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Argumentative Essay On The Things They Carried

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Originally published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of war stories that took place during the Vietnam War. Due to its accurate and honest depiction of war, it has been banned for crude language, violence, drug use, and sexual innuendo. The author, Tim O’Brien, was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1946. Due to his service in the United States military during the Vietnam War, O’Brien is able to depict the war in a more graphic, and realistic manner. "I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam — the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers," quotes O’Brien. "More importantly," he continues, "I carry the weight of responsibility, and a sense of abiding guilt." (npr.org). His intended audience for the book was adults, …show more content…

Like the reporters and camera men at the time, this book provides in great detail what atrocities occurred during the war. “Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a montage of graphic scenes.”(pen.org). Because of its graphic violence and abundant use of profanity, The Things They Carried has been banned and challenged throughout the United States. In Troup, Texas 2016, a mother of an AP English student claimed that the book was “complete garbage, trash” and that it contains “nothing…that will benefit [students] physically, emotionally — mentally, morally, spiritually to be used as an educational tool.” (cbldf.org). Because of this challenge to the book, the principal decided that all questionable content regarding student curriculum will be disclosed to parents beforehand. In 2003, the book was challenged and then completely banned in George County, Mississippi. The copious amounts of profanity and sexual content lead to this unfortunate conclusion. “Using profanity was against school policy and having the book in the library made newly elected school board member, Larry McDonald, feel uncomfortable.”

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the content of the non-fiction novel, which detail the brutal murder of a prosperous Kansas farmer and his family are apparently too macabre for some…” (latimes.com). In Savannah, Georgia parents also were the cause for the book to be banned in an English Advanced Placement class, “... a parent complained that it contained sex, violence, and profanity” (weebly.com). This book was mainly challenged by parents because they believed their children were not yet mature enough to handle the book’s

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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.

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The idea to ban the book came about when students were asked to read it in school. Parents of the students reported, as said before, the book contained explicit language, references to child molestation, adolescent sexual exploits, and violence relating to the abusive father (“Banned Book Awareness”). High school parents began to challenge the book in 2010 at, William S. Hart Union High School District in Saugus (in California), and Sade-Central City High School. Successes in getting it banned took place in both Texas and Michigan. A parent at Traverse Public Schools said “It’s just really inappropriate for 13- and 14-year-olds” (“Banned Book

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O’Briens novel The Things They Carried is a unique text because each chapter tells an individual story. The work also becomes misleading because the chapters are told from different viewpoints. Rather than O’Brien using a traditional flow of chronological order, he tells the stories of his comrades to appeal to the reader at different times in the book. The reader can also begin to question O'Brien's reliability and truthfulness because of his uncommon style. The purpose is O’Briens way to cope with his experience in the Vietnam War; he retouches each memory individually depicting the story of his tragic experience at war.

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This book has won several awards, in 1999 the National Book Award Finalist; in 2000 it won the Michael L. Printz, and the Coretta Scott-King award. Despites its many awards it has also been challenged and banned in many different school districts because parents didn’t think it was appropriate for their children to read. According to Dean 2013, states “Seven D97 families filed a request with the district last month to have the book removed. A "request for reconsidering" can be made under board policy, which deals with educational materials deemed "offensive or controversial. " The policy also calls for an internal committee to be convened to review such materials”.

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The Things They Carried Second hand sources is the only way adolescents of this age are able to uncover the stories about what happened in Vietnam in 1955. The Things They Carried consists of Tim O’Brien’s recollection of the Vietnam War. The book explains the importance of keeping these memories alive, even if it’s not the exact truth. Characters are shown as they were during the war and the materials and memories they carried everywhere with them.

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O 'Briens Novel "The Things they Carried" contains twenty two short stories some of these are fiction and some falling in the category memoir or nonfiction. " The Things They Carried functions as an account of the experience of a dozen American solderis as they endured their tour of duty in vietanm war" (82).In Obriens writing "The Things They Carried" O 'brien makes sure he itemizes everything they carried into battle going from the gear they were carrying to the emotions such as fear guilt and shame. In this short story Obrien writes about his squad that mirrored his own when he was over there in Vietnam. The Letuinet of the entire company Jimmy Cross who is over come with guilt because he belive he is the one to blame over the death of Kiowa and Ted Lavender. Kiowa which was one of O 'Brien 's closest friends.

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What they did was put it in the library instead of teaching it in the curriculum. Yes the book might be appropriate for some children, but for others it might be too intense. So putting it in the library lets you decide whether you are ready for the book, if not don 't read it. Like where it says in paragraph 3 of the article where it says, “It’s still in our library”. The school leader in Biloxi thought that the morals taught from the book “to Kill a Mockingbird” could be replicated in a less offensive form through another book.

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Continuing To Be Affected Soldiers participating in a war they do not understand, suffer physical and mental anguish trying to cope with the horrors of it all. Tim O’Brien is both the narrator and protagonist of the short story “The Things They Carried.” He enters the war a scared young man afraid of the shame that dodging the war would bring him and leaves the war a guilt-ridden middle-aged man who tells stories about Vietnam in order to cope with his painful memories. Jimmy Cross’s character represents the deep effects responsibility has on those who are too immature to handle it. As a sophomore in college, he signs up for the Reserve Officers Training Corps because it is worth a few credits and because his friends are doing it.

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Reviews of the The Things They Carried tend to praise O’Brien for the detail and truth of his recordings of Vietnam. Writing for the Washington Times, John Greenya truly reviews that O 'Brien does not misconstrue the emotions and events of Vietnam in The Things They Carried First, Greenya explains that O’Brien is truthful to admit that he tried to escape from fighting in the war. This brings The Things They Carried closer to nonfiction because O’Brien does not exaggerate the details of Vietnam to make himself seem like the hero. If pure fiction, O’Brien would have been ready to fight, eagerly receiving his draft letter.

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Introduction The Things They Carried is a text where writer Tim O’Brien the stories he encountered throughout his time in the Vietnam War. These stories, traumatic as well as warm and humorous, are ones that the author will never erase from his memory. It seems that O’Brien is retelling these stories to enlighten those who have never had experience on the battlefield in order to reach a certain level of understanding and to discover repercussions that it brings onto the human condition, both physically and mentally. Evidently, he wants to convey emotion within the reader. The stories also recall the life lessons that O’Brien learned about friendship, forgiveness, respect and reputation as well as foreignness and the other.

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien expresses himself through fictionalized war stories as catharsis to comfort himself in the only way that he knows how. He tries to show the reader all of the pains of war that not only he felt, but his other young companions that fought alongside him in the brutal war. In the novel, O’Brien is a successful young man who is drafted into the Vietnam War to fight grudgingly for something he claims to be against. He recounts many of his experiences in stories based on true events but that are elaborated and fictionalized for the benefit of the reader’s understanding. This portrayal of the war in his words is a form of therapy for him that keeps him sane; even though the stories he tells are

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Over twenty years after his service in Vietnam was concluded, Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried (1990). Tim O’Brien is a veteran as well as an author of memoirs, short stories, and war stories. O’Brien grew up an all-American child, after high school he went onto college and received his BA in Political Science. In 1968 O’Brien was drafted in to the United States Army and was then sent to fight in the Vietnam War. Twenty-two years after his service, O’Brien wrote the book The Things They Carried.

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