For most of us issues in life can carry deeper meaningIn The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien utilizes emotional tone in direction of cause and effect, applying symbolism and imagery demonstrating that conflict has a cause and effect on a person through sentiment.The author uses symbolism to demonstrate the effect of conflict on people.To illustrate this idea, the author tells a story about him going back to the site that Kiowa died in bringing back his belongings O’Brien had recovered before they took Kiowa away.(173-180 O’Brien).
Here we note that the author throughout the chapter uses a meaningful tone.The author has this tone because he was deeply affected from Kiowa’s death. The death of Kiowa was significant to O’Brien it was more than just a because he had blamed himself for what had happened and Kiowa was his best friend.This reveals that the war caused emotional distress on the author that had lead him to pursue going back to the death site of his friend to feel disclosure by leaving Kiowa’s stuff where he died.Another example of symbolism used to demonstrate how conflict affects the a person is in the book O’Brien kills a man in which in the long run brings upon an immense guilt to him. To show this,O’Brien goes on describing how he can’t forget the image of the man and how his guilt would not go away.
” Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it…”(128). O’Brien spends a huge amount of time and to this day dwelling on the death of the man he killed. The man he killed had significance to O’Brien because it caused him anguish.
The death of the man symbolizes the guilt many soldiers most likely held on their backs during and after the war.The use of imagery is another literary element the author uses to help understand how imagery can add aspect to the conflict in the book.The following evidences demonstrates how the death of Curt Lemon had more effect with the help of imagery. “I remember the pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must’ve been the intestines”(79 O’Brien). In this quote the author gives a clear description of how Curt lemon died.The day Curt Lemon died his death affected others who knew him and were there with him the day he died.
The author described a strong image of the event because the horrific image lingers in the mind of those who were there.Similar to the example of symbolism about the man O’Brien also saw many people die and the outcome was the mental damage.When O’Brien killed the man he went to inspect what happened and he arrived to a horrific scene.
“”His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone,his one eye was shut, his eye was a star-shaped hole…” (118). This evidence shows how brutal some people died and how sad it was too see them in that state and imagining how it could have been them. O’Brien was greatly affected by this because he could not believe he killed a man who could have had a life after the war.Tone played a role in creating the base in most of the author’s stories. The stories O’Brien told had a powerful tone to them.
O’brien starts off the book with recounting the things soldiers carried.” They all carried ghosts”( ). This sentence has a strong meaning this can add the understanding of how the war was a time of sorrow.The tone O’Brien sets the setting for the stories that have a deeper meaning than what is on the surface.Overall,
