The Things They Carry By Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

667 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Tim o'brien true war story

In the novel, The Things They Carry by author Tim O’Brien, O’Brien explores the distinction between reality and fiction. Many readers find it difficult when deciphering the actual genre on the novel, for the reason that the story is based from true events, but told inaccurately. The main character and narrator, Tim O’Brien, constructs this novel with a collection of war stories from the Vietnam War; which are told by actual war veterans and their experiences. However, the morals and truths of these told stories blur the distinction of reality and fiction. Through O’Brien’s interpretations of his feeling to the reader, O’Brien’s novel distorts the once-clear line between fact and fiction. When deciphering between the lines of truth vs. fiction, it’s difficult for the reader to interpret what the fiction aspect of the novel is. What it …show more content…

One of the most significant ways for O’Brien to relate his war experience through the reader is to embellish the truth of the story. By doing this, O’Brien is able to add dialog between characters, spark interest to the reader, and add personality to the book. O’Brien’s purpose for writing false information from true events is because O’Brien doesn’t want the book to be just factual information. In this way, the factual information in any war story can be unrelatable to the reader. The fiction aspect of the novel makes it more appealing and understanding to the reader. “But listen. Even that story is made up. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (O’Brien, pg. 171) Through this statement, O’Brien discuss how he uses fiction to help to reader understand his emotions. For the intention of connection O’Brien’s perspective to the reader, he utilizes the genre of autobiographical

Show More
Related

  • O'Brien's Things They Carried Essay: Experiences and Emotions

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War.  “It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war” (King 182).  O'Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters.  He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm.  By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, O'Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point.

    Read More

  • Tim O Brien's The Things They Carry

    580 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tim O’brien, the author of The Things They Carry, effectively uses language to describe the struggles of the soldiers and civilians during the Vietnam war. A prime example of this use of language can be seen within one of the stories in the book known as “Style.” Along with a serious mood, O’brien uses a series of devices such as description, repetition and contrast to emphasize the attitudes and feelings of both the soldiers and civilians of Vietnam during the war.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Rectitude In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel's narrator ,"O'Brien", not only illustrates how the scheme of writing released him from the trepidation of war, but also how it externalized his "own experience[s]". The quotation furthers a sporadic theme, certainty vs. fantasy. O'Brien illustrates his implications about war stories' "certain truths", "by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify what happened", leaving readers to ponder which aspects of his novel are varieties and which are fabrications. While "The Things They Carried" is centralize on the Vietnam war, it additionally regards the supremacy of storytelling and narrative—the approach of legitimizing life events. By eternalizing the text, O'Brien's trepidation with articulating a story's evinces his inclination to connect with people and conserve the truth of his exploits. A fundamental aspect of the narrative is O’Brien’s recognition of culpability for using the war—as well as his friends' deaths— as constituents for writing. "The Things They Carried" can be further viewed as O'Brien's effort to rationalize his own

    Read More

  • Coping Mechanisms Used for Survival in The Things They Carried

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in The Things They Carried

    2502 Words  | 6 Pages

    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 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (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.

    Read More

  • Psychological Analysis of a Fictional Character

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a short novel composed of twenty-two short stories told by the author himself. The stories are primarily about the Vietnam War but also heavily emphasize the importance of stories. The novel is an account of O’Brien’s life, yet it is not an autobiography. It is classified as fiction because not all of the stories are completely true and there is a clear difference between the author Tim O’Brien and the fictional character Tim O’Brien.

    Read More

  • Patriotism In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    “I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” (Kerry) Through the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes about his life and surrounding the vietnam war. He writes nonlinear stories about events that changed his life including death in order to tell and make his readers feel what he felt back in vietnam. The purpose of his writing is deep and intriguing to read. The effective author, Tim O’Brien, uses themes storytelling/’memories and shame/guilt to explain to readers the true meaning of war.

    Read More

  • Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong, By Tim O Brien: A True War Story

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tim O’Brien’s ultimate purpose is to detract the fine line between fiction and reality. In order to fully grasp what a true war story consists of, the definition of true must be deciphered. O’Brien seems to believe that it does not need to be pure facts. Instead, it is mostly found in the imagination of the individual. Readers need to receive a story based on the truth in its overall purpose and meaning. It just needs to feel true. The author implies that it is not important whether the event actually occurred or not, because if the reader wants to believe it that badly, the feeling of truth will always be present.

    Read More

  • A Lesson in Responsibility: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien portrays a captivating message of responsibility to his readers. Its moral explains how we sometimes let ourselves “out” of our problems, because we would like to be somewhere pleasant. The excerpt retrospect’s the war in Vietnam and illustrates the mentality and life of the foot soldiers that fought and died there. By establishing what each character carried in a literal, spiritual, and mental form, the reader can understand what the men were about. By doing so, O’Brien creates a world where reality and imagination meet and are in competition with each other.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried - Themes

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried: A Literary Analysis

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Things They Carried is a war narrative, “made up of many vignette-like narratives embedded within other narratives which seem to portray O’Brien’s memories of the Vietnam War” (Esmaeili 2), which is a topic we have yet to be exposed to in the form of a story. The Things They Carried, while consisting of soldiers carrying supplies, also carries with itself an interaction between emotion and “metaphoric conceptualization” (Esmaeili 1). Students are able to cognitively process these connections, resulting in a greater understanding of the importance in O’Brien’s manipulation of rhetorical devices. Compared to other war narratives on the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried forms a focus on the “bad form of postmodernism” (Esmaeili 2), where in addition to the concept of emotional language, allows for students to walk in the shoes of war veterans and see the war from their perspective. O’Brien allows students to view literature in a different light. Rather than reading stories where students have to interpret their hidden meaning through the principle of the iceberg, like Hemingway’s, they can consciously navigate through the same cognitive map as the characters while

    Read More

  • True War Story

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    In today's culture we hear countless stories about countless wars but we never know the facts unless we experienced the events Very view war stories can be proclaimed true, these few are special, they are separate from any other piece of literature. In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien illustrates the complexity of a true war story. Tim O'Brien uses the characters Mitchell, Rat, and Curt to tell real stories about the Vietnam War. O'Brien focuses on their humility, their immoral characteristics, and their unreliability to portray the components of a true war story.

    Read More

  • Unforgettable Memories And Values In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stories can save us. Each day we live our lives we are given the chance to believe and tell stories. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, we are able to get a more personal approach on the ways in which the soldiers coped with the unforgettable memories and images; that would be with them for the rest of their lives. No matter how tough these men were, they were not physically, mentally, or emotionally prepared for what the Vietnam War had in store for them. At the beginning, the narrator O’Brien says, “for the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity” (20). After the war, the psychological burdens the men carried during the war continue to haunt them and define who they are. Those who survive carry guilt

    Read More

  • Postmodernism In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, expresses his journey throughout the Vietnam War via a series of short stories. The novel uses storytelling to express the emotional toll the men encountered, as well as elucidate their intense experiences faced during the war. The literary theory, postmodernism, looks at these war experiences and questions their subjectivity, objectivity, and truth in a literary setting. It allows the reader to look through a lens that deepens the meaning of a work by looking past what is written and discovering the various truths. O’Brien used the storytelling process to illustrate the bleeding frame of truth. Through his unique writing style, he articulates the central idea of postmodernism to demonstrate the

    Read More

More about The Things They Carry By Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

Open Document