Tim O Brien Quotes And Analysis

Author Information

The author, Tim O'Brien served in the United States military from 1968 to 1970, during the Vietnam War. The unit he served in was involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre. When his unit moved to the area of the massacre the place was very hostile to him and and his unit. According to him, the book The Things They Carried had a contrast between what was really happening, and the story part of the event. He is considered to write stories using Verisimilitude, the blur between fiction and reality in philosophical terms.

Setting/ Plot

The novel “The Things They Carried” takes place around 1968 to 1970, in Vietnam during The Vietnam war. The story follows the main character in a series of episodic chapters as he goes through

A passage to support this could be on page 246 when the author concludes, “I’m young and happy. I’ll never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when i take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years late, I realize it is Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” which could be interpreted as the author, when he thinks about his life and comes across a bad memory such as when he says “when i take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years late,” that he makes stories out of these experiences to make himself happier.

Symbolism

The symbolism in this novel can be found with what the soldiers carry, as this conveys special meaning for these soldiers. For example, one of the soldiers carried his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck. A passage about this is on page 117 to 118, “It was his one eccentricity… The pantyhose, he said, had the properties of a good-luck charm… he liked the memories it inspired. More than anything it was a talisman for him. They kept him safe.” The pantyhose symbolizes certain memories and luck for Henry Dopkins.

Significant

Another passage that could be significant on page 78, “Later, higher in the mountains, we came across a baby VC water buffalo. What it was doing there I don't know-...but we led it along to a deserted village… He [Rat Kiley] stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump in its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. it wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle against the mouth, and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world.” This quotation seems to capture the feeling of war, and grasps the concept of what goes through a soldier's mind. Killing the buffalo doesn’t necessarily make Rat Kiley insane, for he wouldn’t have done this outside of Vietnam, but we can see, and feel the effects that his friend dying had on him and the platoon. Finally, a quotation I found to be