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The Things They Carried: An Analysis

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The Things They Carried Second hand sources is the only way adolescents of this age are able to uncover the stories about what happened in Vietnam in 1955. The Things They Carried consists of Tim O’Brien’s recollection of the Vietnam War. The book explains the importance of keeping these memories alive, even if it’s not the exact truth. Characters are shown as they were during the war and the materials and memories they carried everywhere with them. O’Brien expresses the men’s feelings towards their significant others back home and how it affects them while stationed far away from their safe place. Also, he reveals differences in truths and fiction within a story. Making sure people know and remember his team the way he did was one of O’Brien’s purposes of writing this book. He did not want what happened to them to be forgotten or ignored. The author’s claim as it pertains to the Vietnam War is that memories can be a good and a bad thing, they don’t necessarily have to be the whole truth, and remembrance is an important key to keeping legacies going. Reminiscence is relevant throughout the men's lives in the book while they are at war. They can be both good and bad depending on the story told. In the …show more content…

Frequently, happening truth is placed in the book to show the events the men went through in the war and what really was going on. On the other hand, story truth is adjusting what really happened to what's more believable and what feels right. O’Brien claims that as long as the story is told, it is not relevant if it's true. He believes that something isn't true unless it feels true, so when telling the reader his truth, he said ”I want you to feel what I felt”( O’Brien 171), so with the stories O’Brien tells, he changes the truth to make it feel right. According to O’Brien, something can be true, even if it never really happened in the war. O’Brien goes on

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In some parts of the The Things They Carried, O’Brien demonstrates slight good in war. An example of which is spending time with your friends as well as making new ones. O’Brien and Lieutenant Jim Cross spend some good times with their friends, whether it’s smoking cigarettes or shooting for practice. All the soldiers spent time in a pagoda in Vietnam where they might some priest and had a little fun.

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In “How to Tell a True War Story”, the main theme is how to tell whether a war story is true or made-up. The author explores the conflict within reality and fiction by arguing that true war stories are hard to believe. In O’Brien’s view, he points out that “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. ”(p.80). Moreover, to make his point, the author spins between facts and fiction causing difficulty for the readers to believe if those stories actually happened or

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Tim O’Brien felt to this day just like it happened when he died. The author wants the readers to understand that storytelling/ memory is a strong strenght to have. “ He showed him what hed done and asked if everything was square between them” ( O’Brien 61). The author wants the readers to understand how important it is to treat one another. It was important to the story of the two men because they had to eventually get over it like war

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O’Brien stated “I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories.” His admission of guilt and reference to the passage of time illustrates that the memories that he still carries in his

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He repeats the word “story” four times to emphasize his reasoning for remembering these memories from Vietnam. Recalling the good memories, instead of the bad, can’t take away the pain and distress he continues to go through. O’Brien successfully uses diction as a strategy to get the readers to understand the overlying message that grief is apart of life, that can not be ignored.

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Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

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Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are". (O'Brien 38) O’Brien uses his stories to reach his audience. There are generations of people who have no clue what war is really like, whether it is because of our misconceptions based on what media portrays or the fact that there are people who have not served in the military. Some people might know about Vietnam and know the outcome of the war, but they don’t have the experience and real life understanding of how that story ended. They might not be able to fully understand the feelings of a soldier.

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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.

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In this book Tim O’Brien explains the difference of what he calls “story-truth” and “happening-truth”. “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way” (71). Happening-truth is actual events that happened with real people in a real time. Story-truth may not have actually

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O’Brien shares his thoughts on what makes a “true war story” which is very interesting. Overall, O’Brien induces thought and feeling through the interesting medium of stories and language. The way O’Brien describes stories and

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O’Brien tells the readers about him reflecting back twenty years ago, he wonders if running away from the war were just events that happened in another dimension, he pictures himself writing a letter to his parents: “I’m finishing up a letter to my Parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and how sorry I am that I’d never found the courage to talk to them about it”(O’Brien 80). Even twenty years after his running from the war, O’Brien still feels sorry for not finding the courage to tell his parents about his decision of escaping to Canada to start a new life. O’Brien presented his outlook that even if someone was not directly involved in the war, this event had impacted them indirectly, for instance, how a person’s reaction to the war can create regret for important friends and

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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.

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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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Everyone walks around the earth carrying objects, some of them real, some of them metaphorical. Each individual must find ways to cope with the things they carry and be able to pick them up and move on with their life. We deal with these things because just like in The Things They Carried, we are “...too frightened to be cowards” (The Things They Carried 77). I personally have been through some hardships that I must carry with me, however I have a pretty light load compared to some of my peers. Throughout my life, I have carried material objects, such as blankets, necklaces, etc., but those things are far less relevant to me than the memories that I will carry with me forever.

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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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