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Analysis essay the things they carried
Analysis of the things they carried
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The Things They Carried- Document Paper
William Timothy “Tim” O’Brien was a sergeant in the United States Army during the Vietnam War between the years of 1968- 1970. O’Brien years after the war wrote The Things They Carried which was a collection of short stories based off O’Brien’s experiences during the Vietnam War.
There are speculations as to why O’Brien wrote the book The Things They Carried. Some think it’s to share the horrors of the war, some believe writing the book was used a coping mechanism for the trauma caused by the barbarity he witnessed during the war and others believe it was a way for the author to grieve because of the life he took accidently during his time in the army. Despite all these speculations being somewhat
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O’Brien was terrified of going into the war and spent all his hours dreading having to go to war. Tim eventually starts considering fleeing to Canada to avoid leaving for war however he is terrified to lose the respect of his friends and family. One-day O’Brien and drives to the rainy river which separates Minnesota from Canada. Tim finds himself at a abandoned fishing resort, The Tip Top Lodge where he meets the old man that runs the resort named Elroy Berdahl. The two end up spending the week together eating dinner, hiking and playing board games and never once did Elroy ask why O’Brien was there in the first place. On their last full day at the resort Elroy takes O’Brien fishing on the Rainy River. It finally occurs to Tim that he is finally in Canadian Territory and all he would have to do is jump out of the boat and swim to shore. O’Brien breaks into tears feeling terrified of the war behind him but also feeling the pressure of embarrassing his family. Elroy this entire time continues fishing and pretends to be unaware of O’Brien’s current turmoil. Tim eventually decides to go home and face the war still feeling angry and upset giving into the pressures of other’s opinions.
Despite this story being extremely specific in details and sounding extremely real O’Brien admits that the story of the Tip Top Lodge is a fictional story. The author indeed had an internal struggle when he received his draft notice however, he never actually fled to the Canadian border. According to Tim O’Brien the point of the story was not to give the reader true facts but to use details and facts to give an actual account of how he felt about the current situation. Despite the story not being the actual truth, the stories convey the emotional truth the author was
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.
Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp and when he is a foot soldier in Vietnam.
Think that O'Brien is still suffering from what he experienced in Vietnam and he uses his writing to help him deal with his conflicts. In order to deal with war or other traumatic experiences, you sometimes just have to relive the experiences over and over. This is what O'Brien does with his writing; he expresses his emotional truths even if it means he has to change the facts of the literal truth. The literal truth, or some of the things that happen during war, are so horrible that you don't want to believe that it could've actually happened. For instance, "[o]ne colonel wanted the hearts cut out of the dead Vietcong to feed to his dog..
In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien shares several different experiences during the Vietnam War that had a great impact on the soldiers that fought along side him and himself. Although not all the stories are connected to one another, some intertwine. Attempting to show the reader who he is then and who he is now throughout the book, O’Brien flips back and forth between the past and the present: sharing his experiences during the war and his current time being a post-war father. War takes a toll on a man in more ways than one. Many seek comfort in bringing personal items with them to battle to remember where they came from and what they have to look forward to when returning home.
In the book “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses imagery, figurative language and repetition to convey his message. O’Brien’s purpose for story telling, is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. Many young men were sent to war, despite opposing it. They believed it was “wrong” to be sent to their deaths. Sadly, no one realizes a person’s significance until they die. Only remembering how they lived rather than acknowledging their existence when they were alive.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien’s opening chapter describes a group of soldiers marching through the jungles of Vietnam. Subsequently, Tim O’Brien started revealing personal items each soldiers carries with them during the war. These soldiers carry some surprisingly heavy physical and emotional burdens thought the jungles of Vietnam. However, these emotional burdens are far heavier than anything ...
Just as the pivotal moment arrived, in which O’Brien was to decide if he would go to Canada or not; fragments of his past and future arrived in front of him. These hallucinations were mainly what kept O’Brien from jumping overboard and swimming to the Canadian shores. The idea of everyone who was important to him no longer respecting him due to his conviction to his ethics, or even the idea that one of the decisions could lead to him not ending up with the family that he would later call his own. Moreover O’Brien could not handle the “audience to [his] life” judging the mental task at hand. A fear of embarrassment took precedence over all else with the eyes of the world looking back at him urging him one way or the other. Tim O’Brien had made his decision to go to war because he was afraid not
Most of this story revolves around experiences that Tim O’Brien has had. And he certainly has changed from the beginning of the story (speaking chronologically) where he was no more than a scared civilian, who would do anything to escape such a fate as the draft. He would eventually become the war-hardened slightly cocky veteran that he is now. But it is only through his experiences that he would become who he is today. Through all the things he has witnessed. Whether it be watching curt lemon be almost literally "blown to heaven" to having killed a man and making assumptions about who he truly was. He made not have been most affected by the war, but it was he who was described in the most detail, due to the fact that he was describing in first person
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.
He talks about the time in his life that he is shameful of which he portrays as a type of confession about being a coward. The reason for the confession is that he debated and almost dodged the draft for the Vietnam War. “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (O’Brien 38). The uncertainty that the people being drafted had with the United States agenda for the war was bewildering. The context of O’Brien’s fictional writing in the story has a certain context that is important to the story and with this background you can see Tim O’Brien’s assumed cowardliness in a different
In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien brings to light the effects of war on soldiers, both physically and psychologically. The title of the story would lead the reader to believe the story is only about the provisions and apparatus a soldier would physically carry into war. After reading the entire story, it becomes evident that there are many burdens seen and unseen that soldiers face during times of war.
Tim O’Brien is doing the best he can to stay true to the story for his fellow soldiers. Tim O’Brien believed that by writing the story of soldiers in war as he saw it brings some type of justice to soldiers in a war situation.
Tim O’Brien is drafted one month after graduating from Macalester College to fight a war he hated. Tim O’Brien believed he was above the war, and as a result pursued the alternative of escaping across the border to Canada. This understandable act is what Tim O’Brien considers an embarrassment to himself, and to others. When Tim O’Brien finds accommodation on the border to Canada, he meets Elroy Berdahl who eventually influences Tim O’Brien, to change. Elroy Berdahl acts as a mentor to Tim, a figure that remains detached in the sense that he must provide enough support and understanding without being attached to the results.
They were essential in showing the key parts in O’Brien’s life that lead to the turning points which lead to the creation of this novel and his ability to be at peace with what had happened in Vietnam. He finally accepted what had happened and embraced it instead of avoiding it. Works Cited Novel O'Brien, Tim.
Throughout the chapter O’Brien uses a technique known as point of view. The point of views in the novel comes from three characters- Azar, Kiowa, and Tim O’Brien himself. The three characters perspectives on war are interpreted entirely different. Tim O’Brien is illustrated as the most sensitive solider out of the three. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…” (124). Tim’s sensitivity is revealed when he shows how bewildered he is as he stares at the lifeless Viet Cong body. Tim allows the readers to see that he has remorse about how he took action to stop the Viet Cong solider as he thinks repetitively about the repugnant attack. Tim is also shown as the character that never really talks and is very quite which in turn shows that he is guilty and ashamed. Azar happens to be the solider that is there to complete his job and does not show any sorrow for any actions that may occur. “Oh, man, you fuckin’ trashed the fucker” (125). In the novel, Azar shows that he actually enjoys the work of war and it does not really seem to bother him. Kiowa is more sensible in realizing and understanding what Tim is experiencing. “Tim it’s a war. The guy wasn’t Heidi—he had a weapon, right? It’s a tough thing, for sure but you got to cut out that staring” (126). He knows that what Tim is feeling is really hard for him to grasp because of the astonishment “Take it slow. Just go wherever the spirit takes you.” (126). It is shown that Kiowa has an understanding of Tim but he knows how to deal with the situation at hand.