Techniques Used In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien created several allusions that each character endured during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story were vast representations of the things the soldiers carried both mentally and physically. The things they carried symbolized their individual roles internally and externally. In addition to the symbolism, imagination was a focal theme that stood out amongst the characters. This particular theme played a role as the silent killer amongst Lt. Cross and the platoon both individually and collectively as a group. The theme of imagination created an in depth look of how the war was perceived through each character which helped emphasize their thoughts from an emotional standpoint of being young men out at war.

Throughout the novel The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien uses literary devices to emphasize the importance of story-truth as opposed to happening-truth. Explaining the effects of war on soldiers, the novel highlights the guilt they feel after returning home as well as the physical and mental strain they must endure for the rest of their lives. The interesting twist of story-truth is that it is not a retelling of the event exactly as it happened but rather an exaggerated version meant to express the emotion felt in the moment. The three literary devices O’Brien uses to tell his truth are: point of view, syntax, and direct or indirect characterization. Alternating between first and third person point of view throughout the story O’Brien

Tim O’Brien discusses the literal Things They Carried and also the heartache and internal things that men had to experience and go through during the war. The novel focuses on chaos and the trauma, and by reproducing these realities in a fragmented, chaotic narrative. Tim O’Brien demonstrates tragedy of war and death. In one of the short stories Notes it states, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.” (152) This shows the guilt about Kiowa’s death and the feelings after the war by telling a story, it shows how he carries these on and are a burden on his mind. Also shows the corruption in one's mind during war by showing how soldiers start to believe false events and shift the truth.Therefore the novel The Things They Carried is form of protest against

The first three words of the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” are, “This is true” (67). Although Tim O’Brien begins this chapter with such a bold and clear statement, throughout the chapter he has the reader thinking and confused when he contradicts himself by stating things such as, “In many cases a true war story cannot

In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses many short stories to describe his experience in Vietnam. The story that captured many aspects of writing was “How to Tell a True War Story” because it acts as a guide to writing a true story. O’Brien uses many different rhetorical strategies, narrative techniques, and establishes a theme in this story to help develop his characters and story line.

Many may question the true meaning of love. However, there is not an exact description. According to Merriam-Webster, The full definition of love is “a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties-maternal love for a child (2): attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests”. Love played a role in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the platoon leader. While stationed in the Vietnam, Lieutenant Cross was infatuated with Martha. He used his memory and imagination to escape from the scenes from the war.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien expresses the importance of a story-truth, as opposed to a happening-truth by use of literary elements in his writing. The novel is about war and the guilt it leaves on everyone involved in the war. Story-truth is not exactly what happened, but uses part of the truth and part made up in order to express the truth of what emotion was felt, which an important thematic element in the novel is. The three literary devices he uses to express this are diction, imagery, juxtaposition, and hyperbole. All of these elements allow the reader to identify emotion that is expressed in each story, as though that were the complete truth.

     How does death affect the behavior of people? Although death affects everyone's behavior differently, knowledge of one's imminent death is a main force behind behavioral changes. This knowledge causes emotions that motivate people to act in ways that they normally would not. In Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried,'; the knowledge of death and its closeness causes the men in the story to alter their behavior by changing they way they display power, modifying emotions to relieve guilt, and by exhibiting different actions to ease anxiety.

Telling a war story will be changed for everyone depending on their experience and the different wars they been to. In The Thing They Carried telling a true war story is different because O’Brien says that it needs to be a heroic and noble and very specific “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seems to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed” (pg.67-68) it shows how O’Brien wants to impress the audience with his stories that makes one wonder if it is real or not. He wants to sound heroic which makes part of the purpose of the story, his side

There are many levels of truth in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. This novel deals with story-telling as an act of communication and therapy, rather than a mere recital of fact. In the telling of war stories, and instruction in their telling, O'Brien shows that truth is unimportant in communicating human emotion through stories.

Having spent over five years in the military, I often wondered what it would be like to deploy. I never did, you see. However, I have experienced preparations for deployment. Soldiers undergo medical examinations, prepare their gear, prepare the equipment, and ensure personnel documents are in order. These are just a few items that need to be checked off of a to-do list, or inventory if you will. In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, runs through a series of events that he had his squad carried, both on their person and in their minds.

Tim O’Brien expressed his thoughts and details to his readers in a variety of different ways. There were many different ways he did this. One of the things he did was twist things in the story to make it prove a point or to show emotion,

The Things They Carried was written by Tim O'Brien based on his experiences from Vietnam. He writes "Ambush" and "The man I killed" as an imagined confession. Tim O'Brien tries to make the death of the man he killed seem appropriate and he also lies to his daughter about killing at war. Tim O'Brien uses irony, imagery, and loaded diction to ease his own guilt.

In Tim O’Brien’s novel the narrator responds to his daughter’s question with the paradoxical answer, “I can answer ‘Yes.’ truthfully or ‘Of course not.’ honestly.” This may seem contradictory until reading the entire war novel “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien explores the question ‘What is truth?’ through philosophizing and foreshadowing. The reader sees that the truth is not always clear from the beginning when the author introduces two truths - story truth and happening truth.

Calloway believes that the techniques used by O’Brien engage the reader and allow them to feel connected to the imaginary parts of to story as if they were truths. This literary criticism mirrors that of Volkmer, in the fact that both critics believe that the war stories feel so real, because they have just been repeated and taken as truths.The final opinion on The Things They Carried from this critic is that because O’Brien focuses so much on war stories in the novel, he “writes a multidimensional war story even as he examines the process of writing one