parallel structure- "War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead" (page 76).
O'Brien uses an abundance of parallelism here. He uses this in order to show all of the contrasting facts of war. By using this he shows that stories that generalize about war are obviously not true because there is so much to war and so many facts about war that it is impossible to really convey it when generalizing.
I think that all of the contrasting explanations he gives of war are confusing but also extremely true. Especially when he says "war makes you a man; war makes you dead." While war often makes a boy a man, it is also the demise of him. This is sad to think about because many soldiers became so much and matured because of the war, but then they were murdered before they even had a chance to really live. This makes me think that we are lucky to have the freedom we have been given. It also makes me happy that I have been given time to grow up and have not been forced to like these soldiers were.
No comments:
Post a Comment