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.
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.
Courage is a necessary trait for any man to become a soldier, risking his life for others or his country. Soldiers are thought to only fight for their country and their people, but that isn’t the case. Some soldiers fight for other reasons though, led by their ambitions brought on from their own traits. Stories have presented this scenario through time, showing what happens when a soldier loses sight of the
Challenges at War Robert E. Lee once said, “What a cruel thing war is… to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors”. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien takes place in Vietnam. He and a handful of other men experience things only one can image and hope they will never have to experience again. They learn how death among them can greatly affect them, and many others. War is not an easy task to get through and these men all had different coping methods.
While in the chapter “Ambush,” O 'Brien show the reader how even after the war is over, he still feels ashamed and guilty over the death of the soldier . In Ambush O 'Brien 's daughter Kathleen asks him if he 'd ever killed anyone. She thinks that he must have because he keeps writing war stories. O’Brien, however, insists that he has never killed anyone. Reflecting on his lie, O’Brien pretends Kathleen is an adult and imagines that he tell her the entire story of My Khe.
In Tim O'Brien's “Enemies” and “Friends”, O'Brien shows the effect the nature of war has on individuals and how war destroys and creates friendships. These two stories describe the relationship between two soldiers, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen. In “Enemies”, friendship is broken over a fist fight about a stolen jackknife, which leaves Strunk with a broken nose and Jensen paranoid of whether or not Strunk’s revenge is coming. While in “Friends”, you see how the nature of war creates a bond of trust, even between people who first saw each other as enemies.
“How to Tell a True War Story” and “Ambush” are stories that both explore on topics: truth, the real definition of a true war story, and the role of truth. O 'Brien starts off “How to Tell a True War Story” with “This is true.” Starting this story with such a bold sentence not only makes it seem more true, but to some extent, it acts as a comfort statement to the narrator’s own doubts, as if there were unspeakable uncertainties and lies of the narrator. The title of this story also comes into play, with a meta-fictional name “How to Tell a True War Story”, as if it were a guide, a manual, having a true war story tell the readers how to tell a true war story. However ironically, towards the middle of the story, us as
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
It was not Tim’s sense of nationalist loyalties that caved him; rather, it was helplessness and his reputation that was at risk. Tim O’Brien longed to be that “secret hero” or “Lone Ranger” in order to impress those around him. However, he ends up learning that courage does not come in finite quantities. He finds himself resenting authority, “If you support a war, if you think it’s worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line”. No matter how much he may find the law cruel and inhuman, he has is too prideful and decides to comply with the rules.
“O’Brien pretends Kathleen is an adult and imagines that he might tell her the entire story of My Khe”(813). O’Brien still remembers a number of events from twenty years ago when he was in a war. When he is alone, he still sees a young man walking through the fog with a weapon. O’Brien recounts stories through first person still imaging them like they are happening over and over again and he cannot get the images out of his head. He writes about events in the war which it makes his daughter, Kathleen, worry about him and is concerned about what he is going through.
Zoe Cloar IB English HL 1 Root October 2022 How To Analyze a True War Story A war story can be extremely detailed, and those who have not experienced war will never truly be able to comprehend. Those who have experienced war cannot tell a true war story, because a war story will never not contain perspective, and memory is not an exact record. Tim O’Brien published a short story after his experience in Vietnam called “How to Tell a True War Story”.
Alyssa Ramirez Mrs. Hill AP Language & Composition H 14 March 2023 Different Worlds When soldiers are asked to kill for their country they have little to no room for the consideration of morality within their actions; but what road do they walk to ever give up such a human trait? The American novelist, Tim O'Brien, wrote many stories highlighting his experiences of the Vietnam War and touched on, not only the struggles of the war but also the path soldiers take that others fail to mention. O´Brien believed that ¨storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is¨ to tell (“Chicago Public Library”). One of his most well-known novels, The Things They Carried, is a collection of linked stories based
War itself is an armed conflict and soldiers being part of it endure things similar by both,the outside forces and with their emotions internally. In “Ambush” the narrator, through one of his war experiences, recounts how war is the propelling cause of many of the actions that soldiers have to take that they wouldn’t be submissive to personally. To showcase this idea, he uses conflict. The whole idea of war is always associated with something that holds great physical power but on the contrary another aspect of war is the power that it holds that is unseen and rather psychological, controlling much of the people involved in it. The narrator recalling the event of his encounter with the man he killed.
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,
This is evident when Mr. O’Brien says, “I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to,” (pg. 57.) In the end the author realized what he must do and went back home, so he could fight in the Vietnam
