The Things They Carried
In the classic novel, The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien illustrates the gruesome details of a dead soldier to develop the speaker’s negative attitude towards the traumatizing effects of war. He provides a detailed description of the soldier as well as a made-up backstory to further enhance the effect. The speaker believes that his death is unnecessary, a waste of life, and not detrimental to the outcome of the war.
In the passage, the speaker’s attitude is heavily influenced by the physical attributes of the corpse. At the start of the passage, he describes the man’s appearance to the naked eye and includes descriptions of his facial features, head, limbs, and neck. He also describes the apparel and equipment that the soldier was carrying. …show more content…
An example of this is: “He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics,” or “He hoped in his heart that he would never be tested. He hoped the Americans would go away.” These two quotes demonstrate the contradicting feelings of soldiers as determined from outsiders and from inside themselves. In most cases, soldiers are told to enter battle for self glory, for protection of their country, and for the domination of their country’s enemies. Within the passage, he states: “He would have been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege,” which backs up the previous statement. The reasons that are thrown at potential soldiers to participate in a war are essentially ruses that has them ignoring major and obvious risks of participation.
Author Tim O’Brien’s negative attitude towards the war is further developed by the traumatizing effect that war has on soldiers. The gruesome appearance of the soldier heavily influenced his attitude and was essentially the cause of it. The fear of death caused a death, which inevitably caused more
In the classic novel, The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien illustrates the gruesome details of a dead soldier to develop the speaker’s negative attitude towards the traumatizing effects of war. He provides a detailed description of the soldier as well as a made-up backstory to further enhance the effect. The speaker believes that his death is unnecessary, a waste of life, and not detrimental to the outcome of the war.
In the passage, the speaker’s attitude is heavily influenced by the physical attributes of the corpse. At the start of the passage, he describes the man’s appearance to the naked eye and includes descriptions of his facial features, head, limbs, and neck. He also describes the apparel and equipment that the soldier was carrying. …show more content…
An example of this is: “He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics,” or “He hoped in his heart that he would never be tested. He hoped the Americans would go away.” These two quotes demonstrate the contradicting feelings of soldiers as determined from outsiders and from inside themselves. In most cases, soldiers are told to enter battle for self glory, for protection of their country, and for the domination of their country’s enemies. Within the passage, he states: “He would have been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege,” which backs up the previous statement. The reasons that are thrown at potential soldiers to participate in a war are essentially ruses that has them ignoring major and obvious risks of participation.
Author Tim O’Brien’s negative attitude towards the war is further developed by the traumatizing effect that war has on soldiers. The gruesome appearance of the soldier heavily influenced his attitude and was essentially the cause of it. The fear of death caused a death, which inevitably caused more