Assignment 3

The Things They Carried: Syntax

Examples of Syntax:

• “Here is the story-truth.  He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of twenty.  He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe.  His jaw was in his throat.  His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole.  I killed him” (172).

The syntax that the author uses in this quote influences the purpose of this piece.  This quote is form the chapter “Good Form.”  O’Brien is uses very few, short sentences in this passage to put emphasis on the fact that he killed a man, and he is not proud of it.  The quote also mentions the description of the young man, which has a very guilty effect on O’Brien.  In this chapter, it is many years later, and he can still remember what the man looked like.  The purpose is to show that even after all these years, he stills feels guilty for killing that man.