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Emotional Characters In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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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. However, as the reader continues to immerse themselves within these stories, it has to …show more content…

Before the story begins, it states ‘except for a few details regarding the author 's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary’ (O’Brien, P8). However, on the following page the author claims that the text is ‘lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company’ as well as all the men that feature within the text (O’Brien, P9). Silbergleid believes that this statement ‘elevates these imaginary characters to the level of real people worthy of a dedication’ (Silbergleid, P129), therefore, blurring the line between what is fact and what is fiction. This is evident in ‘How to Tell a True War Story’ when the reader discovers that the men Curt, Rat and Mitchell are in fact fictional characters. ‘No Mitchell Sanders, you tell her. No Lemon, no Rat Kiley (O’Brien, P64). Furthermore, O’Brien created some of his characters with the intention of them being loosely based off real people in his life. For example, in an interview with Lynn Wharton, O’Brien states that the character Curt Lemon was based on an individual called Alvin Merricks, who died an instant death like Lemon (Wharton,

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Is A Platoon Of Young American Soldiers In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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Tim O’Brien, in his novel The Things They Carried, provides a first-hand account of the experiences of a platoon of young American soldiers in the Vietnam War. Through the stories he tells, O’Brien is able to relate to the reader the atmospheres of the situations that the soldiers were placed in. He also emphasizes the roles of both the physical and mental “things” that he and every other soldier carried on their missions throughout the war. Many of the physical objects that the soldiers kept with them either served a vital purpose to their survival or an emotional purpose to help remind them of the things they loved.

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Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

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In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.

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The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.

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