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O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

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Recommended: Reader's response criticism of The Things They Carried" By: Tim O'Brien

Reviews of the The Things They Carried tend to praise O’Brien for the detail and truth of his recordings of Vietnam. Writing for the Washington Times, John Greenya truly reviews that O 'Brien does not misconstrue the emotions and events of Vietnam in The Things They Carried
First, Greenya explains that O’Brien is truthful to admit that he tried to escape from fighting in the war. This brings The Things They Carried closer to nonfiction because O’Brien does not exaggerate the details of Vietnam to make himself seem like the hero. If pure fiction, O’Brien would have been ready to fight, eagerly receiving his draft letter. Instead, he admits that he fruitlessly tried to run away to Canada, having a revelation that he did not want to shame his …show more content…

O’Brien does not exaggerate the blood or downplay the unsanitary conditions of war. Although he admits to “setting up in a shit field,” he does not not exaggerate the amount of fighting he witnessed in Vietnam (161). Rather than depicting a clean but gory war, O’Brien shares the disgusting, mind-destroying parts of his service. He emphasizes that serving in Vietnam does not entail fighting battle-after-battle. In fact, he mentions that in one year, he only saw one intruder. Instead of disguising his service as an action movie, he discusses his battle against the elements, oneself, and politics. Although some specifics have been changed, the do not change the grand scheme of the novel. For example, in the two chapters “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush,” O’Brien admits that he condensed various ambushes into one event. Although the book does not hash out every single detail of O’Brien’s service, O’Brien still writes about the “simplicity of the true,” confronting the reality of every war:

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In If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, Tim O’Brien’s intent is to showcase that the war in Vietnam was wrong and unjust because of the horror stories of the soldier’s experience, the atrocities committed by the Americans troops, and finally how O’Brien’s view of the American military drastically changed from how he idolized the military after WWII and throughout the Korean war, to drastically disapproving with the war effort. The soldiers who fought in Vietnam experienced a multitude of awful things, and O’Brien uses these stories to to back up the fact that the Vietnam war was horribly wrong. One example is the violent and deadly battles the soldiers endured. There were many battles throughout the book, but one battle in

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The Things They Carried is a book by Tim O’Brien, who appears as a character in this fictional book as a sort of self-insert in this fictional story. The book has 232 pages, and is divided into several unnumbered chapters. It was published in 1990 by Houghton Mufflin, and was printed in the USA. The story goes in a rather confusing and awkward order, rather than telling the story in a linear passage of time, each chapter takes place during a different part of O’Brien’s life. It’s written from O’Brien’s point of view many years after the Vietnam war.

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This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

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In the chapter when he describes the man he kills, he talks about the state of the dead body by saying, “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (O’Brien Chapter 11). This brutal and horrifying imagery displays an irrefutable element of truth to O’Brien’s writing. Not only does this imagery highlight the truth to his writing, but it also sheds light on the brutal truth about the war in Vietnam. By using imagery as such a strong rhetorical device in his writing, he gives the average person a taste of just how barbaric and cruel Vietnam felt for the people who experience the war first hand on either side of the fighting. Tim O’Brien gives a very detailed and intense description of his time fighting in Vietnam during their war with America.

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The soldiers in the Vietnam War are portrayed as losing themselves in the chaos and trauma of combat. Through the stories of the soldiers and their experiences, O’Brien explores the ways in which war strips away one's sense of identity and humanity. The author himself is depicted as losing himself in the war. O'Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his experiences inspired much of the book. Through the character of Tim O'Brien, the author explores the ways in which war can strip away one's sense of self and purpose.

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O’Brien also shows the reality that they were just young boys who were scared, and forced by shame and their social obligations to fight the war, which contrasts from a “traditional” soldier who is seen as a brave hero. From time to time, throughout the whole book, someone would say that he is just a young boy; this is almost their way of indirectly saying that: they are scared and not as brave as they try to be, and that, they were just boys who had dreamt of living a normal life. Also, right from the beginning of the book, in the chapter “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien illustrates how they try to act with poise and dignity but fails when there were times of panic. He says that “they were afraid of dying but they were more afraid of showing

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Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).

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O’Brien’s intended audience was young people who were not educated about the war and he discussed the themes shame/guilt and mortality/death. The chapter “The Things They Carried” gives an introduction about the men in the group, it also shows shame/guilt. The chapter talks about the equipment each soldier carried and how it affected them. During this chapter it focuses primarily on LT.

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In contrast, O’Brien’s novel is written chronologically, and the use of fantasy flows throughout the book. Each scene follows the characters throughout their time in Vietnam, as O’Brien recounts stories from his service there. While the fantastical events that occur in The Things They Carried are clearly more believable than in Slaughterhouse-Five, O’Brien points out that in fact, many parts of the novel are fictitious. O’Brien writes “It’s time to be blunt. I’m forty-three years old, true, and I’m a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot soldier.

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He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

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The Things They Carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien, and O’Brien includes himself as the protagonist and implements his experiences as an American soldier going into the Vietnam War. In the novel, O'Brien's a soldier who has to confront his internal conflicts and must deal with his conflicting obligations and desires towards the war. The obligation occurs once he receives a draft requiring him to fight in a war he doesn't believe in along with social pressures. These two conflicts with his desire to listen to his moral judgment which tells him to resist the draft and to just flee. This clash illuminates the work by executing the themes of courage and shame, which occurs again and again throughout the novel.

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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.

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This is evident when Mr. O’Brien says, “I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to,” (pg. 57.) In the end the author realized what he must do and went back home, so he could fight in the Vietnam

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