The Power Of Fiction In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
1791 Words8 Pages
Tim O’Brien, a veteran of The Vietnam War, and his experience has provided the literary world with a book called The Things They Carried. The book was written with a specific focus on the truths and false-truths of the Vietnam War and the stories that follow. These truths tied into untruths are continually highlighted by multiple uses of hyperbole seen throughout O’Brien’s short stories. This reveals the stories to be lies, but lies with the purpose to tell a story with a meaning that is backed by truth, the true feelings of the soldiers, displayed as a means of experience for readers. Tim O’Brien intends to pull the readers from truth as a way to help readers fully understand the real feelings that the perilous war created. Showing the creation of a new reality through his style of fictional storytelling-- soldiers thoughts being the truth-- rather than telling the facts of war is because the facts are not efficient in displaying trauma. Whereas, fiction is the most powerful way to expose the truth to an audience because to live sanely in the war, a new reality had to be looked through. As a result Tim O 'Brien 's fictional stories provide us with a lens, giving readers a way to see the same reality as the soldiers did while also bestowing the opportunity to experience rather than listen.
Throughout, Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories in the book The Things They Carried, Tim forces readers to question whether these
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A lot happens in Tim O 'Brien short story "The Things They Carried", at first, the reader speculates what the short story is about and why it is called "The Things They Carried". The narrator Tim O 'Brien tells and describes all the things that the men have to carry while "in-country" during the Vietnam War in the1960 's. The text 's artistic value comes from its plot, characters, conflict, and style. In the plot of the story the protagonist, Tim O 'Brien starts by describing circumstances that happened while he was in Vietnam. In the beginning of "The Things They Carried" we are introduced to each character by the things they carry.
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The things they carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien. About the Vietnam war. About the lives of people going there. It’s a collection of war stories. Some of them true, some of the untrue and that’s the main topic that’ll be discussed in this paper.
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Originally published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of war stories that took place during the Vietnam War. Due to its accurate and honest depiction of war, it has been banned for crude language, violence, drug use, and sexual innuendo. The author, Tim O’Brien, was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1946. Due to his service in the United States military during the Vietnam War, O’Brien is able to depict the war in a more graphic, and realistic manner.
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