The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Psychological Analysis

In Tim O' Brien's, The Things They Carried, he talks about the Vietnam war and how it changed many things and reminded him of many events in his past. O' Brien uses the psychological approach to tell his experience towards Death. The things that they carried had all represented a part of each soldier and past memories. Tim O’ Brien indicates the psychoanalytical approach in “Lives of the Dead” that can be related to the psychoanalytic criticism by Lois Tyson. O’Brien uses “The Lives of the Dead” to illustrate that his war narrative has a larger purpose than simply showing readers what it was like to be in a war and how it may feel to lose someone, a friend or family that was loved dearly. Throughout this story their are smaller stories about death in Vietnam that lead back to the story of O’Brien himself, a man who writes in order to make sense of his life, especially in relation to other deaths that had occurred in his presence.

The interpretation presented in "Lives of the Dead", is an example of the meaning of death. In actuality more harm was done than good, people were forced off of their lands to hide in safety and the economic consequence is fatal. This demonstrates how, O' Brian is stating there is no real war story if

O' Brien uses the psychological approach to tell his experience towards Death. The things that they carried had all represented a part of each soldier and past memories. Tim O’ Brien indicates the psychoanalytical approach in “Lives of the Dead”. As stated O’Brien himself is a man who writes in order to make sense of his life, especially in relation to other deaths that had occurred in his presence. O’Brien’s past makes his war stories not only love stories, but life stories as well. As demonstrated psychoanalytic criticism of Death had a relation towards O’Brien and his