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Interpreting Techniques In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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In “The Things They Carried”, the author, Tim O’Brien, uses unique and varying storytelling techniques to get his point across. These techniques can make the reader question or better understand the tone, details, and the author’s experiences in these stories. The thin line between factual events and the “truth” is also brought up in this book as O’Brien twists each story into his own version of the truth. The techniques O’Brien uses to do all this is metafiction to have direct conversation with the reader, detail to help provide a clear image of his experiences, and tone so the reader understands O’Brien’s thoughts and reflections on each story and the feelings he wants to convey to the reader. O’Brien uses these to provide information to the reader and to help them have a better understanding of the book. First, O’Brien employs the use of metafiction to create a personal connection …show more content…

An example of this is when O’Brien is describing Curt Lemon’s death for the first time when he says “They were just goofing…white blossoms” (44). This passage has many specific details about Lemon’s death like how his face looked and how instantaneous the scene turned from bright to dark. Lemon’s face is described as brown, shining, and handsome which gives the reader a clear image of a young innocent soldier. His death is described as a sudden flash of light and being “sucked away”. This sharp contrast of detail shows how brutal death can be and helps explain O’Brien’s shock after the death. It also helps the reader sympathize with Curt Lemon and understand how unnecessary his death was. O’Brien shows how war causes so many pointless deaths with this detail and makes the reader understand that Lemon could’ve been anyone by describing him in the way he did. These direct details strengthen the story and help the reader understand the perspectives of soldiers in

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Central Questions In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

328 Words | 2 Pages

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien exemplifies a central question in the book. The central question is, “Is war more good or bad?” To an extent, O’Brien answered that question. The answer is almost clear. O’Brien’s book on some his experiences in the Vietnam War captures nearly every detail need to answer the central question.

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Metafiction In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

509 Words | 3 Pages

In the book The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien, uses many literary methods, including metafiction. Metafiction is while an author is writing a story, he or she breaks the fourth wall in order to make the audience feel like they are involved. It brings reality to a fictional story by speaking to the audience about what is going on, and it makes the audience forget that what they are experiencing isn’t real. Metafiction blurs the line between fiction and reality. Tim O’Brien uses many literary devices in this book, including symbolism, imagery, setting, a narrator point of view, metafiction, and a tone.

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Truth In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

922 Words | 4 Pages

After Lemon faints he is a complete mess. He sulks alone, isolated, just staring and cursing at the tent. Finally, embarrassment got the best of him—for the sake of his pride, and for the assurance that he hasn 't lost his manhood—he shows the truth, the true Curt Lemon, he reveals what he had the dentist do—Lemon walks into the dentist complaining of a toothache, and although the dentist could find nothing wrong he had the him rip out a perfectly good tooth; he reestablishes his personal pride in defeating his phobia and overcoming fainting. He does all of this in the name of manliness, and while doing so—introducing more

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Synopsis Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

898 Words | 4 Pages

Hunter Berman Ms.Silver AP English P-4 6/7/2018 The things They Carried Historical Report The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O'Brien about U.S. soldiers stationed in Vietnam and their personal stories of what they literally and emotionally carry. He focus on what the soldiers have on their person and how each of those items have an effect on them for reason specific to them.

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The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

212 Words | 1 Pages

In the first chapter of Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, O'Brien takes time to create lists of objects each soldier carried with them while on active duty, along with their weight. Each list is separated into categories of necessities, personal belongings, and gear. This use of objects and weight creates a connection between the categories/objects and the physical or mental weight that each soldier carries throughout the war. In this chapter, O'Brien uses strong symbolism to show the reader the extent of physical and psychological exhaustion war can have on a soldier. Through each item mentioned in chapter 1, the reader is able to experience the weight of war through both a literal and metaphorical sense.

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The Changing Experiences In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

957 Words | 4 Pages

The author, O’Brien, was no different, he was aiming for

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The Paradox Of War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

705 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the author skillfully presents a paradox about war and how it is both horrible and beautiful. Through O’Brien’s vivid storytelling and sorrowful anecdotes, he is able to demonstrate various instances which show both the horrible and beautiful nature of war. Within the vulnerability of the soldiers and the resilience found in the darkest of circumstances, O’brien is able to show the uproarious emotional landscape of war with a paradox that serves as the backbone of the narrative. In the first instance, O’Brien explores the beauty in horror within the chapter “Love.”

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The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

924 Words | 4 Pages

The Challenge of Bravery and Courage are unexpected obstacles for everyone who was drafted into the Vietnam War, especially for Tim O’Brien who is the narrator and the Author of “The Things They Carried”. Before O’Brien gets drafted into the Vietnam War, he highlights the consumption of tone and juxtaposition on the effects of war while his allies are trying to empathize to his feelings. The theme also relates to Khaled Hosseini’s story “Kite Runner” where as a kid, Amir struggled with bravery and courage when he wasn’t there for Hassan. In Order for O’Brien to seek truth behind War, he’ll need to experience the environment in-action which is why he was forced to see everything later on in the story.

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Coping Mechanisms In The Things They Carried And Tim O Brien

1435 Words | 6 Pages

His coping mechanism that he uses is through his writing about the Vietnam War. He is writing because he is trying to deal or understand what happened in the war. In the chapter “The Lives of the living Dead”, explains that through O’Brien’s writings, he able to come to peace at what he observed and did in combat. He may not understand why events had happened because he has not remembered the most traumatic experiences clearly. Even if his friends are dead, he will be able to remember them and his surviving platoon, through his stories to immortalize them.

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How Does Tim O Brien Use Story Telling In The Things They Carried

1094 Words | 5 Pages

Storytelling has such a large impact on all stages of life. Stories are told to teach a lesson, give hope, or get someone through a hard time. Tim O’Brien uses storytelling in his book, The Things They Carried, to teach lessons from war, and help readers understand about the baggage people bring to war. The publisher section of this novel has this warning in it, "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life all incidents, names, and characters are imaginary” (O'Brien).

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Symbolism In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

648 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story set during the Vietnam War. In the story, O’Brien lists many different items soldiers in the Alpha Company carried with them as they humped across the rugged terrain. Many carried necessities such as rations, matches, ammunition and things of that nature; however, many soldiers also carried quite peculiar objects such as condoms, pantyhose, and M&Ms. Readers can grasp a closer insight of the characters’ lives after further examination of the symbolism and meaning of the things they carried.

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The Message In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

620 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried In the historical fiction The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien presents himself, the narrator, being faced with a war draft to a war he didn't agree with, in order to convey a message about going to war instead of fleeing the draft ultimately illustrating that message of being a coward for going against what he believed in. Tim O’Brien conveys a message of himself being a coward for going against what he believed in. In the text Tim had recently graduated from college when he got drafted to the war, O’Brien stated “In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated.” O’Brien makes it extremely clear that his views did not align with the war.

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The Things They Carried 5 Paragraph Essay

480 Words | 2 Pages

The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, written by Steven Kaplan, questions if there is any sense or meaning derived from what happened during the Vietnam War and how that could be conveyed to those who have not experienced the war. Literary critic, Philip Beider’s, writes “most of the time in Vietnam, there are some things that seemed just too terrible and strange to be true and others that were just too terrible and true to be strange. ”(American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam 4). Kaplan believes that by destroying the fine line between fact and fiction, fiction can often sound truer being, presented as meaningful.

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The Things They Carried: An Analysis

688 Words | 3 Pages

“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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Telling A True War Story Analysis

1032 Words | 5 Pages

For example when Curt Lemon died, he has a gentle version. “I can see him turning, looking back at Rat Kiley, then he laughed and took 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,”(How To Tell A True War Story, 52).

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