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Tim O Brien Quotes And Analysis

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1) The Things They Carried the novel by Tim O'brian is a fictional representation of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Although the stories he tells are a fabrication of what really occurred in Vietnam, each story digs a little deeper on the emotions Tim O’Brien felt as a result of the war. I don't just think that the book is fiction because that's what it says on the title page, but because of This quote "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”(80) to me this quote is the point in the novel where O'brian speaks the truth about war stories. And the quote it's self explains that this book is a work of fiction. 2) The author is 43 meaning that he was 23 during the Vietnam War so
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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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599 Words | 3 Pages

In this book, Tim O'brien uncovers all his encounters in insight about the war; and also stories about his kindred warriors, and makes a genuine, yet over the top about them. He clarifies how he feels through stories that are hard to unmistakably distinguish as "genuine." This book has a great deal of subjects, demise and brutality is one of the real topics. A major topic and point in Tim O'Brien's novel is what number of circumstances hurt the warriors' lives.

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420 Words | 2 Pages

When Tim O’Brien writes “story-truth is sometime truer than the happening truth”, he is trying to claim that the nature of truth is that it never fully gets across or captures the whole entire experience from an individual’s perspectives of what happened in reality. Even the truth can seem to broad, posing as a lie because it does not give the full coverage of a certain situation that it should have. Hence, putting forth certain emotions which instantly pour out strengthens the overall mood of the story, making it seem more alive. In fact, Tim O’Brien lies about killing a man and admits that himself in the chapters of the novel. The passage which best substantiates my claims is “The Man I Killed.”

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1041 Words | 5 Pages

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (83). The theme of “happening-truth” versus “story-truth” is a constant opposition Tim O’Brien uses to convey his “true war story” to his audience. Many times in the book The Things They Carried, O’Brien lies to the reader to attempt to give the reader realistic events, so they can relate to the emotions O’Brien felt during the Vietnam war. O’Brien makes it clear in the chapter “Field Trip” that a person who has not been to war cannot comprehend what it was like. He uses a fictional character, Kathleen, to be a stand in for the reader; she is innocent and free from the burden of serving in wartime.

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667 Words | 3 Pages

In The Things They Carried O’Brien shows us that telling stories are essential for life because they help us remember and relive those moments that we cherish the most, or imagine a moment and make it into a moment that we desire. O’Brien shows how stories are essential for life throughout the story. One example is In The Lives of the Dead O’Brien talks about a moment of his childhood. He talks about a date that he went on with Linda. In this chapter O’Brien says, “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others dream with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.

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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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1320 Words | 6 Pages

Fiction, in a way, can be reality and it can teach you several things. As you read fiction, it encourages people to the find the deeper meaning in themes, conflicts and social issues by imagining and analyzing the actual situation in the novel they are reading. In the book, “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien it makes you imagine, through a soldier's perspective, the struggles of the Vietnam War. It talks about what they thought, did, and feared. Inside the Vietnam War, it was all about brotherhood.

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1398 Words | 6 Pages

Tim O’Brien uses storytelling and memories to bring characters and events back to life in order to tell their story. O’Brien wants the readers to understand that even though people die and an event is no longer occurring, the event or person is not gone entirely. The Things They Carried is a book written by a man named Tim O’Brien. He is considered, “The best American writer of his generation,” by the San Fransisco Examiner.

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1504 Words | 7 Pages

This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

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757 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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518 Words | 3 Pages

The things they carried was a play that represented different angles of the Vietnam War. The story was written by Tim O'Brien who was a veteran at the war and wrote this fictional story to depicts his real-life experience in the war. Even though the story looked so real and well written, the author did not go through all the event in real life. Therefore, the story is not real, but it makes readers and play attendance reanimate or live the events of the story.

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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

“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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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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561 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried is an interesting novel not like many others in that it is not one continuous story on a single plot line, but rather the novel is a collection of fictional short stories from a young soldier’s time stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The stories do not follow a specific order either, and they often are set in different time periods, like how Chapters 1 (The Things They Carried), 2 (Love), and 3 (Spin) are set in the time period when the main character, Tim O’Brien, is deployed in Vietnam, while Chapter 4 (On the Rainy River) is set before the war started right after Tim was drafted, and tells the story of him trying to escape the war. The stories tell the reader the story of the differing backgrounds of many

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