I am doing question 3 in which I will compare two texts, one non-fiction and one visual, and decide which is more effective based on their language and generic conventions. The first text is Lalage Snow’s photographic triptych shown on the screen behind me and the other text is ‘The Things They Carried’ written by Tim O’Brien. Lalage Snow’s Photographic Triptych is three photos of Private Chris MacGregor, a US soldier, taken during his time at war, showing the degradation of his physical features with an accompanying quote from the soldier for each photo presenting his emotions. Tim O’Brien’s short story is about his experiences as a soldier which emphasises the emotional impacts of war more than the physical impacts. The Photographic Triptych is more effective as it presents both the emotional and physical implications of war equally whereas O’Brien’s short story focusses heavily on the emotional impacts with a lesser focus on physical impacts. …show more content…
The written elements work with the visuals to show the emotional and physical impacts war has on soldiers. The picture on the left of Private MacGregor was taken before his instalment in the war, as you can see the focus is soft, the colours are fairly sombre and he looks slightly worried. The accompanying text talks about the things he will miss the most while away and he only briefly touches on his family, with most of the focus being on his dogs. In this caption he talks about the ordinary things in life such as a family, a couple of dogs and a TV. This caption matches the photograph as they talk about and represent a normal person that he is and give a basis to which his change
In the book “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses imagery, figurative language and repetition to convey his message. O’Brien’s purpose for story telling, is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. Many young men were sent to war, despite opposing it. They believed it was “wrong” to be sent to their deaths. Sadly, no one realizes a person’s significance until they die. Only remembering how they lived rather than acknowledging their existence when they were alive.
Born on October 1, 1946, William Timothy O’Brien, famously know as Tim O’Brien, served as a soldier in the Vietnam War (Britannica, 2016). Tim like most of the soldiers were either drafted or volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Many of them, including Tim battled the emotions of alienation and fearfulness during the time of the war. O’Brien illustrated those emotions in his chapter “The Things They Carried”. He listed the tangibles objects the characters carried in order to define their intangible qualities.
The things they carried, by Tim O'Brien. "Oh man, you fuckin' trashed the fucker. You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like fuckin' Shredded Wheat." I chose to start off my essay with this particular extract from the book because I think that it very much represents the story in itself. Azar said this, after Tim (supposedly) killed a Vietnamese soldier with a hand grenade. It shows that in times of war, how callous men can become. However, callousness varies, whether they choose to be apathetic, like Tim shows us after his grenade episode.
The idea of love is very complex and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Both “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Araby” by James Joyce portray the lives of two individuals who are in love. “The Things They Carried” is about a young lieutenant named Jimmy Cross during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Cross was incapable of focusing on the war because of his constant thoughts of the girl he loved, Martha. “Araby” is about a boy who is infatuated with a girl he has never had a conversation with. Although both protagonists in “The Things They Carried” and “Araby” eventually realize that the girls they loved didn’t feel the same way about them, Lieutenant Cross tried to move on by destroying everything he had that reminded him of Martha, while the boy in “Araby” was left disappointed.
Tim O’ Brien alternates between narrative and descriptions of the tangible items that they soldiers carry. He remembers seemingly everything that his squad mates were carrying and provides an “emotionless recitation” of the weights of each of the items the soldiers carried into the field. He frequently uses the term “humping” to describe how the soldiers carry their gear; making them appear more uncivilized, like animals. As he switches back to mentioning the intangible items, such as the experiences of his leader Jimmy Cross and his love Martha, the emotional weights of each soldier is felt by the reader. This contrast in style affirms that they soldiers are human and provides emphasis to the weight these intangible objects have on the soldiers.
O'Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried." X. J. Kennedy, Dana Gioia. Backpack Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Joe Terry. Pearson, 2012. Print. 10 Feb. 2014.
The author in “The Things They Carried” expresses the deep sorrows and emotionally trying events associated with warfare. As the war progressed, the effects only began to wear more on the protagonist as the “days would seem longer and [the] loads heavier” (O’Brien 1190). Using words such as longer and heavier, helped the author express how much the war began to take a toll on the soldiers. At one point the author recalls a soldier kicking a dead enemy 's head and questioning “what the moral was” in doing so (O’Brien 1183). This sense of remorse towards senseless and actions took place in the war show the discontent with events that take place. Contrarily, the author of “The Yellow Wallpaper” questions the reasoning behind the wallpaper and begins to curiously infer why it may be in her room. The protagonist infers that the wallpaper “looks as if a boys’ school had used it” and destroyed it because it is “stripped off” (Gilman 549). The narrator begins to look for answers from a wall with none, which leaves it her tainted imagination to guess what the answers might be. Although the narrator is recommended bed rest, she still chooses to “disagree with [her husband and brother’s] ideas” and “believe that
Symbolism in stories is dependent on how the author writes, the title, and the characters. Titles in literature are very important to the symbolism of a story an example of this is Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. As the story goes on it shows not only the literal meaning of what they carried but also symbolically the burdens that they had mentally.
Many individuals look at soldiers for hope and therefore, add load to them. Those that cannot rationally overcome these difficulties may create Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tragically, some resort to suicide to get away from their insecurities. Troops, notwithstanding, are not by any means the only ones influenced by wars; relatives likewise encounter mental hardships when their friends and family are sent to war. Timothy Findley precisely depicts the critical impact wars have on people in his novel by showing how after-war characters are not what they were at the beginning.
... could not help themselves, they were not going to be helped. If struggle were encountered, men had personalized ways to reconnect with the real world, and if a tragedy were encountered which affected the entire company, they also found a combined way to cope with this pressure. The priorities of men during the war shifted greatly toward emotional connections to people and events other than the war, and it was these connections that helped them survive and return home. Coping with the stress and burden of war is not an easy task for anyone, yet in The Things they Carried, O'Brien depicts men dealing and coping as much as they can, using only their primeval resources. They learn how to cope with the barest necessities in life, and they learn how to make use of the smallest opportunities to obtain the most relief and joy from every moment in life.
The novel The Thing They Carried is a compilation of short stories that share underlying themes and characters. One of the stories is called “How to tell a True War Story”. In this story the narrator expands on a central theme of the distinction between truth and fiction when writing a war story. The story, like most of the other stories in the novel jumps erratically between events, which oftentimes creates confusion and a sense of the surreal in the story. Throughout the story the narrator repeatedly shows that when writing a war story the “story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth.”(O’Brien pg. 171) This quotation encompasses the theme and supports it. The narrator’s use of stylistic devices coupled with stories such as “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Good Form” exemplifies how fiction can fully represent the truth whilst the facts fall miserably short.
"A picture is worth a thousand words," we say. From the eyes and mind of the archivist studying the pictures of Robert Ross' experience with war, they are worth a lot more. The photographs in the epilogue of Timothy Findley's "The Wars" play an important role in Findley establishing both a trust with the reader, and a sense of realism to his war story. This satisfies the need for realism in his tale. The result of this image that is brought forth through the medium of the photograph, is that we are forced to see the "before" and "after" of Roberts "experience" and figure out our way through what is deposited in between: the cause and effect.
Symbolism In "The Things They Carried" In Tim O'Brien's story "The Things They Carried" we see how O'Brien uses symbolism in order to indirectly give us a message and help us to connect to what the soldiers are thinking and feeling. During a war, soldiers tend to take with them items from home, kind of as a security blanket. The items they normally take with them tend to reveal certain characteristics of their personality. Henry Dobbins is the guy who loves to eat, so he made sure he took some extra food. Ted Lavender was the scaredy cat of the group, so he carried tranquilizers with him.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.
War has always been inevitable throughout the history of the world. The outcomes can differ greatly; it’s usually either a win or a loss. Wins or losses are just definite statements, but photos can represent these statements. Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J Day in Times Square” shows an American sailor kissing a young woman right in the middle of Times Square, despite their surroundings. This iconic photo was taken after the U.S. declared victory over Japan in World War II, and was published in Life magazine a week later. John Gap’s (III) photo shows a young girl being consoled at a soldier’s funeral in a local high school gymnasium, later to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This humble photo was taken during the war still raging in Afghanistan, showing that these types of losses happen quite often, as there are no iconic photos for Afghanistan compared to the photo shot after the win over World War II. Unlike its counterpart, this photo was published only at a local level on a website. Both these photos show a soldier being dismissed to go home from war. Although the two photos share that common factor, the scenario in which the soldier comes home differs greatly. Through these photos, Albert Eisenstaedt and John Gaps III help evoke pathos and give the observer a sense of the pride and the devastation felt of a home coming from war using photographic elements such as framing, focus, and angles.