The emotional stress that most soldiers carry with them during times of war is due to their inexperience and age. The majority of men who fought in the Vietnam war ranged from ages early as eighteen to their early twenties. Among these men, were sons, spouses, friends, boyfriends, and students, who could not understand the thought of war, killing, or contend with their friends’ unexpected deaths. From the beginning of the story, O’Brien the author of “The Things They Carried” uses specific details and illustrations to show readers what the experience was like for the men during the Vietnam war. Among the many things that the men carry were guilt, fear, grief, and stress. Throughout the story O’Brien emphasizes the dreadful events that these men carry with them by incorporating the use of multiple themes such as: the emotional and physical burdens, fear, psychological well being and the use of motifs and symbols such as death in handling difficult situations.
Tim O’Brien, who is the author and the narrator describes the “things” that all the men of the platoon bear and carry. In the title The Things They Carried, the word “things” symbolizes what each men carried with them throughout the war both literally and figuratively. Although many of the soldiers carry physical objects, they also all carry emotional objects as well such as fear, terror, love, death, and longing. Throughout the story each character’s physical burden emphasizes their emotional burden. The many different “things” each person carried also depended on many other factors as well, including their personal needs, desire, and emotional well-being. O’Brien illustrates the physical things that each men carried by describing and detailing each object to create a ment...
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...s he relates. In most cases O’Brien bears himself up as representation for the general statements he makes about the war. By reading The Things They Carried, O’Brien is indeed our guide through the unexplainable trepidation of the war and the prime example of how severe situations can turn a sensible intelligent man into a soldier who acts irrationally for no reasonable explanation. Occasionally, O’Brien grows dim and lets another character or a third person tell the story. This technique provide a human aspect to the stories’ themes and gives us the opportunity to understand the events that men experience during war from several different perspectives. O’Brien constructs a distinguished plot through his writing. Reading The Things They Carried is often similar to spending long-lasting time with an old veteran of the war, allowing his memories to come to him slowly.
A deeper meaning into what a soldier carried along to the war from which it was necessary supplies to good luck charms or something that reminded one of home. The things each person carried shows more into who the soldier really is or who he wants to be in front of the other soldiers-trying to become someone else. The different pieces each carry will remind them of home “Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha…Mitchell Sanders carried condoms…Kiowa…carried an illustrated New Testament…” (Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried pg. 3) Every soldier carried what was necessary like food, guns, bullets etc. but the personal things they carried made everyone different form that crowded but big space between each soldier. Tim O’Brien uses this description to introduce the characters and how each one starts from one po...
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 ...
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
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.
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. 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 burden of guilt when he loses one of his men to an ambush.
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.
Literary Analysis Essay on The Things They Carried The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is fiction and truth wound together to create a frustrating and addicting novel of fiction about the Vietnam war. O’Brien created stories by using his experiences during the Vietnam whether they are true stories or not is an unattainable knowledge for the reader, the only person of that knowledge is only O 'Brien himself. Through his writing he emphasized the the fact that you cannot perfectly recall the experiences of your past when your telling a story but the way it is told is “true sometime than the happening-truth(O’Brien 171) which helps give The Things They Carried depth beyond that of a “true”, true story. O’Brien has many characters in his book, some change throughout the book and others +are introduced briefly and change dramatically during their time in war and the transition to back home after the war.
ccording to the 1990 Veterans organization report, one in every three Vietnam veterans that were in heavy combat suffers from post-traumatic stress; this includes thirty-three percent of soldiers who went to Vietnam, or nearly one million troops, who gave into post-traumatic stress. PTSD must have been common in the group of soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” due to the amount of burdens each soldier carried. Throughout the story, O’Brien demonstrates theme of psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He emphasizes these burdens by discussing the weight that the soldiers carry; their psychological and mental stress they have to undertake as each of them experience the brutality of the Vietnam War. The physical burden that each soldier carried was a necessity for them due to their emotional burdens that they carried.
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
Through The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien moves beyond the horror of fighting in the Vietnam War to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear. Included, is a collection of interrelated stories. A few of the stories are brutal, while others are flawed, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. All the stories, however, deal with one platoon. Some are about the wartime experiences of soldiers, and others are about a 43-year-old writer reminiscing about his platoon’s experiences. In the beginning chapter, O’Brien rambles about the items the soldiers carry into battle, ranging from can openers, pocketknives, and mosquito repellent o Kool-Aid, sewing kits, and M-16 assault rifles. Yet, the story is truly about the intangible things the soldiers “carry”: “grief, terror, love, longing… shameful memories (and) the common secret of cowardice” (Harris & O’Brien 21).
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 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.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, “The Things They Carried,” imaginations can be both beneficial and corrosive. This novel consists of story, truth and real truth. Throughout the novel, imagination plays a big role. Tim O’Brien wrote his book about the war, mainly based on his memory of the war. He did not remember every detail of the war, thus he made up some false details to the stories to make it seem more interesting.
The Things They Carried is a classic because it approaches the gruesome subject of war in a way that is truly unique and honest. O’Brien’s unique point of view results in a book that is revered by the majority of its readers. “Now and then, when I tell this story, someone will come up to me afterward and say she liked it. It’s always a woman. Usually it’s an older woman of kindly temperament and human politics. She’ll explain that as a rule she hates war stories; she can’t understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore. But this one she liked” (pg.65-66). Many soldiers come home from war and try to hide the brutality of war from the rest of the population. Tim O’Brien allows readers in on the horrid truth of war! Throughout the novel, Tim O’Brien depicts how his fellow platoon members are held captive by their subconscious minds. “He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and then shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo” (pg.75). It would be impossible for someone who has not experienced war to understand how the subconscious mind can imprison a soldier. However, O’Brien’s stories are so vivid that the reader feels that he or