Rhetorical Analysis of Tim O'Brien's "the Things They Carried"

...

and “napalm”-- to put the reader in the midst of battle. This literary feature of contrasting two contrasting ideas adds another layer to the already complex story O’Brien is telling. This section contrasts the beauty of war with its horrifying features and describes both halves to the reader. “For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (80). The paragraph actually mirrors what O’Brien thought while he was on the battlefield, but he uses “you” to engage the reader.

“To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace” (81). In the chapter, a character struggles to retell a war story to the sister of a fallen friend. He waters it down--“generalizes it”--and attempts to make it easier for the sister to understand. Generalizing war takes out its most basic truth: it is both grotesque and beauty. It can have a certain fluidity and harmony, but both adjectives can describe either the people involved or the killing machines.War is amoral, and not everyone can handle the truth. According to O’Brien, it is impossible to tell a true war story because those who listen take it as fable, or do not listen at all. This idea parallels the idea that the military is generalized and does not focus on various specificities like the individual soldier and his/her emotions. Although O’Brien only uses the word (or a derivation of) “generalize” twice, he also uses “self” twice, showing the importance of both entities, while also contrasting their basic ideas.

War is both an expression of oneself and of the powers that are fighting each other. It is about personal choices and choices that better the entire team. “A true war story is… when you know you must cross the river and… do things you are afraid to do” (85). War is challenging on the mind and the body, but this does not stop soldiers from doing their best to survive. Again, the pronoun “you” is used in the same fashion as before: to place the reader into the story. Unfortunately, war is also “about sisters who never write back and people who never listen” (85), further lessening the importance of the men risking their lives. People generalize about war, view it as amoral, and not worrying about the psyche of the soldiers. The overall chapter is about a band of soldiers dealing with a fallen comrade, but O’Brien wants to share what he learned with others. The literary devices used create several layers of complexity where O’Brien wanted to explain to others the truth of war in the most effective way: through using personal pronouns and familiar words so readers could understand easily. He urges soldiers to do what is best for them and their team, and not pay attention to those who will not pay the same respect to them. Soldiers know that they are a part of their unit, their squad, their military branch, but they often forget that they are humans who are a part of the world as a whole. They need to focus on self-care in order to be their best selves. “Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what’s best in yourself and in the world” (82).