Narrative Techniques In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien in the short story, “The Things They Carried” used constant repetition in the story to communicate important literary themes to his readers. His narrative technique of repetition may have been interpreted to some readers as redundancy or rather strange obsession but this technique one believes is a technique he uses to show the reader how the soldiers or characters experiences the events in their mind through their memories as it was happening-which was sometimes constantly. Such example is the event of death throughout his short story. O’Brien repeatedly recounts the death of Kiowa and Lavender to the reader, each time adding and elaborating on the death in detail. The significance of Kiowa’s death is that is seems to be the pinnacle or center piece of the story to which the characters’s develop and most of the action of the story surrounds itself. His death becomes the story’s climax and every character is affected by him suddenly getting killed. His death catalyses a change amongst all the characters and soldiers in the story. As a main character that represents morality in the story his death to many is seen as death the surrounding and only

What we learn about the characters is that based on their description of loads such as heirlooms, love letters, and drugs that each of these voluntary items that they have carried hinders them and becomes a burden in some way to them. The “weight” of the items slow their speed and progress and the emotional “baggage” causes such handicaps as in paranoia or superstition. An example is the death of Lavender when O’Brien states, “ Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April"(97). The theme of repetition is experienced throughout the short