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Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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Throughout the book The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien shares a variety of short story-like stories that draw the reader into the Vietnam War. More closely in his short story titled “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien dives deeper into the thoughts and actions of a character version of himself. In the story, Tim O’Brien, the character, receives a draft notice for the Vietnam War. This is important because Tim O’Brien, the author, further develops the character O’Brien by allowing the reader to enter into this thoughts and feelings. Instead of the reader assuming how O’Brien feels upon receiving the draft notice, he/she finds out first-hand how he truly feels. It is evident that O’Brien is not happy about the notice because he exemplifies a defense mechanism where he begins to blame others for the reason he was drafted. First off, O’Brien is confused on why the war started and why he, an anti-war liberal, was drafted. He states, “ Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist survivor, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What …show more content…

During the Vietnam war, the United States bombed the city leaving everlasting damage. Standing United States president at the time, Richard Nixon, bombed the city in hopes of creating enough damage to the civilian’s infrastructure so that Vietnam leaders would negotiate peace. Artist Andy Warhol, an anti-war artist, designed the button. The button had “Bomb Hanoi” printed on it and worn throughout the Vietnam War in the United States by pro-war conservatives (“Hanoi”). In the story, O’Brien states that he is an anti-war liberal and wonders why the pro-war conservative that wears this button isn’t drafted. O’Brien does not think it is fair he is drafted to fight in a war that he doesn’t support while the man who does believe in the war is

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Vietnam War In The Things They Carry, By Tim O Brien

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Most people don’t know much about what exactly happened in the Vietnam War. Should this war have even happened? Many Americans believe this war was unnecessary for the armed forces to participate in, especially because of the damage caused in WWII. Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They carry, offers a collection of short stories in which each expresses the different Vietnam experiences. Every story in this novel was impressive for its own unique reason.

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The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, is an emotion provoking collection of short stories about the Vietnam War. One of those stories, The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, is about Rat Kiley, who had the reputation of “heating up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt” and that quality is displayed in his account of a girl named Mary Anne. In Rat’s story, Mark Fossie, a medic, flew in his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to Vietnam where she gets enveloped and changed by the excitement of the war. Rat Kiley created the story of Mary Anne to characterize changes that happen to all people who go to war. Rat also highlights the idea that we have “these blinders on about women”.

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Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1141 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien demonstrates the life of a solider during the Vietnam War. O’Brien describes what the soldiers went through physically and mentally before, during, and after the war. He also describes how the soldiers had to adapt to war at a young age and sometimes the things they did were deranged but nothing was normal about war. Also after going to war and coming home, these soldiers struggle with how to deal with what they went through. This is also demonstrated through the book and one can see this through the author.

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The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

618 Words | 3 Pages

What will his peers think? Will he be judge badly for not following through with the draft? “If you support a war, If you think it's worth the price, fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line” (O’Brien40). He does not support the war but he felt obligated to go and serve his country. He feared the consequences if he dodge it.

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Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

1399 Words | 6 Pages

To go into it, I’ve always thought, would only cause embarrassment for all of us,” (O’Brien 37). O’Brien succeeds at telling this war story because in the short story, On the Rainy River, he contemplates escaping the draft by fleeing to Canada or being a man and going to war. He knows that if he flees to Canada, he will be painted as a coward in

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Spin By Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

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In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.

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Universal Truth In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

481 Words | 2 Pages

Sent by Patriots, Dismissed by Protestors In order to better convey an understandable universal truth in their works, writers will distort factual happening truth by creating a fictional story truth. Tim O’Brien uses fictional characters in the novel, The Things They Carried, to convey the pressure American draftees faced when called to join the military in Vietnam. Recruits of the Vietnam War Draft in 1969 were descendants of World War II veterans, subsequently, military service was an expectation. Recruits who dodged the draft would forever be labeled by America as cowards who would, as Vietnam Veteran, Francis T. Logan states, in the South Dakota Vietnam War Memorial Dedication, “live with,” their national embarrassment along with, “their

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The Vietnam Soldier In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1021 Words | 5 Pages

Since O’Brien has suffered so much mental damage, like this, from doing his duties as a Vietnam soldier, it would be unfair to discredit him, just because he was against the

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Emotion And Communication In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

497 Words | 2 Pages

Altogether, O’Brien isn't just a lonely voice of the soldiers that are stuck fighting in this war, but he also has a strong way of expressing emotion and communication throughout life.

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Analysis Of If I Die In A Combat Zone, Box Me Home By Tim O Brien

1380 Words | 6 Pages

Although, throughout the novel, the reader can still sense that O’Brien is not comfortable with the idea of war—as he isn’t completely positive as to why they are fighting there. He knows the mission, and he understands the things that are needed and required from him as a soldier. He doesn’t quite understand, morally, why some of the men there thrive off of it. This feeling is showcased when we see on page 127 that he discusses the war as such: “It is not a war fought for territory, nor for pieces of land that will be won and held. It is not a war to win the hearts of the Vietnamese nationals… land is not one and hearts are at best left indifferent.”

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Multiculturalism In The Things They Carried

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Either it being self defense, economic gain or for a political movement, War is influenced by many factors that lead to catastrophic results. Both the Gulf and Vietnam wars are explained by the article, “Military Multiculturalism in the Gulf War and After” and short story “The Things They Carried” that signify the blind eye displayed by humans during these wars. What allows Humans to process traumatic events is to turn the other way around and fill their minds with joyful moments in their life. A couple of ways are displayed in both the short story and article are the soldiers letting their mind escape and thinking about the things they brought with them from home and the public accepting the medias filtered perspective of war by supporting

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PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1504 Words | 7 Pages

In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

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1383 Words | 6 Pages

The Vietnam War was a war that most Americans at the time were not happy with. They did not agree with why we were sending young men to die in a foreign land. Tim O’Brien was one of those Americans. He did not try to hide the fact that he did not support the vietnam war. He was open about having thoughts about avoiding the draft and fleeing to Canada but instead he stayed in America and did not try to flee

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1179 Words | 5 Pages

O’Brien cared for his country, but was not for the Vietnam War when he got drafted to go fight for

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The Vietnam War leaves a legacy of moral confusion with each and every soldier who serves. Soldiers are fighting for a cause they do not necessarily believe in, killing people who do not necessarily deserve it, and watching their brothers die beside them. Tim O’Briens’ book, The Things They Carried, illustrates the soldiers struggle to define morality throughout the confusion of the war. On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien faces what he feels is his moral obligation to answer his country’s call and fight in Vietnam, and a personal moral issue with the reason for the war.

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