In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien exemplifies a central question in the book. The central question is, “Is war more good or bad?” To an extent, O’Brien answered that question. The answer is almost clear. O’Brien’s book on some his experiences in the Vietnam War captures nearly every detail need to answer the central question.
In the 1990 book “The Things They Carried” By Tim O’Brien gives both the victims and survivors of the Vietnam war a voice. The soldiers, alive and dead, experienced horrific events too terrible to speak of. No one could express their emotions, causing many mental illnesses such as PTSD. How could they express how they felt if they couldn’t speak of the horrors that occurred? Tim O’Brien gave them a voice.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a novel that emphasizes symbolism in chapter 7, “How to Tell a War Story” the character/narrator Tim O’Brien expresses The struggle that affects a soldier in the war. “He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt it” (O'Brien, 75) In Chapter 7 How to Tell a war story, the story expresses the grief that Rat Kiley goes through.
The Dentist "He kept replaying his own exploits, tacking on little flourishes that never happened" (82). Now, the question, "Which is more important—story-truth or happening-truth?" is asked. This above quote from Tim O 'Brein gently represents how a little thing called story-truth happens. The greatest difference between story and happening-truth is the simple fact that happening-truth reveals actual events that have occurred, whereas story-truth, which Tim O 'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, heavily emphasizes, is subjectively reflecting a person 's thoughts and feelings when recounting a tale, and putting theme above all else. The importance of the two is where everything lies, where the author of the novel pushes for story
Soldiers, not just in the Vietnam War, carried personal items that assisted them through a time of fighting and death. These personal items were attachments that allowed the men to hold onto something, even if it was small, to help them continue fighting. In the book, The Things They Carried, there are several characters that possess everyday nicknacks that bring them happiness in a time of sadness. These characters and what they held on to include: Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who holds onto hope, Henry Dobbins holds on to love, and Norman Bowker holds on to superstition. Hope is one of the ultimate feelings that people, especially soldiers, hold onto during war.
The Things They Carried was written by Tim O'Brien and he writes about the stories he remembers relating to the time he spent in the Vietnam War as well as how he feels about other stories from the War. The stories that O’Brien writes are about the fate of all the soldiers he served with and how their lives are after the war. Most of the stories that he writes are strange and he changes the point of view in which each chapter is written. To a large extent, the narrator's closeness to, or being a part of the story leads to the readers being persuaded of the realism within the story. Specifically, in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and “Spin”, the use of first person and the author inputting his emotions makes the reader think that the events
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, he uses metafiction by writing about how he made up most of the stories. The stories of his experiences from the Vietnam war in his book, create a war-like perspective for his readers to better understand war because often, battles can be spotty in the mind and the imagination fills the gaps. O’Brien uses his book to help the reader find truth. Many things in The Things They Carried are confusing and contracting.
“But the strain I am under, the uncertainty, the hunger, the danger, these hours with the dead man have made me desperate…” Truth is the information and ideas that matter. Although war cannot be generalized, truth is a generalization of the feelings, lessons, and effects of an event. If someone was not present for an event, and they’re not going to ever witness it through a video, then the details of a story don’t matter. Only the lasting feelings and thoughts matter. In O’Brien’s piece, he talks about a man named Mitchell Sanders telling a story of 6 soldiers in the mountain.
Soldiers are always seen as war heroes and sometimes even as legends. But for Tim O’Brien, this is quite the opposite. The Things They Carried shares a story of a group of soldiers in Vietnam and along the way, many questions are raised towards war. One of the plethora of questions the book asks is if soldiers are heroes. Are they still heroes even after killing an innocent life?
Dravlyn Hoskins English 11 Mroczkiewicz May 5 2023 Courage and Cowardice in The Things They Carried The Things They Carried has many characters who could fit the bill of both courage and cowardice such as Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, and Jimmy Cross. A person that could be suitable for being both courageous and cowardly is LT Jimmy Cross. He is in love with a girl named Martha, and spends the majority of the chapter “The Things They Carried,” daydreaming about Martha.
In “The Things They Carried”, the author, Tim O’Brien, uses unique and varying storytelling techniques to get his point across. These techniques can make the reader question or better understand the tone, details, and the author’s experiences in these stories. The thin line between factual events and the “truth” is also brought up in this book as O’Brien twists each story into his own version of the truth. The techniques O’Brien uses to do all this is metafiction to have direct conversation with the reader, detail to help provide a clear image of his experiences, and tone so the reader understands O’Brien’s thoughts and reflections on each story and the feelings he wants to convey to the reader. O’Brien uses these to provide information to the reader and to help them have a better understanding of the book.
War, has be around since the beginning of time it’s a part of life. Many people are anti war, but they don’t realize war is a part of life and sometimes cannot be stopped. Since the United States won the revolutionary making our own indempendent counrty know as the USA we have been in and hand full of wars. We have the two major World Wars, World War I and World War II then followed and War that has been the most controversial war so far which is Vietnam that started in the 1960s. Vietnam was a war many people didn 't support and they took their anger out on the troops, which many of whom had now choice, but to serve.
The Things They Carried In the historical fiction The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien presents himself, the narrator, being faced with a war draft to a war he didn't agree with, in order to convey a message about going to war instead of fleeing the draft ultimately illustrating that message of being a coward for going against what he believed in. Tim O’Brien conveys a message of himself being a coward for going against what he believed in. In the text Tim had recently graduated from college when he got drafted to the war, O’Brien stated “In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated.” O’Brien makes it extremely clear that his views did not align with the war.
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
A good novel is a novel that makes you think while a great novel is a novel that makes you question whether or not what the author is conveying to the readers is, in fact, true or not. Indeed, The Things They Carried is a great novel. This novel consists of many occasions in which the author made the readers stop and really think about what they just read. A central question to The Things They Carried is whether or not the events described-- with vivid details-- is true or not.
