Tim O’Brien is an accredited writer who writes mostly about war. Although, I can conclude that Tim O’ Brien is different from other war writers because he brings war stories to life. O’ Brien does not explain the strategies of the war, he describes the guys that he fought amongst in the war. His novel, “The Things They Carried” is an emotional retelling of the Vietnam War. He allows readers to experience the thoughts, feelings, and conflicts of the characters throughout the book. By allowing readers to experience the character’s moods, readers are able to relate to the characters through their own memories, thoughts, and feelings. I related to many of his stories, especially, “On A Rainy River”, “Stockings”, and “The Things They Carried.” Throughout this paper, I will express my reflection of the short stories, “On A Rainy River”, “Stockings”, and “The Things They Carried.” As I read, “On A Rainy River”, I became fascinated that fishing, in a sense, assisted O’ Brien with making a difficult choice. According to Tim O’Brien, the owner of the Tip Top Lodge, Elroy Berdahl saved his life. Elroy Berdahl took O’Brien fishing on the Rainy River. Elroy hoped that taking O’Brien fishing would coerce O’Brien to make a decision. Tim O’Brien’s choices included: O’Brien could go to war, and he could have a chance to see his family again, or he could go to Canada, and he would, probably, never see his family again. Tim O’Brien cleared his mind, and he thought about his past, his life now, and his future while he was sitting on the boat that floated along the river. In the end, O’Brien decided to go to war. As I read about Tim O’ Brien pondering upon his life, I realized that Tim O’Brie...
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...ecause I felt like I let myself down and my teacher, too. I know that this example is nothing like being in a war, but, I guess, we all carry guilt, blame, and grief over things that happen in our daily lives. It is just a human reaction to expect the best in yourself and to think that you have control over things that you have no control over.
In conclusion, the novel, “The Things They Carried”, is a book that reminds you of memories that you normally do not think of too often. That is what makes it such a great book. It allows readers to dig up the past and remember those things that make them who they are today. The stories you read, the stories you hear, and the experiences that you have shape your life. Without those three elements, everyone would be the same and that would be quite boring; those are the things that make life exciting and worthwhile.
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.
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.
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.
Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried in 1990, twenty years after the war in Vietnam.In the novel,Obrien takes us through the life of many soliders by telling stories that do not go in chronical order. In doing so we get to see the physical and mental things the soldiers carry throughout the war in Vietnam.Yet the novel is more than just a description of a particular war. In the things they carried Tim O’Brien develops the characters in the book slowly, to show the gradual effect war has on a person. O’Brien shows this by exploring the life of Henry Dobbins, and Norman Bowker.
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien structure his novel in order to help aid in developing the theme. The book is comprised of 22 short pieces that reference one another, each story is capable of standing alone. However, O’Brien structed this novel to combine each of the stories and teach a broader lesson. He uses a purposeful lack of organization, repetition, and abnormal transitional chapters in order to do so. His theme that war burdens, both physical and emotional, are too much for soldiers to handle, is reinforced through the structure of his novel.
The Things They Carried contains a whirlwind of emotions that impact the readers. Tim O’Brien made up this story which contains many confusing and dramatic scenes. O’Brien was good leaving the reader wondering and making up their own conclusion on what happened rather than coming out and saying how it really was. This tactic held the reader's attention throughout the book and kept them wanting to read more. Tim O’Brien’s style of writing made this story seem it was actually real life occurrences not fiction. Tim O’Brien would have never been able to this chilling but beautiful piece without this prior experience in the war. The real life experience was detrimental to this writing in order to make it seem so realistic.
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.
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.
Taking place in the middle of the Cold War Era, the Vietnam War was a war not only over land but for many a battle to protect democracy and to fight communism. Much like any other account of a war, the details are gruesome and it is even more difficult to imagine. However, following the Vietnam War one author, who served in the war, decided to take up the task and make an historic account of one of them most grueling wars ever fought. Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam veteran who wrote the novel The Things They Carried. There is a fine line to be walked when writing the accounts of the war in a way that not only informs but also entertains; however, Tim O’Brien walks it successfully. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, his use of symbolism and Metafiction helps portray the events that befall the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. The novel is one that not only gives insight into the war itself, but also reflects on the effects that it had on those who participated in it.
Some authors choose to write stories and novels specifically to evoke certain emotions from their readers as opposed to writing it for just a visual presentation. In order to do this, they occasionally stretch the truth and “distort” the event that actually occurred. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a compilation of short stories about the Vietnam War with distortion being a key element in each of them.
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 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.
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
In many respects, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried concerns the relationship between fiction and the narrator. In this novel, O'Brien himself is the main character--he is a Vietnam veteran recounting his experiences during the war, as well as a writer who is examining the mechanics behind writing stories. These two aspects of the novel are juxtaposed to produce a work of literature that comments not only upon the war, but also upon the actual art of fiction: the means of storytelling, the purposes behind them, and ultimately the relationship between fiction and reality itself.