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Summary Of The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

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In The story “The Things They Carried “ By Tim O 'brien , who as author also plays the main character in the story. O 'brien introduces the circumstances that were faced in the vietnam war, but more intentionally by also introducing the men who served alongside with him. The story gives us clear picture and different opinionative perspectives about ,how war was like for them and the other individuals who served alongside with him. Sharing personal information, some explicit , and intense memories of the war. O 'brien helps to gives us a better understanding how war is really like from a personal point of view. Every individual has their side of a story to their war experience: O’brien’s experience isn 't like others. O 'brien implies that …show more content…

Other veterans like Frank snyder, a 46-year old vietnam veteran who suffers post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) , found himself facing the world alone ,after his return from his service. He had felt he had no one to speak to , no one who could listen to what he had to say. Drowning in heavy thinking , thoughts , and memories. His only way to escape his pain and remorse he felt , was by heavy drinking and taking huge amounts of medication. Frank stated he attempted numerous suicide attempts. His reasoning to his attempts wasn’t just the war ,but also a divorce which deeply impacted him and a family which was once loving and peaceful; now torn apart by alcohol. Overall the wr had changed him, a man who was a perfectly normal productive member of society, now suffering side effects from the war.
Another individual John F. Ferguson , Vietnam veteran who served from 1967- 1971 in the 15th counter intelligence team. Ferguson one of many vietnam veterans describes his war experience to have been physically exhausting and terrifying business.Ferguson states that the vietnam war was a horrible involvement . to others who share the same idea .Now suffering psychological and psychological residual from their war experience. Somethings weren 't exactly the best things to have experienced, but they are life events

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War is one of the most complex yet completely understood subjects to read or write about. Tim O’Brien has captured the true essence of being drafted into a war. “The Things They Carried” is a novel composed of multiple short stories; Each taking the reader through the perspective of the narrator showing his multiple landscapes, situations, and changing feelings from being drafted into the Vietnam War to surviving it. These stories really help one understand the effects of war on someone’s mind as well as body. Tim O’Brien is the main character and protagonist in this novel.

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His 24-month long mission gave him the opportunity to use his journalism and educational experiences to cover the important roles that African American soldiers were playing in the Vietnam War. The military’s goal in this assignment was to show the American people and potential African American soldiers that African American soldiers were now treated equally. There was a stigma regarding the maltreatment of African Americans in the military, and with the passing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the image of the African American soldier began to quickly change. The new breed of African American soldiers no longer tolerated bigotry and hatred. African American soldiers began uniting to combat the injustices in America as well as within the military overseas.

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In this battle, it is clearly expressed that many people are dying for uncertain reasons. Another example of the soldiers horrific experience is represented in how desensitized the soldiers become to violence and danger. Such as in chapter seven, when LZ gator was put under mortar fire and O’Brien was the first one to the barracks because most of the other soldiers were drunk and weren’t alarmed at all (88-89). These soldiers has been through so much fear and danger that they turn to drowning their pain in alcohol to forget. This level of mental trauma and desensitization to immediate danger proves that O’Brien is arguing that the Vietnam war was a horrific occurrence.

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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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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.

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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.

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Craig Venter, a biotechnologist who had fought in the Vietnam War, once said, “The Vietnam War totally turned my life around. Some people's lives were eliminated or destroyed by the experience. I was one of the fortunate few who came out better off.” The Vietnam War was a treacherous battle for many veterans. Even though Wayne Chevalier was not in many battles, he still had experiences that he still remembers today.

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(Meyerson). This excerpt helps show how soldiers are rarely the same person they were when they left for war. Two point seven million young men went to war in Vietnam, and few came home as the same person who left. Many veterans after the war had to struggle with an unrelenting mental illness, such as, PTSD. While others

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In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder seems far more prevalent in Vietnam War veterans than in those of other wars: fifteen out of one hundred Vietnam Veterans have combat-related PTSD as compared to one out of twenty World War II veterans (“How Common is PTSD”). Although it is nearly impossible to pinpoint the root cause for the rise in PTSD in this generation of veterans, there are many factors that could have contributed to this rising issue. Many used to believe that these veterans were simply young, immature boys dragged into the war by the draft and were unable to cope with the pressures of combat: the average age for a soldier in Vietnam was nineteen and in World War II it was twenty-six (Roark 838). However, every war has its nineteen-year-olds

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This quote stated by O’Brien shares how himself and other soldiers felt about the war, and how they felt like their fight and war tactact was overall useless for the United States. O’Brien also mentions that he feels frustrated that the government would let thousands of Americans' lives to end just for a war that had no benefit or meaning for the country. O’Brien is a great representative for American soldiers who served in the Vietnam War because of the emotion and frustration he felt about the war and the war’s

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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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Tim O’Brien uses personal experiences to create a world of Vietnam many readers had not encountered before. In his novel, “The Things They Carried;” a collection of short stories depicting the lives of the soldiers serving the Vietnam War, O’Brien uses both facts and fiction to help the reader not only understand the events that transpired overseas, but he also tries to instill the emotions felt by those serving into the reader. During the Vietnam War, soldiers as young as 18 were drafted to serve in the American military and this greatly affected the opinions toward the war and the soldiers who served. Young men who attempted to avoid the draft were looked down upon because some Americans viewed these actions as cowardly and unpatriotic. In “The Things They Carried” the author shares with the reader his own experiences with military conscription.

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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Young or old, male or female, the war was told differently by every person who was involved in the battle, no matter how small their role. Despite the cacophony of standpoints vying to tell the definitive tale of what happened in Vietnam, the perspective of

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