The Things They Carried
In 1990, Tim O'Brien released his second novel about Vietnam, and in the late Sunday edition of the New York Times in March, Robert Harris, editor of The Book Review, reviewed O'Brien's work.
According to Harris, only a few novels have found a way to clarify, with any lasting impression the meaning the war had for the soldiers who served there. He believes that O'Brien's work moves beyond the typical war story filled with fighting and battle and instead spends his time examining courage and fear. Harris believes that this is done with sensitivity and insight and by "questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of the truth" (1).
The Things They Carried is a collection of interwoven stories, and while it is a work of fiction dealing with the same platoon, Harris believes that it can in no way be considered a novel due to the structure, but rather it is a collection of short stories unified by characters and theme. At the same time, he also believes that while it is not a novel, all of the stories cohere and it is still a worthy piece of fiction.
Harris goes on to say that while there is a lot of gore, as is typical of war stories, O'Brien explains why it was necessary through the voice of the text. Harris quotes from the story "How to Tell a True War Story" which states, "If you do not care for obscenity, you don't care for truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty" (2). Without the gore, the emotional ride that O'Brien takes his reader would not have the impact and the reader would not understand the value of the journey O'Brien has taken.
Harris gives several examples of how O'Brien meshes together the physical situations as well as the emotional baggage of the platoon. In the title story, O'Brien juxtaposes the items that soldiers carry: gum, candy, sewing kits, assault rifles, machine guns, grenades. Along with these physical items, the soldiers carry the weight of grief, terror, love and shame.
O'Brien spends the book dissecting courage and cowardice, moving beyond literal descriptions.
O Brien 's point of view is an accurate one as he himself because he is a Vietnam veteran. The title of the short story is meaningful because it describes each soldier’s personality and how he handles conflict within the mind and outside of the body during times of strife. The title fits the life as a soldier perfectly because it shows the reality that war is more than just strategy and attacking of forces. O’Brien narrates the story from two points of view: as the author and the view of the characters. His style keeps the reader informed on both the background of things and the story itself at the same
O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried layering themes on top of themes, but what makes it amazing is the way he presents these themes. Every single one intertwined with another. Burdens. Truth. Death. The soldiers carried their burdens and the death of their friends and enemies, and they live on as storytellers telling their war stories, but can there really be a true war story?
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.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
"The Things They Carried," is a fiction story-telling book about the Vietnam War by Tim O'Brien that describes the physical and emotional burdens the men carry not only during their time in Vietnam but also years after leaving the warfront. The book is a series of stories told with O'Brien as the main narrator. O'Brien tells of the journey he takes alongside his unit, revealing his fight for courage and decision to commit to the serving in the war. It is a groundbreaking meditation on war, memory, imagination and the redemptive power of storytelling.
In conclusion, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien gives some authentic portrayals throughout the book of how soldiers could be affected by the war. The stories may not be all true to the teeth, but they are authentic to the point where this could really happen and has happened to countless of soldiers. O’Brien gives us an inside view of a true authenticity to what has happened and what could happen to all the characters in his
In the Novel The Things They Carried it starts of by talking about the things the men carried physically mentally and emotionally. Throughout the book It gives many examples of how they carry emotional things such as guilt. They tell stories to keep their men alive in memory. It explains how O'Brien has coped with war and why he writes the way he does. Throughout the book they talk about the death of their men and some of the places they were assigned to. It talks about
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and is misunderstood now” (Richard Nixon). This quote said by Richard Nixon was directed toward everyone in the United States involved in relaying the events of Vietnam back to the U.S. It showed how almost no one was able to describe any realistic detail of the event, except for Tim O’Brien. A student at Macalester College, Tim O’Brien was heavily involved in various antiwar protests, such as war protests and several peace vigils (“The Things They Carried…” 318). However, Tim O’Brien was drafted into the army, and by the time he was released, he was promoted to a captain (“O’Brien (William)…” 1). This source also goes on to say that due to his efforts, Tim O’Brien received the honorary Purple Heart (“O’Brien (William)…” 1). Another source states that, “despite being awarded the Purple Heart for wounds he received, O’Brien loathed the war and everything about it, but it would become the catalyst and continuing inspiration for his literary career” (“The Things…” 319). This quote helps to explain why Tim O’Brien’s work focuses mainly on characters dreading the war and wishing to be released home (“The Things…” 319). Due to the Vietnam War O’Brien fought in, his work focuses on fictional experiences of characters in the Vietnam War (“O’Brien (William)…” 318). Many health experts have commended O’Brien “for his insightful depiction of combat trauma” (“The Things…” 228). This source also goes as far as to say that, his stories can be compared to the Iliad, and the war stories of Ambrose Bierce (“The Things…” 228). “The Things They Carried” is considered by many, a great addition to books based on Viet...
Shawn Fanning brought the first example of illegal downloading to us in the summer of 1999 (Abbott 2003). Fanning provided the public with downloadable tracks of music using a program known as Napster. At its prime, there were over 80 million registered users downloading from Napster (Lam 2001). Only 6 months after operation, the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) filed a lawsuit against Shawn Fanning and Napster for $100,000 per each downloaded song. The legal problem with Napster was that downloaders were not paying the due royalties to the artist and producers. Napster and its contemporary, Audiogalaxy, were not exact forms of shareware, so the RIAA was able to sue them as companies. The people who were actually doing the downloading got off scotch-free with thousands of free downloaded music tracks. As a result of the case Napster was shut down. Today we are introduced to subsequent forms of downloading, like KaZaA,Bearshare, and limewire would create a whole new kind of trouble f...
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.
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.
I wonder what it was like to witness the Vietnam War firsthand in combat. Well, in the short story, “The Things they Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, the theme was portrayed as the physical and emotional burdens that soldiers had to deal with during the Vietnam War.
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.
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