The Things They Carried discussion

This is very clearly one of O'Brien's most vital techniques throughout the book. However, the imagery is always more powerful when coupled with another technique. Identify an example of another technique being used to supplement imagery, and analyze how this supplementation maximizes the imagery's emotional impact on the reader.

A perfect example of this is the relatively brief chapter "The Man I Killed." The chapter starts very plainly with a detailed description of the corpse that resulted from O'Brien's grenade: "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole..." (118). Now, this level of detail already burns an image into the reader's mind, but it doesn't end there. Throughout the chapter, O'Brien repeats each one of these individual descriptive phrases on at least 3 or 4 different occasions. This technique of repetition only gives the reader a clearer mental image of the corpse, and to a degree, the reader can be brought to feel as though he/she is right there on that trail with the corpse right before his/her eyes. Additionally, O'Brien's description of the dead man's past drives the metaphorical emotional nail that much deeper.