Rhetoric In The Things They Carried

Capturing Readers through Rhetoric
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien holds a collection of fictitious stories that detail the seemingly endless extent of suffering and destruction that soldiers must endure while tangled up in the chaotic corporeality that is war. O’Brien effectively makes these fabricated stories reach out to the reader and ensnare their senses, relating the readers to the novel even if they do not have firsthand experiences with war. He captures the reader by using a proficient collection of rhetorical strategies. Throughout the novel, it appears that O’Brien focuses less on the political aspect of war, and instead concentrates on the people who participated and suffered from the war instead. He does so through …show more content…
Just from these lines, the reader can sense the fatigue Lieutenant Cross is feeling as well as get a good picture of his loneliness and desire to be close to another, which is apparent in the way he “held them [the letters] with the tips of his fingers”, a move that shows delicacy and a will to not ruin something so precious. Also, the line “spend the last hour of light pretending” is one of great significance because it gives insight as to how the soldiers felt to be in the war. The word “pretending” is an excellent word choice because it paints the picture here that Lieutenant Cross uses the letters from Martha as an escape from the war- a way to imagine what life would be like if he had not been sent to Vietnam. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien explains that his friend Rat Kiley wrote a long, very heartfelt letter to the sister of a fallen soldier that happened to be a close friend of …show more content…
Several times in the book, O’Brien lists out things that each soldier carried along with him while in Vietnam, always starting each sentence with “They carried.” Every time O’Brien creates one of these lists entailing things each soldier has on him, he is doing much more than simply telling the readers what they have. He is also addressing the mental and emotional weight of those things they carry. One of the most important quotes in the entire book is found on page seven when O’Brien lists the many weapons each man carries as well as their weight. The list is the most important list because in it, not only is the physical weight of the weapons each man has to carry described, but as is the mental toll that carrying these weapons takes. The last line of this quote, “They all carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” (O’Brien 7) is important because the words “and then some” subtly hint at the idea that each and every soldier in the war has his or her own personal baggage to lug around along with the stresses of war. Some of those stresses include their control over these weapons that have such a “terrible power.” For these soldiers, it seems as though it is tough for them to wrap their heads around the fact that they are in a war and that they will have to eventually fight and risk their lives and use these powerful weapons. In an