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Juxtaposition In The Things They Carried

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Juxtaposition In The Things They Carried
O’Brien is putting the reader in place of a soldier using pronouns such as you and your. The general belief that war is all about war and death is being contradicted through this passage; which was his goal. He wants the reader to see “aliveness” within war as well. The speaker tells of how the soldiers are people who are longing for peace, yet are fighting for it. This construction shows how peace and war go together. Placing this passage after the generalized war passage above shows the juxtaposition between the generalized belief of war and the specified truth of war. The juxtaposition makes the reader confused, similarly to the confusion of the soldiers. This passage makes you wonder which parts of war in this book are true, and which parts
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