Diction

O'Brien's diction gives the reader the sensory details and descriptions which are necessary to the story. On page 136, he describes the "deep, thick muck" which surrounded the soldiers, and the reader gets an idea of the muck. He continues, however, to use a simile to describe the muck saying that it was "Like quicksand, almost, except the stink was incredible." Because of the words he's chosen and the comparison he's made, the reader can picture the "shit field." The ability to create an image also inspires emotion, so the reader has a sense of what the soldiers in the field were feeling throughout their experience there. To add to this sense, O'Brien describes Norman Bowker's reactions to the occurrences. Because the reader hasn't experienced the stories told in the novel, the reactions of the characters are key in conveying the mood and feeling of the story. O'Brien's use of details creates the perfect picture of Vietnam in the reader's mind and makes the story a heck of a lot more interesting.

Delicious Diction, But Only if You're Eating Your Words

Hemingway uses simple diction and sentence structure throughout the entire novel. I think the reason he does so is that he can get his point across easily and appeal to a wider range of readers. Some of his diction REALLY bugs me, though. When he uses "try and..." all through the novel, I have the urge to hit him. And the commas which, to me, seem terribly misplaced are highly annoying, especially for a grammar buff such as myself, but that's grammar, not diction. Anyway, the reader is able to infer that the novel is set in the early to mid 1900s because certain terms are used which have been replaced today. For instance, people don't "get sore" today; they "get pissed." That term has been around for a while, and Hemingway didn't seem to have enough restriction in his diction to avoid using it on purpose. Also, Bill refers on page 77 to a black boy fighting in Vienna as a "nigger." In the early to mid 1900s, that would have been an accepted term referring to African Americans.