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Superstitions In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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When reading “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he writes a captivating story of sorrow, terror, love, and a desire to gain freedom from the war within. Within this war, these men face emotional baggage and in Lieutenant Cross’s life, he carries the burden of death. However, within this story is a sense of love, an imagination of affection, and the freedom with safety. O’Brien envelopes the reader saying, “True war stories do not generalize…It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (O’Brien). During the development of this novel, O’Brien references women in photographs and in the memories of the soldiers. These women intrigue the reading audience with inspiration and hope, but offer …show more content…

These emotional loads of grief, are told throughout the story using the soldier’s memories of women back home. However, behind this grief are superstitions, which cause the men to remain alive for their women back home. Henry Dobbins uses his girlfriend’s panty hose, to long for comfort and love. From within this panty hose, Dobbins is able to focus on his spiritual power and is able to remain vigilant of the psychological and physical trauma from Vietnam. However, when she breaks up with him, superstition of the panty hose allows Dobbins to continue wearing the panty hose. The panty hose then serves as a comfort and a reminder of home, while her abandonment of him does little to change his perception of …show more content…

O’Brien uses images to capture the readers mind with the use of adjectives and similes. This is illustrated as Lt. Cross “humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps” (O’Brien 356). This envelops the audience to understand the love for this woman, whom might not feel the same way towards him. He is willing to fight and keep his true feelings everywhere he went, at whatever cost, and whatever weight was upon his shoulders. Once the death of Ted Lavender had occurred, Lt. Cross is shoved back into battle with a clear mind on saving himself and his platoon. He said, “It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do” (O’Brien 371). With this clarification, Lt. Cross is able to take charge of his situation and lead his men accordingly. At that moment, he tells himself that he will conduct himself as the life of a leading soldier, not as his life back home should be with this visionary

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Lieutenant Cross comes to realize “his obligation was not to be loved but to lead” (337). Meaning can be found in the fact that as Cross no longer carries these gifts Martha sent him, he is beginning to free himself of her distraction and the fantasy-like mindset he has. However, now he must carry the weight of the guilt of Lavender’s death and the responsibility of being a tough

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In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the author skillfully presents a paradox about war and how it is both horrible and beautiful. Through O’Brien’s vivid storytelling and sorrowful anecdotes, he is able to demonstrate various instances which show both the horrible and beautiful nature of war. Within the vulnerability of the soldiers and the resilience found in the darkest of circumstances, O’brien is able to show the uproarious emotional landscape of war with a paradox that serves as the backbone of the narrative. In the first instance, O’Brien explores the beauty in horror within the chapter “Love.”

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Author and war veteran Tim O’Brien, in his novel The Things They Carried, unveils the struggles and obstacles that soldiers are faced with. What they must overcome will help them gain back the life they used to live. The combination of the moral and emotional struggles, along with the memories that are trapped within them, make their lives tough to get back. The constant battle between themselves and the memories they have experienced, develops a barrier for soldiers to go against to gain back their lives from before.

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Death Is a Powerful Motivator In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien, the author, portrays his own experience in the Vietnam War. Although O’Brien fabricated some of the stories and exaggerated some of the parts, the main idea O’Brien wished to display is present. He wanted to allow the reader a view of the war along with the physical burdens and emotional burdens the soldiers carried with them. These burdens effected the soldiers and helped define them as people.

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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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I think of Lt. Jimmy Cross as a young man who wasn’t prepared to leave his loved ones to fight in a war. He left his normal life filled with regrets of not doing “something brave” (5). His young adult life was taken from him by the war. He had to experience things that no normal twenty four year old man would have to. He wanted to be in love with a girl and have her love him back.

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Tim O’Brien that signifies the use of literary acuity in explaining the beauty of his piece of art. Considering the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the book lays bare stories, especially of experiences a soldier may go through in war; and that is the standpoint of the piece of art. A number of themes are brought out clearly by the book as per the author’s storytelling prowess; however, the principal theme that is explored in Tim O’Brien’s literary work includes the war storytelling portrayals (O’Brien 9). In regard to this, the book plays a vital role in determining the real picture of the accurate portrayals one may endure during the time of war. Therefore, accurate portrayals are descriptions, facts, and analysis of a given

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Before reading the novel, one might merely think of tangible objects being carried during the war, but after finishing the novel, it is the intangible feelings of affection, passion, and heart-warming images that are the most important in the readers mind. In The Things They Carried, it is evident to the reader that the emotional feelings being carried have a much bigger effect on soldiers than simple materials used for

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He had loved Martha more than his men an as a consequence Lavender was now dead” (478, O’Brien). Cross acknowledges that the guilt, both his own and that of his men, is something he’ll “have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (478, O’Brien). In the moment that most rounds out Cross’s character and further emphasizes his role as a Christ figure, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross makes a personal sacrifice in burning the letters and photos of his beloved Martha. He even acknowledges that he “couldn’t burn the blame” (481, O’Brien), but ultimately resolves that his men would no longer suffer for any laxity on his

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When the author expresses the feelings within Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s troops we see their individual personalities. When the author used characterization, symbolism, and tone, they truly brought out the theme of physical and emotional burdens throughout “The Things They

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Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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The Power of fiction in The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien is a veteran of The Vietnam War and his experience has provided the literary world with a book called The Things They Carried. This book was written with a special focus on the truths and untruths of the war and the stories that follow. These truths tied into untruths are continually highlighted throughout most of the short stories integrated into this book by multiple uses of hyperbole showing the stories as lies, this is an attempt to tell a story for meaning, displaying the feelings of the soldiers as a means of experience for the readers. This confusion forces the readers to stray from reality causing a further understanding of the real feelings that the perilous war created, showing

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