War In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Tim O’brien’s historical fiction book The Things They Carried is focused around soldiers involved in the Vietnam War. This war was a difficult time for both the Americans who were drafted to fight in the war as well as for those who were at home and disagreed with the idea of currently being in war in Vietnam. As he writes about his own fictional experiences during the war along with the stories of many other fellow troops, O’brien expresses that it is difficult to “tell a true war story”. With the use of imagination and invention, he is able to successfully convey the difficulties involving truth-telling and wartime conditions. O’brien is open with his intended audience and blatantly states that it is hard to tell a true war story.

Therefore, many soldiers deeply hesitated on going to Vietnam and were mainly not accepted when they returned. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes about the themes of growth and emotional burdens as he displays his character’s stories of the effects of the Vietnam war. The chapter, “On the Rainy River”, is where O’Brien expresses his biggest growing moment when he is still a minor, battling dodging the draft,

In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, Tim uses a series of war stories to explain what it was like for him and his fellow soldiers in the Vietnam War. While many seem factually untrue, he describes a True war story as one that makes you feel the same emotions and feelings the soldiers had, opposed to true war stories that tell of what actually happened. He explains how the teller “wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt… facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around…” (O’Brien 89). The stories were made up based off how they felt experiencing it. One specific story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” recounts the story of a soldier bringing over his girlfriend and the transformation she goes through as she spends time in the jungle.

For example the boy said, “You said you wouldn’t ever leave me.” The boy is talking to his dad after the dad had promised him that he wouldn’t leave him which made the dad sad because he was dieing and he didn’t want to leave his son all by himself. The dad and the son had fought against other survivors, the cold, and hunger now the dad was realizing that the kid was going to have to fight those challenges once again this time without his dad. When the dad dies the boy realizes that he is alone now without his family, his dad was all the boy had and now he was dead so the boy walks to the road and sees someone approaching him.

The Author did this to show us that the best way to let go of grief and angriness because of someone’s death is to keep a good memory of them close to your heart. This enables us to change the way think and realise we can live through these struggles and comprehend that they are no longer with us. This novel connects to the other texts through the way people change after the loss of a loved one. In The Real Katie Lavender and Goodnight Mister Tom, the main characters have to get over the loss of a friend or family member and they get through this in different ways so they can cope and change the way they think about their loss by remembering the good memories from their

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.

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.

In “The Things They Carried” the protagonist Tim O'Brien who is the writer and a Vietnam War veteran, writes about all his memories of the war and the other men who served with him in order to find meaning in the memories. O'Brien uses a non-linear structure that includes frequent flashbacks throughout the book. “The Things They Carried” revealed the challenges each soldier faced and it defined why this book was different from a traditional linear narrative. Each chapter throughout the book grabs the reads and leaves them to want to read more and more. With this different structure, O'Brien was able to really reveal all the raw details that happened in the past that impacted the soldier futures.

War Changes Molarity Tim O’Brien is both the author of the novel The things they carried, and one of the most important characters. Tim O’Brien narrator and some might say the protagonist. O’Brien seems to be really confused throughout the novel. He has some guilt that he tries to deal with over and over again throughout the novel, but when the war is over he uses his ability to tell stories to help him deal with his guilt and confusion. O’Brien might have been a character that abides the moral code but after entering the Vietnam war, morality never seemed to exist.

This quote demonstrates how the family died. They were doing their regular activities and in a split second their lives perished. This quote also demonstrates how a family of five were together for a few minutes and then violently split up. Another example of the theme of death is the dog. For example, “The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores...its eyes turned to fire.

In Tim O’Brien’s aptly named story, “The Things They Carried,” detailed lists of items carried by each of the characters are presented to the reader. Each character carries varying physical and emotional burdens on their shoulders as they march through the jungles of Vietnam. The technique of listing the things they carried is an excellent use of characterization and gives the reader an in-depth understanding of each individual which, in return, allows O’Brien to achieve a connection between his characters and his audience. The list of internal and external burdens carried by the extensive cast of characters acts as a form of characterization.

Introduction The Things They Carried is a text where writer Tim O’Brien the stories he encountered throughout his time in the Vietnam War. These stories, traumatic as well as warm and humorous, are ones that the author will never erase from his memory. It seems that O’Brien is retelling these stories to enlighten those who have never had experience on the battlefield in order to reach a certain level of understanding and to discover repercussions that it brings onto the human condition, both physically and mentally. Evidently, he wants to convey emotion within the reader. The stories also recall the life lessons that O’Brien learned about friendship, forgiveness, respect and reputation as well as foreignness and the other.

Gloria Swanson once said, “Life and death. They are somehow sweetly and beautifully mixed, but I don’t know how”. Throughout the nonlinear novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes stories about his experiences surrounding the Vietnam War. He writes stories with intense memories and even descriptions of death in order to give readers the feeling of truly being there.

The fiction novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien reflects the surreal nature of war by using literary devices to express the deep felt emotions of the soldiers. The soldiers in the Alpha Company endure both physical and emotional hardships while fighting in the Vietnam War. These hardships affect the soldier's mental states and these stories give insight on how they deal with that. The surreal nature of the war reveals a false sense of reality by only allowing the soldiers to view a situation from one’s own perspective, as illustrated by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s obsession with Martha, Norman Bowker’s guilt, and Tim O’Brien’s stories. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s obsession with Martha serves as his biggest distraction in

The misfortune brought about by war often leads to contradiction, between morals and nationalism. Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried served as a soldier throughout the Vietnam war. Tim O’Brien was hesitant to fight and considered dodging the draft, or registering as a conscientious objector, through his novel and later experiences readers can begin to understand why. Reports of riots against the war, along with writings by dodge drafters as well as conscientious objectors help concrete why to and not to go to war as portrayed through Tim O'brien's The Things They Carried. The Vietnam War resulted in 58, 159 American casualties not including those wounded (Brenner xxii).