Assignment 1

The Things They Carried: Rhetorical Strategies

Rhetorical Strategies:

• Symbolism

In The Things They Carried the author’s style is seen through the symbolism of the things that the soldiers carry with them.  They carried with them objects of sentimental value to them, food, weapons, things to remind them of home, but they also carried guilt and fear with them.  The list of objects that the men carry symbolizes a window to the emotional burdens that they bear.

• Simile

In The Things They Carried the author’s style is seen through the simile used in the chapter “The Dentist.”  Curt Lemon’s toothache is described as “a killer, he said – like a nail in his jaw” (84).  He claims that his tooth hurts so much that it feels like there is a nail in his jaw.

• Mood

In The Things They Carried the author’s style is seen through the mood of the chapter “The Man I Killed.”  The guilt that O’Brien feels for killing the man creates a haunting mood.

• Imagery

In The Things They Carried the author’s style is seen through the imagery of the following quote.  “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged” (118).  This quotation, from “The Man I Killed,” describes the corpse of a Vietnamese soldier that O’Brien killed with a grenade.  This passage gives descriptive imagery that O’Brien uses to come to portray the boy that he killed.  O’Brien’s description of the star-shaped hole in the boy’s eye represents the fact that even when dead, the boy was still watching him.