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Fiction In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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Fiction in many cases brings many valuable life lessons that can be incorporated with everyday life. The book “The Things They Carried” is a functional story about infantry soldiers, who deal with their past problems by making fake stories. Without fiction many stories could not be related to and brought to life by exploring a person 's imagination. These soldiers are put under extreme circumstances and see nasty things. The importance of fiction is relating to the characters and relating yourself to the characters and placing yourself in the action. When you see yourself in the setting and apart of the book that`s what makes fiction so valuable to any reader. As many see fiction as a way to escape reality and live a life they wish they …show more content…

During and after the war the way the men live their lives are haunted by the guilt of the men they killed. As Tim explains to his daughter “I returned with my daughter to Vietnam, where we visited the site of Kiowa 's death , and where i looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace or whatever the land might offer.” This quote says a lot about the men and how much they feel obligated to feel responsible for their comrades deaths. Kiowa 's death was by an ambush on a routine patrol when he was gun downed while going pee. His superior ranking lieutenant was off his guard when Kiowa 's death occurred. This all does a number on each and every man in the platoon.

The book ‘The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian has plenty of value to reach readers. The book provides a great variety in exposition and proves to have much information. The book is a great for the representation of how the soldiers in the Vietnam war carried items and how their everyday lives were. However, the story is fiction, so the story 's may not be true, but how these men were affected by the war and is shown very well. Anyone would enjoy this book and the characters and their dialogue are priceless. The author Tim O`Brian shows what many of the vietnam vet`s experienced during and after the

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The Dentist "He kept replaying his own exploits, tacking on little flourishes that never happened" (82). Now, the question, "Which is more important—story-truth or happening-truth?" is asked. This above quote from Tim O 'Brein gently represents how a little thing called story-truth happens. The greatest difference between story and happening-truth is the simple fact that happening-truth reveals actual events that have occurred, whereas story-truth, which Tim O 'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, heavily emphasizes, is subjectively reflecting a person 's thoughts and feelings when recounting a tale, and putting theme above all else. The importance of the two is where everything lies, where the author of the novel pushes for story

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In war, there is a winning side and a losing side, but both suffer casualties. Afflictions are not always dealt in death and physical pain, but also emotional damage. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes war’s capabilities to change people. When Mary Anne, a sweet, innocent, all-American girl, arrives in Vietnam to be with her soldier boyfriend, change is inevitable, and she will eventually lose her naiveté. O’Brien utilizes personification, jarring imagery, hyperbole, and pathos to convey that war shatters all innocence, no matter how hard one may try to avoid the change.

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The things they carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien. About the Vietnam war. About the lives of people going there. It’s a collection of war stories. Some of them true, some of the untrue and that’s the main topic that’ll be discussed in this paper.

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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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