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Writing Techniques In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

700 Words3 Pages

In order for the book to appeal to the readers as much as possible, O’Brien uses a lot of different writing techniques like invention in his book as he says: “I would use every strategy I could think of, invention, and dialogue, and using my own name, and dedicating the book to the characters as a way of giving the reader a sense of witnessed experience” (PBS.org). O’Brien chooses “Tim O’Brien” to be the main protagonist and the main narrator in the book. It gets even harder for the reader to distinguish the truth when further in the book reader discovers the presence of three different “Tim O’Brien”s. Tim O’Brien who is a soldier in Vietnam, Tim O’Brien who is a writer and has just came back from war, and Timmy the kid all share the same …show more content…

Tim the Writer is a forty-three year old Vietnam War veteran, and he is writing a series of short stories about his time spent as a foot soldier in Vietnam. Timmy the kid is a nine years old boy who was born in …show more content…

“The Things They carried” is O’Brien’s third book and was published in 1990, twenty years after O’Brien coming back from war. The main subject of the book is the Vietnam War, and it consists of twenty-two interconnected short stories. There is no clear distinction between the reality and fiction in the book. O’Brien uses his own name for the main character of the book. In some stories, he writes about his true memories of the war, and in some parts he writes complete fiction. In fact, he believes that “Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.” “As a fiction writer, I do not write just about the world we live in, but I also write about the world we ought to live in, and could, which is a world of imagination (cds.library.brown.edu). “The Things They carried” was listed among the year's ten best novels by The New York Times in 1990, and it is currently being taught in the high schools all around the country. It is known as one of the most popular and significant contemporary books of the American history, as Asa Baber from Chicago Sun-Times writes: "The Things They Carried is as good as any piece of literature can get. . . . The line between fiction and fact is beautifully, permanently blurred.” At the end, I would like to finish with a quote from the book by the author: “And in the end, of course, a true war story is never

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Tim O’Brien and Brian Turner are both war veterans, who published books based on their war experience. Both of their books expresses their feelings and both have a unique way of telling war stories. However, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried book captures the reality of war better than Brian Turner’s Here Bullet book. Tim O’Brien is very descriptive with his story, He is very direct and very good at telling a war story to make it more interesting.

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Rhetorical Devices In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The first chapter of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried gives a detailed description of something each soldier carried. You’re presented with a photo First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries, the extra rations that Henry Dobbins carries and the tranquilizers that Ted Lavender carries and an explanation behind each object. In each explanation there are rhetorical devices used to intrigue the reader and help further develop each character. O’Brien, on page 143, is focusing on Norman Bowker in the town he lived in as a child. O’ Brien conveys this part of the novel by personifying, creating dialogue, and giving an illustration that appeals to sound and sight.

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Reasons Behind Tim O Brien's War Stories

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There are three main reasons why Tim O'Brien writes war stories. The first reason is to help us heal. The second reason is to encourage us. The last reason is to help us see others point of view.

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The Stories Told by the Soldiers In the book The Things We Carried by Tim O'Brien, he tells the reader stories about his experience in the Vietnam war. He tells stories about before, during and after the war. O’Brien explains his feelings towards the war by hinting it in many of his stories. He uses juxtaposition, diction, irony, metafiction, and repetition.

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Tim O Brien Ambush Analysis

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Tim O’Brien is the writer of this story but he is also the protagonist in the story. He has a 9-year old daughter, Kathleen. She is curious about the war so the story flashes back to when he killed his first person. Tim has never killed a person before this.

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How Does Tim O Brien Tell A True War Story?

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Tim O’Brien, born in Austin, Minnesota, grew up with a common childhood. At 7 years old, he and his family moved to Worthington, Minnesota. Once O’Brien graduated high school, he attended Macalester College. There, he got drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, though he opposed it. The time O’Brien spent in Vietnam had a major impact on his life.

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Riya Vinodkumar English 11 Mr.Hirose May 22nd 2023 Rhetorical Analysis of The Things They Carried “The Things They Carried” is a collection of short stories taking place during the Vietnam War, written by author Tim O’Brien. In essence, this book blends together the opposing worlds of fact and fiction to create an impression of love and fear for its readers. The stories are woven together in such a way that not only does the author delve into the physical scars of the war left on these men, but also the psychological trauma carried by these soldiers. Tim O’Brien skillfully discusses the quagmire of truths from these stories and the memories of the people in it. Bright language and vivid imagery in this book creates a picture perfect setting

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Tim say that, because a war story must not have morals, you can tell a “war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” He gives an example by telling a “true” story about Rat Kiley, a soldier whom he is friends with in the novel. Rat Kiley is a soldier who had lost his best friend in a war. His best friend was his only other half. He was a person Rat could connected with deeply.

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If The Things They Carried is known for one thing, it is a depressing anthology of war stories. If it’s known for two, the second would be the constant ever-present pondering as to the truthfulness of the stories. O’Brien, in a claimed effort to get the reader to understand the truth of what he felt instead of what he experienced, made the events of the novel ambiguous as to their truthfulness. This is a nearly foundational element of the novel that permeates throughout the entire book, sowing the first seeds of uncertainty in “How to Tell a True War Story” where the idea of story-truth being more accurate than happened-truth is introduced through Rat Kiley, and culminates in “Good Form”, where O’Brien explicitly says his story of killing the Viet Cong man is false. The concepts of courage and heroism are dwelt upon in certain parts of The Things They Carried, and the novel makes the two ideas gray instead of black and white, smearing the hard-line definitions seen in classical stories, making the characters seem heroic or courageous in one story and immoral and cowardly in the other.

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The novel suggests that it is important to continue to tell stories; by doing so someone’s life lives on, someone’s legacy lives on, someone’s contribution to our world lives on. Through stories, generations of people will learn about tales of survival, triumph, and failure. By listening to the stories in the novel readers are challenged by having to decide whether the author is telling a true war story, based upon its detail, or one that is not true. Tim O’Brien does this by not having a clear fence between non-fiction and fiction, he believed that: “telling stories seemed a natural, inevitable process, like clearing the throat…it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what happened to me…all the mistakes id made, all the terrible things I had seen and done”

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The Things They Carried Character Analysis

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When he got back, he started writing different stories that put together created a book: “The things They Carried”. “The Things They Carried,” is a book composed of twenty-two stories. The most interesting part is that, he eliminates the thin line that exist between fact and fiction. Everything gets mixed up. For example the name of the narrator and the protagonist is Tim O ' Brien.

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The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien discusses his experiences in the Vietnam War through fictionalized stories. Throughout his stories, he develops the idea that as a witness or soldier experiences the Vietnam War, they develop a new outlook on life. In the stories; “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,”“Church,” and “Speaking of Courage” soldiers and other individuals involved in combat have gained a new perspective. For certain characters such as Mary Anne and Norman Bowker the Vietnam war had an extremely negative effect on them, whereas the character of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was positively affected as he was able to mature on the battlefield. The most tragic story of the novel is the transformation of Mary Anne from an innocent young

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That is why he goes so in depth with telling the stories and really puts a bunch of details in them. Tim would refer to him at a young age by calling himself Timmy. He does this because he remembers the good times as Timmy, before he went to Vietnam and had to mourn the loss of his

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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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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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