Paranoia In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The implementation of asyndeton and polysyndeton illuminates the fear-fueled despair and paranoia that plagues someone in the time of war. Beginning with a repetitious list, O’Brien’s focus on war is that it is a mental battle as much as it is a physical battle. It perpetually tests one’s mental dexterity by throwing curveballs at every corner and constantly forcing one to be on their toes. Leaving out the conjunctions, Due to the degenerative nature of war, one often falls to the powers of paranoia and despair as they combat the fear of death on the front lines. This paranoia is first seen within the text on page 6, without conjunction, as O’Brien delves into all that Ted Lavender carries in war by stating, “The typical load as 25 rounds.
His overly precausous and paranoid nature, illuminated through repetition, allowed for his fear take hold of his good judgement. This fatal flaw fused with conjunctions ultimately sparked his deterioration as mind games of war compounded by the crushing weight of the things he carried were too much for Lavender’s feeble frame. In the end, like most battles with war, war won and no amount a dope or paranoia could have prevented Ted’s death for war is unpredictable and preparation is useless when combatting the unknown. The beauty of asyndetons and polysyndetons are that they relentlessly attack one’s paranoia from all angles in war. They do not care who the individual is or even how nice they might be as they expose every irrational fear they might carry or hold locked up