Tim O’Brien is a writer that, while impressive, can be described as indulgent with his words; going on for pages at a time on one topic and not sparing a single detail. This, of course, is part of his charm, which is why his vignettes are never lacking in any rhetorical devices. However, in his “The Man I Killed” from his The Things They Carried the rhetorical devices become much less prominent, because the protagonist, Tim O’Brien, retreats into himself. Instead the reader must then shift gears to understand O’Brien’s message—the feeling, shock, obsession, and delusion that comes from killing someone—which he communicates using more subtle and less assertive devices such as tone, hyperbole, and antithesis.
Unfortunately, our protagonist, Tim …show more content…
Rather than give response to the information he collects on the man, he creates his own exaggerated and imagined perception of the man. At first, O’Brien’s accounts sound like they’re of real substance, but soon questions begin to arise: how does he know this? Why does the man’s life resemble O’Brien’s? First and foremost, it must be addressed that this is different from giving input or expanding beyond his tunnel vision because he still does not use the sensory information or the immediate reality as basis for inferences; it would be even better to present them as delusions since inferences are based on evidence. It’s as if someone has been given the prompt, “read the passage and write a paragraph that could be presented as a possible paragraph in the passage,” and that person does not read a word from that passage other than the title. They write their draft and present it to the teacher, and, as expected, it cannot fit anywhere in the passage because there’s no context or relation presented. Sure, it relates to the title, the superficial being of the passage, but not the content. This means the content would only come from the student. This is what O’Brien’s reflection and hyperbole is: presentation of delusions that have emerged from his inner self and therefore have no basis because his psyche is still damaged and trying to cope. O’Brien tries to understand and rationalize the significance of a life taken by or from in war. This is self-evident as he gives the man attributes that belong to himself, essentially, trying to put himself in his shoes. The man was
Unfortunately, our protagonist, Tim …show more content…
Rather than give response to the information he collects on the man, he creates his own exaggerated and imagined perception of the man. At first, O’Brien’s accounts sound like they’re of real substance, but soon questions begin to arise: how does he know this? Why does the man’s life resemble O’Brien’s? First and foremost, it must be addressed that this is different from giving input or expanding beyond his tunnel vision because he still does not use the sensory information or the immediate reality as basis for inferences; it would be even better to present them as delusions since inferences are based on evidence. It’s as if someone has been given the prompt, “read the passage and write a paragraph that could be presented as a possible paragraph in the passage,” and that person does not read a word from that passage other than the title. They write their draft and present it to the teacher, and, as expected, it cannot fit anywhere in the passage because there’s no context or relation presented. Sure, it relates to the title, the superficial being of the passage, but not the content. This means the content would only come from the student. This is what O’Brien’s reflection and hyperbole is: presentation of delusions that have emerged from his inner self and therefore have no basis because his psyche is still damaged and trying to cope. O’Brien tries to understand and rationalize the significance of a life taken by or from in war. This is self-evident as he gives the man attributes that belong to himself, essentially, trying to put himself in his shoes. The man was