Censorship In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

How Censorship Impacts Everyone Censorship is a very broad topic, and many consider it harmful to both them as well as others. It goes all the way back to when literature was first developed. Many different people had different opinions on certain things so they chose to challenge it. Censorship has directly affected many authors because it is the censoring of common books that have disturbing or misleading information in them that often offends someone or even a group of people. The information in them is the root of it all. Many claims have been made stating that sexual content, offensive language, and unsuitable for all ages are reasons some books shouldn’t be on shelves. Censorship is continuing to affect authors each and every day,

In the book, O’Brien basically gave a life story up until the Vietnam War was over. He breaks the book down into different sections, while also including chapters. The sections represented different time periods he went through in his life, whether it was high school, entering the draft, or even living day to day life in the Vietnam War. His stories were very vivid. For example, during the war one of O’Brien’s friends, Curt Lemon, stepped on a booby-trapped 105 round and died. Lemon’s best friend, Rat Kiley was in shock. He was tearing up emotionally. He took all the anger out on a baby buffalo. “He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee … He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away, it wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt.” Instances like these are very important throughout war stories. It shows how people are impacted from death of other people. It goes into more detail about how they eventually buried the baby buffalo alive. It was because Curt Lemon had died. These parts of certain books are very essential, and do not need to be removed from the book although they have very harsh meanings. It shows what life is like during the time of war, and how many of the soldiers coped with

He claims it makes it more appealing to the readers, while also adding it because he couldn’t remember every detail. Although many of his books are about war, his most recent books are dealing with contemporary American society and gender issues. In his interview with Patrick Hicks, he states “In the same way the war did or childhood. I’ve lived a life and because I’ve lived a life I know loss, and betrayal, and hurt, and joy. All Interview 94 those things that everybody’s felt. I wanted to address those things through the lens of comedy so I wrote Tomcat in Love.” Most of O’Brien’s books seem to end up on the challenged or banned list because of it. He likes to express his feelings, both past and present, and correlate them into the book he is writing. Most of the time this always ends up with the book being challenged or banned. Simply because he is expressing his experiences or feelings with precise detail, and it triggers the mind of many who don’t agree. As previously stated, when O’Brien started to write his books, his intended audience was structured towards adults around the age of twenty-five.

That didn’t happen. Most of his books are now in schools because of the precise detail it gives on the Vietnam War. In history classes, students are often asked to read the book when approaching the Vietnamese. Although he doesn’t have a problem with the age group