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Thesis For The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
Thesis Statement: The Things They Carried is a historical novel written by Tim O’Brien recounting the Alpha Company’s experiences in the Vietnam War. O’Brien allows insight into the physical, emotional and guilt related baggage carried on by the soldiers after the war. O’Brien alludes to the likelihood that his choice to continuously write about his experience in Vietnam is a coping mechanism.

O’Brien ties each chapter, which in reality is a short story, into the next primarily through the use of characters. Through establishing a bond between the characters and the reader, the reader can more easily become invested in the lives and the experiences of each character. Through this technique O’Brien does …show more content…

While the dates, generalized location, and even some aspects of the information regarding the war itself was accurate I feel that we could have been provided with more or left information out. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” clearly didn’t happen, you aren’t aloud to fly civilians into active and uncleared war zones, even if they’re missionaries. For me, I believe that if I were provided with a better timeline and possibly a better connection to the civilians of Vietnam I would have felt more invested in the historical accuracy. I also feel that the writing style was choppy and nonlinear, this is O’Briens signature style of writing and I understand that but I found it hard to …show more content…

While the note does state that the work is strictly fiction, there are many indicators that the stories that are conveyed are likely, in some way, real experiences. The note stating that the book is entirely fictional, aside from the details that directly relate to the authors experience feels contrived, and at the very least will pull many readers out of the emotional connections created. It is important for any reader to enter into this with the foreknowledge that this is a work of fiction, which means that the vast majority of the information can not be counted as historically

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In the 1990 book “The Things They Carried” By Tim O’Brien gives both the victims and survivors of the Vietnam war a voice. The soldiers, alive and dead, experienced horrific events too terrible to speak of. No one could express their emotions, causing many mental illnesses such as PTSD. How could they express how they felt if they couldn’t speak of the horrors that occurred? Tim O’Brien gave them a voice.

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1350 Words | 6 Pages

Author Information The author, Tim O'Brien served in the United States military from 1968 to 1970, during the Vietnam War. The unit he served in was involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre. When his unit moved to the area of the massacre the place was very hostile to him and and his unit. According to him, the book The Things They Carried had a contrast between what was really happening, and the story part of the event. He is considered to write stories using Verisimilitude, the blur between fiction and reality in philosophical terms.

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1328 Words | 6 Pages

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.

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990 Words | 4 Pages

Synthesis Essay Tim O’Brien wrote the book The Things They Carried 20 years after he returned from war, making him the protagonist of the novel. O’Brien felt that writing down his stories from the war brought him closer to it, and the people he came to know from the war. Bringing himself closer to the past allowed O’Brien to gain closure for the tragedies he witnessed. His novel allows readers to gain a new perspective on war, since many opposed the Vietnam War when it happened. O’Brien gives readers a closer look inside the war to show the impact that it has on veterans.

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1271 Words | 6 Pages

The Things They Carried, a novel by Tim O’Brien and published in 2009, examines what it was like to have fought in the Vietnam War, through memory, imagination, and the powerful ability of storytelling. Throughout his book O’Brien writes a series of vignettes and describes what it was like during the war, and the effects it had on him a decade later. There was one part in particular that really caught my attention. In the chapter,“How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien mentions how Rat Kiley, a Vietnam soldier, writes a letter and he was not pleased with the outcome. As I am sitting on my bed reading one of the chapters in the novel, “How to Tell a True War Story,” I begin to see a flashback of my own life.

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618 Words | 3 Pages

The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien tells a thrilling stories of the vietnam war. The Things They Carried is a non linear book so it is a mix bag of stories at different times of O’brien’s life but they all relate back to the war in some way. O’ Brien used social obligation and shame and guilt to tell these stories.

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Narrator O’Brien explains to his readers that he was a coward because he gave up on his principles and submitted to the war. Author Tim O’Brien’s autobiography explains his experience in Vietnam and what he felt about the war, and he reveals that he himself was against the war but in the end he “was a coward [he] went to Vietnam” (The Vietnam in Me). The similarities between author O’Brien and character O’Brien show that this fiction but holds some sort of reality to it, although they’re made up

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This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

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500 Words | 2 Pages

The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O'Brien which follows the daily thoughts, actions, and moments of a company serving in the Vietnam War. The meaning of this work was to depict the gruesome images and effects of war as well as the toll it can take on people. This is executed by utilizing morally ambiguous characters, which are characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evi or purely good. Many characters in the book are morally ambiguous, but one, an unnamed vietcong soldier who was killed in the novel stands out the most.

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1470 Words | 6 Pages

In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien we learn about O’Brien and his soldiers during the Vietnamese war. The Vietnamese war was a deadly and very costly war between the North Vietnam and their communist allies versus the Southern Vietnam and the United states. Throughout the novel Tim O’Brien narrates many stories about the war. Stories about traumatic incidents, pleasant occasions, sorrowful events, and even peculiar event. Personal accounts about himself and also tells about experiences his fellow soldiers faced.

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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.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

“Doesn't matter what the press says doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the country decides something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe no, matter the odds or consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world. No you move.”

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637 Words | 3 Pages

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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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.

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1071 Words | 5 Pages

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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