Literary Devices Used in the Things They Carried Essay Sample

There is a great value in storytelling, and in many ways, it can be quite beneficial for those who use it to for therapeutic purposes. Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They carried is a surreal Nonfiction/ fiction novel, about the author’s experience in the Vietnam War. Throughout the book The Things, They Carried Tim O’Brien expresses many different reasons for storytelling; most importantly, as a means for how to cope. O'Brien also uses storytelling to express his trauma and to share´s how he reintegrates back into society after being a soldier. He demonstrates that there is value to writing and telling stories he does this through his story telling techniques such as irony, symbols, and verbal irony.  

O’Brien uses the literary device irony in his writing as a way to cope with his heartache and challenges in life. O’Brien talks about a friend who was in the war,¨Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April¨(O’Brien 2). O’brien creates such a strange juxtaposition with the way he writes this sentence. There is a sense of apathy when he mentions that a friend of his died but yet that may have been the point. It may be that while writing, O’Brien was actively working through his emotions, and consequently when retelling the event, O’Brien may have come across as detached and indifferent. Writing about the event, and using the irony that he does, is his way of coping with the tragedy and death of his friend.  O’Brien also uses irony for this exact same reason again later  in his novel  He mentions a girl he was in love with who died of cancer. He is a writer “And as a writer now, I want to save Linda’s life. Not her body- her life” ( O'Brien 223). O'Brien wants to ¨save Linda´s life¨ but ¨ Not her body her life¨, what he means by this is he wants Linda´s life to be remembered to ¨save¨ it. He uses writing to cope with the death of a loved one and as a way of working through the trauma that he experiences. In summation, O’Brien uses his writing as a way to cope with his trauma and make painful points in his life. 

O’Brien also shows the reader that he uses symbols through his writing, as a means of integrating back into society after he left the war. O’Brien writes about his friend Norman Bowker, who after the war has found himself stuck in this daily loop. Constantly driving his father’s Truck around the lake in his hometown and towards the end of the day ¨On his tenth revolution around the lake, he passed the hiking boys for the last time.’ (O'Brien 146). The ¨revolution¨ around the lake and all that Norman Baker sees as he is driving are meant to symbolize his life after the war. He feels trapped with the daily routine of life and is unable to create any difference in his life. He lacks the ability to transition back into being a normal civilian. Yet for O’Brien, he was able to transition without any difficulties back into his normal life. He did so with the help of writing which provided an outlet for him similar to talk therapy. He was one of the lucky individuals who managed to become a normal citizen after his service and he did so through writing out his experiences. Despite the pain that war had caused him, O’Brien was able to find some peace.  An example of this is when O'Brien takes a field trip with his daughter and he looks out onto a field that he has been to during the Vietnam war, and he thinks to himself“This little field, I thought had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself and any small dignity or courage” (O'Brien 176).  O’Brien shows through this piece of text that the lake that lies in front of him is supposed to represent all that was taken from him after he left the Vietnam war. It’s supposed to symbolize how it “had swallowed” so much from O’Brien, his “best friend” his “dignity”. So much was taken from O’Brien when he fought in the war. Yet despite all of his losses, he manages to continue living a relatively normal life unlike many of his friends who suffered greatly after the Vietnam war. He turned his pain into something creative through his writing

Tim O’Brien also shows the value of storytelling in his writing by making certain events more present and by making those events more present he can come to terms with his feelings, he does this through the use of the literary device situational irony. O’Brien uses stories as a means of bringing people back to life. To remember those as they were in the moment when they were alive. When someone dies they're truly gone and can not come back ¨But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world¨ (O´Brien 213). O’Brien is trying to show that he uses writing as a way to bring back events in his mind.  Writing is “kind of dreaming.” It is a way to turn something that is no longer real into something tangible, something that can breath and speak  . The “dead” sometimes “sit up and return to the world”. O’Brien demonstrates that he uses writing as a way to bring back past events in his life and make them more present. O’Brien attempts to bring back Linda in his sleep “Lying in bed at night, I made up elaborate stories to bring Linda alive” (O’Brien 230).  O’brien creates stories about Linda in an attempt to deal with her death. In his writing he uses situational irony to accomplish this.  Lastly, O’Brien uses verbal irony in order to show one of the values in storytelling. He takes memorable events and makes them more concrete. In doing this, he is able to deal with memories in his life that have been forgotten.  

In conclusion, O’Brien shows the reader the value of storytelling. He used it as a means to cope with his pain, he also used it as a way to integrate back into society. O’Brien uses writing as a form of therapy and dealing with his trauma as a soldier in a way that many of his friends could not. Lastly, O’Brien uses writing as a way to make all of his memories more visible. With his  most tragic memories he takes his time in dealing with them. The reader can clearly see how  O'Brian analyzes these events and retells them so clearly as they unfold.