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Transcript

The Things They carried

How To Tell a True War Story

By: Annie Mao

Style

O'Brien often uses the second tense, making it seem as though he were actually telling the reader a story

"If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie" (68-69).

He uses sentence fragments to convey informality and roughness.

"All these different voices. Not human voices, though. Because it's the mountains. Follow me?" (74).

He separates paragraphs of dialogue and plot with paragraphs of reflection and analysis. This gives a snapshot-like effect to the story, as though the narrator is remembering pieces one at a time.

He uses a repeating, list-like format to add a matter-of-fact and rational sense to the narrator's voice, which contrasts with the visceral horror of the events.

"He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee.... He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks.... He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away" (78-79).

He uses the same structures with different meanings to illustrate contrast, comparison, and duality.

"War is hell, but that's not the half of it.... War is nasty; War is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead" (80).

Word Choice

Expletives create a casual, cavalier air which contrasts with the tension of the plot.

"Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful f---in' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back" (69).

In describing the brutal killing of the baby water buffalo, he continually uses the adjective "baby" to emphasize the wretchedness of the situation.

"... there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo.... All the while the baby buffalo was silent.... The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo.... Somebody kicked the baby buffalo" (79).

He uses euphonious adjectives to describe ugly events, creating contrast and duality.

"... dark like brilliant red ribbons... cool, impassive moon... fluid symmetries of troops... harmonies of sound and shape... great sheets of metal-fire streaming down... purply orange glow of napalm, the rockets' red glare" (80-81).

He combines antonyms to illustrate contrast and duality.

"Right spills over into wrong. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery" (82).

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