The short story “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, is about the experience of a team of American soldiers in the Vietnam war (Julia Guance et al. 323). O’Brien fought in the war of Vietnam himself and used writing as a way to express the realities of war (322). His works are realistic, given his personal experience at war. Each soldier in the story “The Things They Carried” carry specific objects that reflect their personality and priorities. Jimmy Cross is a twenty-four-year-old, American First Lieutenant.
Tim O’ Brien’s book ‘The Things They Carried’ is a series of stories about the Vietnam War. Although all chapters in this book are related to the Vietnam War, each story transmits a different message to the readers and is narrated in different ways. In this essay, I have analyzed two stories to find the themes of each one and through what they are expressed. In “How to tell a true war story”, the author narrates two stories of the men in the Alpha Company and throughout the stories he disputes whether they are real or fabricated. On the other hand, in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, Rat Kiley tells the story of his first assignment in the isolated mountains of Chu Lai.
“The Things They Carried” The narrative “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien shows the man versus self conflict of the inexperienced Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his troop in the Vietnam war. O’Brien tells the story of the lieutenant’s struggles, sacrifices and transformation that the war inflicted on him. Struggle was no stranger to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross or his grunts deep in the swamps of Vietnam. They struggled across the lush jungle with the physical burden of carrying all the possessions they would need to eat, sleep, and live in the foreign mud, or at least everything the US Army found fit to issue them for such a task.
Tim Obrien is famous for his staunch anti-war stance and his stories revealing the harsh realities of war. His works often detail recounts of his or her’s experiences during Vietnam. One of his works, “The Things They Carried,” describes the brutalities of the Vietnam war in two main ways: the droning of day-to-day orders and the weight of the things they carried physically and mentally. One of the brutalities O’Brien details in his work is the soulless droning of day-to-day orders. O’Brien demonstrates this soulless nature in his work by saying “it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost” (35).
Novelist, Tim O’Brien writes short semi true stories about his and other’s experiences in the Vietnam war. O’Brien wanted to explain to his audience what happens in war and how it effects people after the fact. O’Brien really helps his audience acknowledge how much war really does change people. Tim’s dynamic use of symbolism, imagery, and figurative language emphasizes the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that people experience during and after the war. O’Brien begins by analyzing the thoughts of sorrow and loss overwhelm the Vietnam veterans upon their return back home.
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.
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.
The book explores many of the platoon members' experiences in Vietnam and what they carry with them throughout their experiences. O’Brien gives a gruesome and realistic glimpse into what the reality of fighting in this war was. He realistically conveys how the members of the platoon felt, “Their principles were on their feet. Their calculations were a biological. They had no sense of mission” (O’Brien 14).
The fiction novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien reflects the surreal nature of war by using literary devices to express the deep felt emotions of the soldiers. The soldiers in the Alpha Company endure both physical and emotional hardships while fighting in the Vietnam War. These hardships affect the soldier's mental states and these stories give insight on how they deal with that. The surreal nature of the war reveals a false sense of reality by only allowing the soldiers to view a situation from one’s own perspective, as illustrated by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s obsession with Martha, Norman Bowker’s guilt, and Tim O’Brien’s stories. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s obsession with Martha serves as his biggest distraction in
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a collection of short stories, tells the story of soldiers in Alpha Company, who were fighting in the Vietnam War. Moreover, these stories depict the soldiers’ experience in the war zone, as well as their lives after returning home from war. Woven throughout these stories, however, is the notion that the narrator may be exaggerating or even telling a fabricated story, in lieu of what really happened. As O’Brien describes, in a war story, “almost everything is true” and, at the same time “almost nothing is true” (77). Ultimately, Tim O’Brien tries to confuse and obscure the notion of truth in his stories in order to emphasize the true chaotic nature of war and the emotional impact of combat on those who
The soldiers in the Vietnam War are portrayed as losing themselves in the chaos and trauma of combat. Through the stories of the soldiers and their experiences, O’Brien explores the ways in which war strips away one's sense of identity and humanity. The author himself is depicted as losing himself in the war. O'Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his experiences inspired much of the book. Through the character of Tim O'Brien, the author explores the ways in which war can strip away one's sense of self and purpose.
War is a Thing that blurs the line between truth and surrealism; what occurs in a War, it would appear that it can never be genuine, yet in the meantime, it happens. Numerous returning soldiers feel distanced from their homes and families because nobody can comprehend what they have seen or experienced. Author Tim O'Brien encountered the War firsthand when he was called to battle in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. He and other individuals in his unit saw untold horror, yet also snapshots of magnificence and peace that appears to be contrary to the scene of cold-bloodedness and fear. O'Brien calls his novel a work of art, however, it depends on the experience of thousands of individuals who are called upon to battle for their nation in the mud and wildernesses of a piece of the world that is a long way from their own (O’Brien 273).
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.
Literary analysis America’s war heroes all have the same stories to tell but different tales. Prescribed with the same coloring page to fill in, and use their methods and colors to bring the image to life. This is the writing style and tactic used by Tim O’Brien in his novel, “The Things They Carried”. Steven Kaplan’s short story criticism, The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, provides the audience with an understanding of O’Brien’s techniques used to share “true war” stories of the Vietnam War. Kaplan explains the multitude of stories shared in each of the individual characters, narration and concepts derived from their personal experiences while serving active combat duty during the Vietnam War,
One of the most valued quality that is still being searched for is the act of being just. Justice circles around morality, and morality does not have one definition in which people can depend on. Since people have opposing viewpoints on morality, justice also varies on the predetermined interpretation of morals in the society. The main reason why humans yearn for justice is so that the immoral people can suffer, while the virtuous people can thrive. In classical mythology, the goddess Nemesis was the goddess of retributive justice, in which good people are rewarded while bad people are appropriately punished.
