ipl-logo

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

1164 Words5 Pages

A solder’s story
“The Things They Carried,” written by Timothy O’Brien and based on his own Vietnam experiences, features Tim O'Brien as the main protagonist who is a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War. “The Things They Carried” is a number of interrelated lyrical stories that has been declared as one of the best narrations about the Vietnam War. O'Brien proceeds to describe the things that his fellow soldiers carried on their missions, which included physical objects in addition to other intangible objects like fear or guilt. O'Brien explains the chronological order of the events that led to his decision to go to Vietnam despite his initial resistance to joining the war. O'Brien narrates various other accounts about the pre and post-war …show more content…

Other than just being honest, Kiowa is equally meditative and passionate with everything he does. O'Brien narrates that Kiowa wears a pair of moccasins to be able to walk silently and rationalize the actions of his fellow soldiers. Kiowa exhibits courage through his interaction with his fellow soldiers and in the ways he helps them solve their problems. Kiowa is a person, who can speak calmly and maintain serenity and decency in the midst of war and atrocities. Kiowa is courageous not only in the physical aspects but also in the emotional sense, as he baptizes people during the war and is not afraid to face challenges and adversities. While the other soldiers are fearful and uncertain of what the future holds in the battlefield, Kiowa seems to have everything under control. Bloom & Harold state that, however, through the memory of Norma Bowker, Kiowa's death is heroic and symbolic, as it depicts the fragile nature of human life and how death transitions one's life from vibrancy to mere statistics. Kiowa is an iconic figure in O'Brien's memory because O'Brien looks up to him for support and consolation in the midst of atrocities and confusion in the Vietnamese war. Kiowa's death is equally symbolic in the sense that Norman and O'Brien later learn that life is temporal and death is inevitable. O'Brien develops fear and cowardice when he realizes that, despite the physical and emotional strength everyone is …show more content…

O'Brien has an active memory and creativity that he uses to attach meaning and reason to all the atrocities that occurred in the war. Through the theme of courage vs. cowardice, O'Brien flashes back to the character of his friend and war veteran Kiowa who dies in battle. Kiowa is an epitome of strength and symbol of reason and serenity in the midst of the war, O'Brien relates to and finds solace and consolation (Bloom and Harold 76). Kiowa's death, however, brings about fear and cowardice when the protagonist realizes that despite personal character and physical attributes death is scary. Curt Lemon, on the other hand, is fearful and unprepared to be in combat that O'Brien later learns to associate with cowardice. Curt Lemon's personality is a constant nag and demoralization factor to O'Brien and the other soldiers fighting in the Vietnamese war. Linda is the most compelling character that O'Brien learns from through her interaction with her. O'Brien later discovers that it is Linda, who made him strong and prepared to tackle life courageously from an early

Show More
Related
641 Words | 3 Pages

The morning after the incident in the sewage field, the soldiers look for Kiowa 's body. Jimmy Cross helps in the search and watches his men. He sees a young soldier (this is presumably O 'Brien, but O 'Brien has chosen to tell this story in the third person) standing off by himself, shaking, in his own world. Cross thinks about Kiowa 's death, and how Kiowa, a brave and decent kid, absolutely didn 't deserve to die in a field of sewage.

Read More
844 Words | 4 Pages

This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

Read More
1185 Words | 5 Pages

It was hard stuff to write. Kiowa, after all, had been a close friend, and for years I’ve avoided thinking about his death and my own complicity in it. Even here it’s not easy,” (94). O’Brien made sure that he revised the story. He wrote the whole thing, without telling a lie.

Read More
1292 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning O’Brien discusses the first time he killed a man with a grenade. O’Brien describes in vivid detail the man he just killed. At the end of the chapter Kiowa and a fellow soldier try to help O’Brien with the grief of killing a man. “Kiowa glanced at the body... you want to trade places with him?...

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Avril Yanez World Studies Mrs. Fenrich 12 May 2024 The Impact of the Records and Programs The Nazi regime’s meticulous documentation systems played a central role in the execution of its inhumane policies during World War II. From the well-organized documentation of hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Auschwitz to the precise tracking of medical experiment results, these systems demonstrated an extreme level of administrative control. The detailed records left behind by Nazi officials have since become crucial tools in convicting perpetrators and to keep people from committing atrocities alike. The Nazi programs and documentation systems were so organized and extensively noted that they not only shaped the way World War II played out, but

Read More
757 Words | 4 Pages

Kiowa knows it is wrong to bring war into a place of peace. With this peace of mind, it shows how good of a person Kiowa is. It showed why people like him as a person. In a like manner, O’Brien discusses morality in the chapter “The Man I Killed.”

Read More
1504 Words | 7 Pages

Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).

Read More
516 Words | 3 Pages

In a scene where Curt Lemon accidentally steps on a mine and is torn into many pieces, his closest comrade, Rat Kiley, has trouble grieving the loss of his friend. In a furious state, Kiley tortures a water buffalo. This scene represents the emotional and physical torture the men in Vietnam are subjected to. Both the soldiers in Vietnam and the water buffalo are in a position where their lives are out of their control. Just as the water buffalo was tortured to death, most of the men in Alpha Company feel helpless in their situation.

Read More
1284 Words | 6 Pages

Tim O’Brien never lies. While we realise at the end of the book that Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders and Rat Kiley are all fictional characters, O’Brien is actually trying to tell us that there is a lot more truth hidden in these imagined characters than we think. This suggests that the experiences he went through were so traumatic, the only way to describe it was through the projection of fictional characters. O’Brien explores the relationship between war experiences and storytelling by blurring the lines between truth and fiction. While storytelling can change and shape a reader’s opinions and perspective, it might also be the closest in helping O’Brien cope with the complexity of war experiences, where the concepts like moral and immorality are being distorted.

Read More
1093 Words | 5 Pages

Imagine being drafted to move thousands of miles away from the life you love to fight a war you hated. This is the unfortunate reality for Tim O’Brien In The Things They Carried. O’Brien explains his experiences of war in Vietnam, what it took to get him there, and his relationships with the other men in his platoon. He portrays guilt and pride through storytelling and intertwines the two by showing how the men often feel guilty for the actions they pursue or decisions they make based on their pride.

Read More
645 Words | 3 Pages

(p. 126). Though he does not see him as the enemy, O’Brien reacts as he had been taught to in war; to forget most of your morals and shoot before you can be shot first, a fact Kiowa points out to him. “Later, I remember, Kiowa tried to tell me that the man would 've died anyway. He told me that it was a good kill, that I was a soldier and this was a war, that I should shape up and stop staring and ask myself what the dead man would ' ve done if things were reversed” (p. 127). Soldiers are expected to forget their morals and act as a soldier should.

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

Read More

More about The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document