The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien begins by Mr. O'Brien describing his dramatical events that happened during the middle of his Vietnam experience while he was fighting in the war. Mr. O'Brien received his draft notice in the month of June in the year of 1968. When he received this notice Mr. O'Brien had feelings of confusion, and that drove him to go north to the Canadian border, and it had him contemplating if he wanted to cross it or not because he does not want to be forced to fight in a war he really does not believe in. However, Mr. O'Brien finally decides that he would feel guilty if he avoided the war and he also feared that his family would be disappointed. Not only does this novel tell us readers about his particular experiences, but The Things They Carried also gives insight on the other soldiers and their stories about their missions while fighting for our country as well. With the Vietnam War being one of the most brutal wars to fight, these soldiers had interesting stories to tell, and with these stories being told about their experience in the Vietnam, it should make people realize the war is not an easy task and everyone is not built for it, and that our nation needs to support our troops.
First off, when Tim O'Brien wrote the novel, he titled it The Things They Carried, although he could have easily named the novel The Things I Carried, but he didn't because he knows that he was not in this alone. Each and every soldier has a different story to be told not only about their life prior to war, but when they were there as well. For example, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is a platoon leader who is also the protagonist in the short story The Things They Carried. Mr. Cross is deeply in love with a y...
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...ntry. For taking upon those difficult tasks that the majority of American’s back out on should call for our nation to support our troops.
Works Cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: a Work of Fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Print.
"The Things They Carried; ISBN-13: 9780547391175." Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Distinguished Book Publishing since 1832. Web. 10 May 2011. .
"Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried." UK Poet Blog, Creative Writing. Web. 10 May 2011. .
"Symbolism in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried - by Krystle Hernandez - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Web. 10 May 2011. .
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O'Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O'Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O'Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.
O'Brien, T. (1990). The things they carried. The things they carried. Tim O’Brien, Author. Retrieved from http://www.illyria.com/tobsites.html
Passaro, Vince. "The Things They Carried (Review)." Harper's Magazine. 299.1791 (1999): 80. Expanded Academic ASAP.
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
Interview by Neal Conan. "'The Things They Carried,' 20 Years On." Talk of the Nation. . NPR, Washington. 24 Mar 2010. Web. 13 Apr 2014. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125128156.
The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, is not just a book about what soldiers carried during the Vietnam War, but a book about what they carried with them for the rest of their lives. The book also describes the traumatizing deaths which caused many soldiers to start to blame themselves.
The Things They Carried certainly succeeds in providing a far different literary experience, in many fields including its syntax. The “average conversation” feel the sentence structure provides makes the reader feel as though he/she is being told a story or even just having a conversation. O’Brien’s style of syntax is perfectly matches the story he tries to tell, and makes the book a viable read for anyone
Some tangible things they carried with them were remind them of home and provide them with some luck, while others helped keep them alive during the war time. The intangible things the men carried helped the men be carried through the war and survive. Each man carried something different both mentally and physically. Tim O’Brien saw and experienced these men and what they had to go through during this time of war. The chapter “The Things They Carried” shapes each character into who he was during the war and shows us the reality of the Vietnam
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.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War, but in reality, the book centers around the relationships the men make, their connections to the world they left behind and the connections that they formed to Vietnam. The stories are not war stories, but stories about love, respect and the bonds made between men when they spend day after day fighting just to stay alive.
"The war was over and there was no place in particular to go" (157). Thoughts of sorrow and loss overwhelm the Vietnam veterans upon their return back home. Crushed from the horror of war, they come back to even bigger disappointments and sadness. Instead of the mellow lives they lead before they left their native country and the presence of warm and caring everyday life, most of them encounter empty beds, cold family ambiance and overall loss. Already physically and emotionally defeated, they find betrayal instead of recuperating trust. There is nothing to nourish their depleted and deprived psyches; they do not find anything to rely on. Even in instances of supportive partners, the inevitable horrors of the war haunt them in sleep or come back to them in daydreaming. They all came back with multitude of disorders, predominately with a post traumatic stress disorder with the common symptoms of recurring nightmares, hypersensitivity, avoidance behavior, and intrusive thoughts, feelings and memories-commonly found in war vets. The Things They Carried represents a compound documentary novel written by a Vietnam veteran, Tim O'Brien, in whose accounts on the Vietnam war one encounters graphical depictions of the PTSD. Thus, the stories "Speaking of Courage," "The Man I Killed," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Enemies" and "Friends, " "Stockings," and "The Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong "all encompass various examples of PTSD.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.