Emily Cheatham
ENC 1102
Literature Paper 1
February 25, 2014
The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a combination of short stories. These stories talk about the soldier’s and what they carried along with them on their journey in the jungle. Tim O’Brien often departs from the realism and dwells on the soldier’s imaginations. O’Brien shows the magical power of storytelling and shows us how facts and memory are formed into fiction.
Steven Kaplan in his critical essay said that “O’Brien depicts all the “things” that appear in the first chapter in a precise, scientific style”. Meaning that O’Brien shares how much each thing the solider carries weighs either physically or psychologically. For example, “ On their feet they carried jungle boots-2.1-pounds and Dave Jenson carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr. Scholl’s food powder as a precaution against trench foot”. (Page 114) Also in The Things They Carried, O’Brien mentions how much the artillery weighted right down to the ounce. For example, “ Jimmy Cross carried a compass, maps, a code book, binoculars, and a .45 caliber pistol that weighted 2.9 pounds fully loaded. The reason O’Brien puts the weights into the story is because he wants to show the hardship these soldiers went through and how they pushed through it. This proves the facts and memory interpretation because the things could really weigh that much, but on the other hand the soldiers can think they weight more than normal because of other factors like the heat. For instance, “ It was SOP for each man to carry a steel-centered, nylon-covered flak jacket, which weighted 6.7 pounds, but which on hot days seemed much heavier. (Page 115)
In Steven Kaplan’s critical essay “The Things They Carried” h...
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...he book was actually based off of. I agree with Steven Kaplan when he says “These prefatory comments force a reader to consider the fictional as real, since the book is dedicated to the characters that appear in it”. O’Brian is basically incapable to answering the questions about his writing about war because the answers are based on the nature of the Vietnam War.
In conclusion, I agree with Steven Kaplan about how the book portrays a real or imaginary interpretation. The book says its fiction but then reveals a more real side with telling the stories of the men and how this could have really happened. O’Brien describes in great detail the things they carried and how much each thing weighted but how would he know that for sure. O’Brien defiantly shows us that there is a magical power to storytelling and how facts and memory/imagination can be formed into fiction.
Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is the first story in a collection about the Alpha Company, led by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross during the Vietnam War. The platoon is deployed near Than Khe, an area filled with dense jungle and unrelenting rain where the men must carry or “hump” an unspeakable amount of weight both literal and emotional to survive. The narrator, O’Brien, is one of the soldiers, and he distinguishes one soldier from another with a vivid description of what each one must, and chooses to carry in order to survive war. The seventeen men in this troop are tasked with a search and destroy mission inside tunnel complexes south of Chu Lai. While Lee Strunk is in the tunnels, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is obsessing over Martha, a girl from back home, and Ted Lavender is taking drugs. Just when Lee Strunk emerges from the tunnels unscathed, Ted Lavender is shot in the head----boom-down--killed, and the men begin to vacillate between morbid fascination and guilt.
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. The author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien’s opening chapter describes a group of soldiers marching through the jungles of Vietnam. Subsequently, Tim O’Brien started revealing personal items each soldiers carries with them during the war. These soldiers carry some surprisingly heavy physical and emotional burdens thought the jungles of Vietnam. However, these emotional burdens are far heavier than anything ...
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a very uniquely written book. This book is comprised of countless stories that, though are out of order, intertwine and capture the reader’s attention through the end of the novel. This book, which is more a collection of short stories rather than one story that has a beginning and an end, uses a format that will keep the reader coming back for more.
O'Brien's repeated use of the phrase "they carried" attempts to create a realization in the reader that soldiers in wars always carry some kind of weight; there is always some type of burden that servicemen and women will forever hold onto both throughout the war and long after it has finished. The specification of what the soldier bear shows that the heaviness is both physical and emotional and in most cases the concrete objects carried manifest into the continued emotional distress that lasts a lifetime (sentence about what they carry from novel) "The Things They Carried" emphasis this certain phrase in order for those that do not have the experience of going to understand the constant pressure of burdens they are under. O'Brien draws on
The title of the book itself couldn’t be more fitting. The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Tim O'Brien about soldiers trying to live through the Vietnam War. These men deal with many struggles and hardships. Throughout this essay I will provide insight into three of the the numerous themes seen throughout the novel: burdens, truth, and death.
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
Storytelling is one of the major themes in the book “The Things They Carried”, and is conveyed several times throughout most of the novel. The author, Tim O’Brien, uses the theme storytelling to convey his experience in VIetnam during the war. Another reason is to show what his soldiers had felt during the war, and what they experienced from their perspective. He uses many factors to convey this theme like how it has to be embarrassing and has no moral, story truth and happening truth, and he includes the stories of others. These really contribute to the theme of storytelling and why it is such a major theme for Tim O’Brien.
The novel The Thing They Carried is a compilation of short fiction that explores the theme of the distinction between factual truth and story truth. The quotation in the short story “How To Tell a True War Story” distinguishes between what is true in a war story and what is not. This quotation, through the use of figurative language, imagery and other stylistic devices makes the reader reconsider the meaning of truth in a war story. The quote sums up a central idea of the short story collection and gives meaning to the events in the book.
In conclusion, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien gives some authentic portrayals throughout the book of how soldiers could be affected by the war. The stories may not be all true to the teeth, but they are authentic to the point where this could really happen and has happened to countless of soldiers. O’Brien gives us an inside view of a true authenticity to what has happened and what could happen to all the characters in his
Throughout the story the burden these men carried is explained, weather it was symbolically or literally it was a hardship. O’Brien does a very good job making it understood that “The Things They Carried” was not only objects but also emotions and memories. Life was hard but that was the new world these men entered and unless you were willing to shoot your self in the foot, it was the world that you would be in until the end, no passing go, just the hard fact that they were at war without a meaning, fighting people they didn’t know, carrying things they didn’t need. It was war.
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
Throughout the story, the author goes into great detail about the heavy physical loads that the soldiers had to carry with them. Even the way O’Brien describes the many loads seems to grab your attention on the extreme conditions these men had to go through just to survive another day. The most interesting thing I found while reading this story is that even though the soldiers carried a ton of weight around with them, they insisted on carrying as much as possible to insist they were prepared for any given situation. Also, just as we are all different individuals, each soldier carried their own personal things that depended on their own habits and hobbies. Some examples of the necessities the soldiers had to carry with them include, “Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pockets knives, heat tabs, wrist-watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C-rations, and two or three canteens of water (O’Brien 125). These were just some of the things these men had to carry with them just to undergo some of the conditions surrounding them. Besides those items I explained things like weapons and magazines made up most of the majority of the weight. What really shocked me at this point is that with all this weight the soldiers had to carry with them, they were expected to be very mobile and able to haul around everything for miles at a time. The only benefit I could possible see coming out of all the things they carried is the protection the backpack gave the soldiers from the spraying of bullets during battle. Other than that, the more the men carried, the more their moral went down under those conditions. I think that the author brilliantly described this story. It was almost like I felt my backpack getting heavier as I was reading on and the items kept increasing. Towards the end of the story I kind of felt just as the soldiers did, weighed down and dead tired.
“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a brutal fiction story that tells about the treacherous adversity a group of men went through during the Vietnam War. The story talks about the brave soldiers