Good Form

Well, now I'm confused. Did he kill someone, or didn't he? With the details he used earlier in "The Man I Killed," one would think that he truly did kill a man. On page 171, he says "I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him." Why would he make up a story like that? I get that he needs to convey a mood. That makes perfect sense. How does he just make up such a realistic story with so many details, though? I'll admit that it did create the proper mood and feeling, but it makes me mad that he lied. There are better ways to convey a mood than to make up a story in a book about men who actually did have stories to tell.

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.