A Review Of The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

Literature Review - The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a semi-autobiographical novel based on O’Brien’s experience in the Vietnam War. In the book, O’brien tells about the events leading up to him being drafted, war stories, and some narratives about his comrades. He says that he did not join the war because of morals, but because he was scared not to. Throughout the book, the characters have been coping with death/mortality, social obligations/pressures, guilt/shame, and moral conflicts. O’Brien shares his thoughts on what makes a “true war story” which is very interesting. Overall, O’Brien induces thought and feeling through the interesting medium of stories and language.
The way O’Brien describes stories and

Lemon died accidentally after stepping on a mine but the way O’Brien describes it is hauntingly beautiful. “Twenty years later, I can still see the sunlight on Lemon’s face. I can see him turning, looking back at Rat Kiley, then he laughed and took that that curious half step from shade into sunlight, his face suddenly brown and shining, and when his foot touched down, in that instant, he must’ve thought it was the sunlight that was killing him. It was not the sunlight. It was a rigged 105 round. But if I could ever get the story right, how the sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree, if I could somehow recreate the fatal whiteness of that light, the quick glare, the obvious cause and effect, then you would believe the last thing Curt Lemon believed, which for him must’ve been the final truth.” (80). Not including the full quote would feel like an injustice. When reading this paragraph, it feels as though the reader is watching it happen with the others, in slow motion. This is a great example of how O’Brien uses the tool of language to his advantage. Another way he uses language is in symbolism. Rat Kiley, who was Lemon’s best friend, writes a letter to Lemon’s sister but receives no response. Struck with grief, Lemon offers a baby buffalo some of his rations of “pork and beans, but the baby buffalo wasn’t interested”(75). Then, “Rat shrugged. He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound.” (75) Once it was nearly dead, “Nothing moved except the eyes, which were enormous, the pupils shiny and black and dumb” (76). The baby buffalo is a bit like both Curt Lemon and his sister. Neither the buffalo nor the girl responded to Rat Kiley’s kind gestures and like Curt, it was a young, dumb, innocent, and not deserving of death. After all this, at the end of