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“The Things They Carried” Headline: What O’Brien and his team carried both physically and mentally will shock you Newspaper Section: This article would fit the world section of the newspaper. Single-Sentence Summary: Tim O’Brien the protagonist and the narrator of the story is describing lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who is active in Vietnam however Cross is preoccupied thinking about a girl called Martha whom he dated prior to the war. Explanation: This quotation from “The Things They Carried” provides an opinion on why men go to war. O’Brien claims that men who go to war are cowards, not as heroes. They go because they are forced to go and because they didn’t have the bravery to refuse to go.
People get so caught up in what others think and expect of them that they let it completely control the decisions they make. The soldiers in “The Things They Carried” have a fear of looking weak and cowardice. They let this fear and their pride control them even if it is not what they want. Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, and Curt Lemon are examples of soldiers who let fear control them. The soldiers fear that the people close to them and around them will discover their weaknesses.
Through centuries of great wars and battles, history has displayed brave men and women who have fought for their countries. These audacious people have helped propel countries for the greater good. However, the weight and responsibility, of the war, takes a heavy toll on soldiers that is often overlooked. Tim O’Brien, author of the novel The Things They Carried, records his stories, and the stories of his fellow soldiers during the war. However, three of these soldiers are affected in an outlandish way.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien expresses to the reader why the men went to the war and continued to fight it. In the first chapter, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather they were too frightened to be cowards.” The soldiers went to war not because they were courageous and ready to fight, but because they felt the need to go. They were afraid and coped with their lack of courage by telling stories (to themselves or aloud) and applied humor to the situations they encountered.
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.
Highlighting the effects of war on the personalities and actions of the characters, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien dwells on the characters and contrasts their physical baggage with their emotional burdens in order to illustrate that the psychological impact of traumatic events weighs heavier on the minds of the soldiers than all of the provisions and supplies they shouldered. O’Brien does this by utilizing several literary devices, such as narration, point of view, characterization, symbolism, irony, and metaphor. Written from the third person point of view, the unnamed narrator discusses the inner thoughts and outer actions of Jimmy Cross, a lieutenant of an army unit in active combat in the Vietnam War. Along with their necessities
Synthesis Essay In the Vietnam war, there were many soldiers at war with each other, and most soldiers were not prepared for the fight. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien was in the Vietnam war when he was young. The book was not in order but he still talks about his experiences while in the war. His purpose for writing this novel was because he wanted younger audience to know what happened in the war and what the soldiers experienced.
In The Things They Carried, limited third person is used to get the readers in the mind of a general while The Open Boat uses dialogue to reveal soldiers’ feelings while isolated. O’Brien takes readers in the mind of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross by describing his feelings. One example is to start out the story is how “he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her” (O’Brien 598). O’Brien reveals that Martha is an American lady that Cross misses while at war and would “carry letters” from her (598). Cross’ mind would constantly wander and he has “difficulty keeping his attention on the war” (602).
At the beginning of the story Lieutenant Cross is constantly daydreaming and romanticizing about a girl back home named Martha which distracts him from leading his men like he is supposed to be doing. It is only after one of his men gets killed that he finally realizes that his daydreaming has likely caused the death of one of his men and he then understands that he needs to take responsibility for his men by being the leader that they need him to
A lot happens in Tim O 'Brien short story "The Things They Carried", at first, the reader speculates what the short story is about and why it is called "The Things They Carried". The narrator Tim O 'Brien tells and describes all the things that the men have to carry while "in-country" during the Vietnam War in the1960 's. The text 's artistic value comes from its plot, characters, conflict, and style. In the plot of the story the protagonist, Tim O 'Brien starts by describing circumstances that happened while he was in Vietnam. In the beginning of "The Things They Carried" we are introduced to each character by the things they carry.
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.
“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.
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.
Literary analysis America’s war heroes all have the same stories to tell but different tales. Prescribed with the same coloring page to fill in, and use their methods and colors to bring the image to life. This is the writing style and tactic used by Tim O’Brien in his novel, “The Things They Carried”. Steven Kaplan’s short story criticism, The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, provides the audience with an understanding of O’Brien’s techniques used to share “true war” stories of the Vietnam War. Kaplan explains the multitude of stories shared in each of the individual characters, narration and concepts derived from their personal experiences while serving active combat duty during the Vietnam War,
In the story, "The Things They Carried" a narrator describes the life of soldiers during the Vietnam War. The narrator lists what some of the soldiers carried during their experience in the war, emotional and tangible. Tim O'Brien presents the character of Ted Lavender, an obviously frightened soldier, in order to be a spokeperson to symbolize obvious stress within soldiers during their journey. He presents the character of Kiowa, a devoted Baptist, in order to represent how some of the soldiers cope with the exorbitant amount of stress. Tim O'Brien characterizes Ted Lavender as stressed and frightened in order to portray fright during the war within soldiers.
