Freedom In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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The Vietnam War lasted from November 1, 1955 to April 30,1975, the longest the United States has been involved in a foreign conflict, and while Tim O’Brien served from 1969 to 1970, it wasn’t until 1990 that he released his novel, The Things They Carried. In total, there were 2,709,918 American soldier who fought in Vietnam across the duration of the war, with 25% of them pulled in through the draft as Tim O’Brien was. In an interview with Patrick Hicks, O’Brien describes how it felt to be unceremoniously dumped into a war when he, similar to many soldiers, had no knowledge of war,

We couldn’t understand their language, their culture, their religion. It was all beyond us. No one knew the first thing about anything except that everybody was dying, usually from landmines and booby-traps and quick little firefights. You couldn’t even see the enemy and therefore the enemy became even more hated. …show more content…

O’Brien uses his authorial freedom to create character and events, that were inspired by what he saw and heard in Vietnam, and mesh them together in ways that allow the reader to experience the war the same way the soldiers did, violently, without explanation, and in emotional isolation. O’Brien is able to show the reader how the soldiers felt like they were trapped by the death and hatred discussed in the above quote and how that affected their mental

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