ipl-logo

Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

928 Words4 Pages

Most war stories are labeled as fiction or nonfiction; however Tim O’Brien breaks this rule in The Things They Carried by creating a fictitious story that yet seeps the truth, and labelling it as a work of fiction. The book is compiled of various stories that correlate together, but it can be unclear what is fact and what is fiction. O’Brien purposely does this to draw in the reader to question what is and what isn’t, and no one exactly knows the right answer. By utilizing intentional, rhetorical tactics, O’Brien has the power of blurring the lines between fact and fiction; which allows the reader to distinguish between fact and fiction in chapters, such as “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, “Stockings”, and “Speaking of Courage”. Chapter …show more content…

This already lets the reader question the truth behind this chapter. O’Brien mentioned how for Dobbins this brought back memories. Memories that were sweet and kind to him. When O’Brien says “he liked the memories this inspired; he sometimes slept with the stockings up against his face, the way an infant sleeps with a flannel blanket, secure and peaceful.” This not only reminds him of his girlfriend, but also a safer world away from Vietnam. O’Brien again created a vignette story where the reader would question what is real and what is not. Especially after reading that “Dobbins was invulnerable. Never wounded, never a scratch” (112). Even after their breakup, he continues to wear it, thinking it still has the power to protect him. The author shows how American soldiers can not think rationally anymore, but think based on superstition. Although this might just be a superstition, Dobbins survives the war. His beliefs in the stockings allow him to never give up hope, and stay motivated throughout the war. Even though this story lacks the factual truth, the real truth was the soldier’s …show more content…

He witnesses one of his closest friends, Kiowa, become fatally wounded and precede to sink into the never-returning mud that prompts room for creativity. Norman feels as if, by some intuitive way, prying him out of the mud would bring him back. Although to the readers, it was clear he was already gone. Tim O’Brien describes Norman’s hometown in depth as he had lived there also. His use of vivid imagery and sensory details make the readers feel as if Norman is narrating from a third person perspective, a realistic scene that has some imagination added to it. Norman’s story is a way to help Tim portray the feeling that many veterans experienced when arriving home. Constantly, Norman reminisces of his mistake he feels he has made “the truth… is I let the guy go” (147).A feeling of emptiness, loss of motivation, regretfullness makes readjustment take a toll on a soldier’s mental health. Readers are able to grasp this feeling as if Norman’s chapter contains the whole truth, however, the mention of specific details allow for also seeing the addition behind

Show More
Related

How Does Norman Bowker's Character Change

532 Words | 3 Pages

Norman had felt as if he had no one to talk to or relate to because no one around him had experienced war like he had. He tried to keep jobs when he was home from war, but not one of them had lasted more than 3 weeks. Since he feels he is unable to speak to anyone about war, he writes a letter to O’Brien, telling his entire war story. He soon feels as if he cannot do anything without thinking about war and hangs himself in the locker room of his town’s YMCA.

Read More

Summary Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

772 Words | 4 Pages

The team had decided to camp out in a field, later discovered to be a waste field for the local village. One night while being bombed by the enemy Kiowa was hit. As he suffered his injuries and the filth of the land swallowed him up, Norman Bowker desperately tried to pull him out to save him. The smell was too much and the suction too strong and before Bowker knew it, Kiowa had disappeared in the field, becoming a part of it. As the book recalls on page 143, Norman Bowker pushed passed the wretched smell and did everything in his power to try and pull Kiowa out of the muck by his boot, but never managed to save him from the unforgiving field.

Read More

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Synthesis

695 Words | 3 Pages

Even with all the ribbons and a combat infantryman’s badge which he obtain through his tour with the pressure of his father. All that meant nothing; he didn’t earn them or deserved them. He felt responsible for Kiowa’s death. When he pondered about the tragic event, he recalls “the worst part, “was the smell” (139). Constantly, Norman graphic, vivid memories of how “Kiowa disappeared under the waste and water” (143), and how he felt being dragged down with him.

Read More

Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1851 Words | 8 Pages

The Things They Carried is a collection of stories written by Tim O’Brien to depict what soldiers, including himself, had experienced while fighting across seas in the Vietnam War. The collection of stories begins with a section titled “The Things They Carried”. Tim O'brien is the main character, and he is a soldier fighting with his fellow comrades in a group named Alpha Company and he describes the belongings and equipment that each soldier carries while also providing a short background of a few men. Many characters reappear throughout the collection of stories that are told by Tim.

Read More

Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1900 Words | 8 Pages

One aspect of returning home that was conveyed by this story was doing actions that earned medals. Norman talks of how he almost got more medals and was had the courage to try and rescue Kiowa’s body but couldn’t do it while under artillery fire. This wasn’t a case of whether he could or couldn’t summon a supply of courage to support his country but just the pure reactions someone

Read More

Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

943 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien creates a series of short narratives about a small group of soldiers, using a mixture of fiction and autobiographical facts. Over the course of the novel The Things They Carried By Tim O’Brien, Tim’s experiences and interaction with his platoon; provides a view of war and it distractions At the begging, Tim O’Brien enters the war as a immature kid, but by the end, he becomes a fearless

Read More

The Ghost Soldiers Tim O Brien Character Analysis Essay

844 Words | 4 Pages

This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

Read More

Irony In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

428 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the war Dobbins views his girlfriend's stockings as “body armor” making him invulnerable. “But then, near the end of October, his girlfriend dumped him. It was a hard blow. Dobbins went quiet for a while, staring down at her letter, then after a time he took out the stockings and tied them around his neck as a comforter. ‘No sweat,’ he said.

Read More

The Things They Carried Norman Character Analysis

1882 Words | 8 Pages

In examining Norman’s silence, the communication of trauma relies on a safe-space where personal trauma can be shared with a willing audience (Schick 1850). However while Norman imagines telling his story to his high school girlfriend, his father, or Max, he cannot. The sense of alienation Norman feels in the town is coupled with a perception “the town could not talk, and would not listen”, reflecting the local American perspective on Vietnam. While The Corpse Washer takes place in a war zone, once Norma returns to American, there is a divide between him and his home through the trauma of warfare (O’Brien 137). Unlike Norman who is permeated by the memory of Vietnam, notably the drowning death of Kiowa, the town “had no memory therefore no guilt” (O’Brien 137).

Read More

War In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

786 Words | 4 Pages

War and the experiences encountered within it create countless stories, both heroic and horrific. A few of these war stories are shared throughout the book, The Things they Carried, by Tim O’Brien. The men involved in these war stories respond to the uncertainty, fear, and death that surrounds them in their own distinct ways. During a time of war, the soldiers in combat respond to their stimulative surroundings through their own coping mechanisms.

Read More

I Die In Combat, Box Me Up And Ship Me Home, By Tim O Brien

1036 Words | 5 Pages

In Tim O’Brien’s autobiographical novel, If I Die in Combat, Box Me up and Ship Me Home, he recounts his experience of being drafted into service and what happens in Vietnam. This memoir is structured within 23 chapters shifting between different time periods. The lack of chronological organization emphasizes the unpredictable nature of being in the military. The conflict that O’Brien faces is a struggle of moral and ethical judgment of his involvement in a war that he believes is unjust. He not only questions his personal involvement in the war, but he also questions the other participants reasoning for joining the war.

Read More

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

754 Words | 4 Pages

He became but a shell of his former self, the balance between head and heart disregarded. Sympathy toward Kiowa’s death ignored, overridden by his need to stifle his sensitivity. Norman Bowker exhibited the most dynamic emotional disarray. Bowker carried the strife of an unrecognized man, pained by his failure to obtain the recognition he longed for and the wishes he

Read More

The Things They Carried Bad Quotes

942 Words | 4 Pages

Slowly, working his way up, he hoisted himself out of the deep mud, and then he lay still and tasted the shit in his mouth and closed his eyes and listened to the rain and explosions and bubbling sounds. He was alone,” (O’Brien 143). Norman was devastated about losing Kiowa when it happened. Norman had

Read More

PTSD In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1025 Words | 5 Pages

In the story, there are many different behaviors that make it clear to the reader that Norman is unable to get past the war and the trauma surrounding it. These behaviors include continuing to drive around a lake being stuck in a specific path, making up conversations he might have with his dad about the war, and convincing himself that normal occurrences must be effects of the war. One day while Norman is driving, he passes through a town. He describes it as, “A tour bus feeling, in a way, except the town he was touring seemed dead. Through the windows, as if in a stop-motion photograph, the place looked as if it had been hit by nerve gas, everything still and lifeless, even the people” (143).

Read More

Disconnection In The Things They Carried

1505 Words | 7 Pages

Already he had passed them six times, forty-two miles, nearly three hours without stopping” (O’Brien 139-140). As if Norman was stuck in a loop, he drove around that lake, reliving moments of his life from when he was in Vietnam. He questioned, doubted, and second guessed things that had happened. He wants to tell his story to his friends but they all moved on with their lives while he was in Vietnam in the war, leaving him with no one. He wanted to talk to someone but he couldn’t.

Read More

More about Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Open Document