The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

A Dive into the Past The novel, The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien is an interesting work of literature. The storytelling relies on conveying feelings rather than actual facts of the events, and this allows for a unique, personal, yet also objective form of narration. The Things They Carried allows the reader to venture into the mind of the narrator and relive the author’s experiences, and finally understand that he has both moved on from the traumatic events, and has kept the impactful people alive in his memory and lives with them every day. The author’s storytelling leaves an open world of stories to be told further but concludes the story in a satisfactory way that gives the reader closure in the story. The author explains to the reader in the chapter titled “Notes” that, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others… incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain”

I'm young and happy. I'll never die… when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story. (O’Brien 245-246). The narrator knows that the characters have died in reality, but in the vast complexes of his mind and imagination, the author recreates a world where they remain as existing and complex beings where they all spend time together as friends. The author accomplishes this through the understanding that he has of the characters and their personalities, rather than simply remembering their actions alone; a task that is possible by him exercising his new storytelling