The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, tells the story of a platoon in the Vietnam War. O’Brien uses many literary devices to help him portray the overall theme including repetition, details, and through emphasizing the reasons the soldiers are a part of the war. All of these combined portray the anti-war argument and illustrate the idea that when young men go into war, they carry many burdens, but the emotional burdens are the heaviest ones that they are never able to put this down.
Throughout the story, the repetition of certain ideas is very obvious. There are number of times that O’Brien chooses to bring up a notion again and again, the first and most obvious being the death of Ted Lavender. O’Brien says, “Ted Lavender, who …show more content…
O’Brien gives very detailed descriptions of everything the men carry. He tells, “As PFCs or Specs 4s, most of the them were common grunts and carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 pounds with its fill 20-round magazine.” (Page 103). Everything is so exact down to the pound and it is easy to say how heavy these items are. O’Brien juxtaposes this with the burdens that are not easily measured like he mentions, “They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous,” (page 107). These are things that cannot be gauged, but are the heaviest. With these details, it is easy to deduct the antiwar theme. All O’Brien has to say about the effect the war had on these boys is negative. They are cursed to feel the heavy loads of seeing friends die, burning villages, and killing the Vietnamese people. O’Brien also chooses to depict this premise with the lack of certain details. O’Brien fails to mention anything about the positive views of war. He doesn’t ever talk about what they are fighting for, and never mentions anything patriotic or anything about fulfilling a duty. For O’Brien, there are no positives from
Throughout the story, the repetition of certain ideas is very obvious. There are number of times that O’Brien chooses to bring up a notion again and again, the first and most obvious being the death of Ted Lavender. O’Brien says, “Ted Lavender, who …show more content…
O’Brien gives very detailed descriptions of everything the men carry. He tells, “As PFCs or Specs 4s, most of the them were common grunts and carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 pounds with its fill 20-round magazine.” (Page 103). Everything is so exact down to the pound and it is easy to say how heavy these items are. O’Brien juxtaposes this with the burdens that are not easily measured like he mentions, “They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous,” (page 107). These are things that cannot be gauged, but are the heaviest. With these details, it is easy to deduct the antiwar theme. All O’Brien has to say about the effect the war had on these boys is negative. They are cursed to feel the heavy loads of seeing friends die, burning villages, and killing the Vietnamese people. O’Brien also chooses to depict this premise with the lack of certain details. O’Brien fails to mention anything about the positive views of war. He doesn’t ever talk about what they are fighting for, and never mentions anything patriotic or anything about fulfilling a duty. For O’Brien, there are no positives from