The Things They Carried: Paradox-Page 78

Fully capturing and describing war and war stories would be a difficult task for anyone, but Tim O'Brien attempts to tackle the challenge and share his knowledge from experiences. While explaining the subject to the best of his ability, O'Brien states a paradox. The paradox is "though it's odd, you're never more alive than when you're almost dead". A paradox is an effective literary tool because it evokes a thought process for the reader. The reader has to process what is being said to find the author's intended meaning. A paradox causes readers to think outside the box and challenge themselves to uncover a deeper meaning from the text. This literary tool serves a worthy purpose, because it compels readers to really become involved in their reading. O'Brien's paradoxical statement in the text is productive because it links and compares two things that are completely opposite. In order for readers to grasp the true meaning of the statement, they have to look beyond surface and the literal meaning to find something deeper.