Find a recurring literary term or technique in the book. What do you think the author is trying to achieve by using it? Is it effective? Why or why not?
The author, Tim O'Brien, constantly repeats the phrase, "the things they carried." After he uses this repetitive phrase, he goes on to list certain things that soldiers carried while in the Vietnam war. For example, O'Brien states, "The things they carried were largely determined by necessity"(2). He continues to state various small things that the soldiers had like dog tags and candy. Lieutenant Cross carried around love letters from the woman he loved back home named Martha. It gave him comfort knowing that her words were always close to him. The author discusses the tiny things that the soldiers use to make them feel a little bit safer. It is almost as if these things are what is keeping them alive. Aside from the inanimate objects he lists, he also talks about the metaphorical things that they carry such as the weight of the war. These show just how much war can effect your thoughts and emotions. These phrases add so much depth to the novel, and they add great imagery and thought provoking lines.
Starting multiple paragraphs with the same phrase is a great literary device that is extremely effective. The repetition becomes used so often that the reader almost gets used to seeing it on almost every page. Tim O'Brien is using this device to show a metaphor for the soldiers in the war and their daily lives. The things that they see during war that are horrendous and painful, but it becomes almost common to them. That message is extremely powerful and completely supports his story and opinions in the novel.
Caroline Humphrey
Period 2
In most books, the title is left a mystery until almost the end of the book. You are wondering what the title has to do with the book the entire time. In this book, O'Brien does not mess around when telling us what the title really means. This is a true repeating literary device. "The Things They Carried" really does show up on every page. It is a perfect example of how he integrates their physical items and mental state into every page of this book.
ReplyDelete-Brice Lucas
"They carried all the emtoinal baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight"(20). This is a great quote to show what O'Brien means when he says repeatedly "the things they carried." Not only did they have physcial baggage, they also had mental issues they constantly drug around with them. -Sydney Derrow
ReplyDelete"They carried the land itself-Vietnam, the place, the soil-a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity. They moved like mules" (O'Brien 14). I liked this example of what they carried because it shows that just as they were effecting the land, the land was effecting them.
ReplyDeleteEthan Cantrell ^
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