Read this excerpt about the Vietnam War from "Ambush" by Tim O'Brien:
When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed
anyone. She knew about the war, she knew I'd been a soldier. "You
keep writing war stories," she said, "so I guess you must've killed
somebody." It was a difficult moment, but I did what seemed right,
which was to say, "Of course not," and then to take her onto my lap
and hold her for a while. Someday, I hope, she'll ask again. But here !
want to pretend she's a grown-up. I want to tell her exactly what
happened, or what I remember happening, and then I want to say to
her that as a little girl she was absolutely right. This is why I keep
writing war stories:
He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of
him-afraid of something and as he passed me on the trail I threw a
grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him....
Even now I haven't finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself,
other times I don't. In the ordinary hours of life I try not to dwell on it,
but now and then, when I'm reading a newspaper or just sitting alone
in a room, I'll look up and see the young man coming out of the
morning fog. I'll watch him walk toward me, his shoulders slightly
stooped, his head cocked to the side, and he'll pass within a few
yards of me and suddenly smile at some secret thought and then
continue up the trail to where it bends back into the fog.
How does the author's specific word choice and stylistic devices affect the excerpt's tone? Be
sure to use specific details from the text to support your answer.
