Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

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The Things They Carried- Document Paper
William Timothy “Tim” O’Brien was a sergeant in the United States Army during the Vietnam War between the years of 1968- 1970. O’Brien years after the war wrote The Things They Carried which was a collection of short stories based off O’Brien’s experiences during the Vietnam War.
There are speculations as to why O’Brien wrote the book The Things They Carried. Some think it’s to share the horrors of the war, some believe writing the book was used a coping mechanism for the trauma caused by the barbarity he witnessed during the war and others believe it was a way for the author to grieve because of the life he took accidently during his time in the army. Despite all these speculations being somewhat …show more content…

O’Brien was terrified of going into the war and spent all his hours dreading having to go to war. Tim eventually starts considering fleeing to Canada to avoid leaving for war however he is terrified to lose the respect of his friends and family. One-day O’Brien and drives to the rainy river which separates Minnesota from Canada. Tim finds himself at a abandoned fishing resort, The Tip Top Lodge where he meets the old man that runs the resort named Elroy Berdahl. The two end up spending the week together eating dinner, hiking and playing board games and never once did Elroy ask why O’Brien was there in the first place. On their last full day at the resort Elroy takes O’Brien fishing on the Rainy River. It finally occurs to Tim that he is finally in Canadian Territory and all he would have to do is jump out of the boat and swim to shore. O’Brien breaks into tears feeling terrified of the war behind him but also feeling the pressure of embarrassing his family. Elroy this entire time continues fishing and pretends to be unaware of O’Brien’s current turmoil. Tim eventually decides to go home and face the war still feeling angry and upset giving into the pressures of other’s opinions.
Despite this story being extremely specific in details and sounding extremely real O’Brien admits that the story of the Tip Top Lodge is a fictional story. The author indeed had an internal struggle when he received his draft notice however, he never actually fled to the Canadian border. According to Tim O’Brien the point of the story was not to give the reader true facts but to use details and facts to give an actual account of how he felt about the current situation. Despite the story not being the actual truth, the stories convey the emotional truth the author was

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