the same time, it shows how like the ocean and the land never meet except at the shore, the two can never become together because they lived in two completely different worlds. The second symbolism is Mary Anne Bell, a girl who used to be innocent (can be also said as ignorant) and sweet that changed when she was involved in the war. She used to wear her pink sweater and culottes, as she got more involved in the action, it is stated that she wore “a necklace of human tongues (105)” in a weird hootch with abnormal clutters and smells. She symbolizes both the ignorance in American commoners and also the change from the innocent state. She shows the “girls back home” and then shows how war could change people. Though many more people go crazy in the narratives, she goes through the most abundant change. The third symbolism, Kathleen, is similar to Mary Anne; except, she symbolizes modern America, who is young and curious about her new experience but also a figure that doesn’t know much about the war and struggles to understand the feelings her “father” gets when he looks at the field where his friend passed
These include personification, parallelism, simile, metaphor, and symbolism. However, the most abundant and important technique he uses in the book are the various symbolisms. This includes the “pebble on the Jersey shore”, “Mary Anne Bell”, and “Kathleen”. The first symbolism the author includes is the pebble that Martha found, who was a character named Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had feelings for. The pebble was said to be found “where things came together but also separated (7)”. This symbolizes how the pebble was something that kept them attached, like the shoreline of the two different worlds where Cross and Martha belonged; but at the same time, it shows how like the ocean and the land never meet except at the shore, the two can never become together because they lived in two completely different worlds. The second symbolism is Mary Anne Bell, a girl who used to be innocent (can be also said as ignorant) and sweet that changed when she was involved in the war. She used to wear her pink sweater and culottes, as she got more involved in the action, it is stated that she wore “a necklace of human tongues (105)” in a weird hootch with abnormal clutters and smells. She symbolizes both the ignorance in American commoners and also the change from the innocent state. She shows the “girls back home” and then shows how war could change people. Though many more people go crazy in the narratives, she goes through the most abundant change. The third symbolism, Kathleen, is similar to Mary Anne; except, she symbolizes modern America, who is young and curious about her new experience but also a figure that doesn’t know much about the war and struggles to understand the feelings her “father” gets when he looks at the field where his friend passed