The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

In The Things They Carried, Author Tim O’brien uses many different languages to dramatize his troublesome dilemma in the chapter, “On the Rainy River.” O'brien can go against his own will , stay with his family and go to the war or be a coward and escape to Canada to get away. He starts off by stressing the fact that he was so worried about going off to the war that he starts hallucinating about being in the presence of different people. Furthermore, the Author attempts to put the readers into his shoes by exaggerating the way he felt at the moment and by making the setting seem so realistic. He lastly transitions into using repetition towards the end to stress the whole idea of his dilemma and how long it really seems

     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.

It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought

‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien provides a insider’s view of war and its distractions, both externally in dealing with combat and internally dealing with the reality of war and its effect on each solder. The story, while set in Vietnam, is as relevant today with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as it was in the 1960’s and 1970’s in Southeast Asia. With over one million soldiers having completed anywhere from one to three tours in combat in the last 10 years, the real conflict might just be inside the soldier. O’Brien reflects this in his writing technique, using a blend of fiction and autobiographical facts to present a series of short narratives about a small unit of soldiers. While a war story, it is also an unrequited

In the story The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien uses literary devices such as imagery and repetition to show how conflict impact humanity in ways of making people care for who they have and how long they have them.

“The things they carried” by Tim O’Brien follows lieutenant cross and shows his deepest feelings for Martha. That he forgets he is in war and lets some of his soldiers die because he was in the clouds. Moreover, he notices that Martha is nowhere and that she doesn't love him like he does and decides to get rid of every attachment to her and focus on his real task. O’Brien also shows the other soldiers feelings and the things they carried, vital supplies to survive in the war but also items that they believe are luck and also make them feel comfortable or at home. However, those items don't make them forget about the reality that death can happen at any time. One can see the author having shame and guilt and morality of death.

The story of Things they carried written by author Tim O’Brien is the story of a group of young men who served during the war in Vietnam. The story explains the physical and mental burdens of war, carried by each individual, for the battle, their love, and their superstitious beliefs. Of the group, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, their leader, was a young man who carried the heaviest load. First Lieutenant Cross was often distracted by thoughts of a girl named Martha, whom he had met before the war. Martha was a college student in New Jersey who had sent Lieutenant Cross letters and good luck charms. Though Martha’s intentions were innocent, Lieutenant Cross never understood them that way, as a matter of fact, he often fantasized about Martha

Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, describes the adversity a platoon of American soldiers had to overcome in the Vietnam War. Each soldier in the platoon has a specific role they were assigned to before arriving in Vietnam. The majority of things they carried were all necessities, but some also carried certain belongings or mementos back from home to enlighten their moods. The medic, Bob “Rat” Kiley, is affected by the tragedy all around, but it gives us an idea of what he was like back at home before the war.

After reading pages 19-20 of The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien provides readers with numerous literary devices that make it easier for readers to interpret the thoughts, actions, and lives of the soldiers. To begin with, the first literary device that he used is parallelism. O'Brien repeatedly uses the word and to add additional phrases that gives dramatic effect and emphasis on how the soldiers reacted to the war. He says, “They twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop.” When O'Brien says this, it lets readers know that being in war isn't a walk in the park, lots of pain is being inflicted upon the soldiers, like how they have to consider the possibility of dying which produces fear as their unconditioned response. Additionally, this can also be an example of the literary term cacophony. The words cringed, and sobbed, and begged, are words that sound unpleasant and describes the situation as unpalatable.

The story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is a story of Vietam soldiers and the things they carried; itmes of necessities of war protection, items of function of rank and field specialty, personal mementos and their feelings. The author depicts the load "to carry something was to hump, but it implied burdens", burdens each soldier carried while moving through the physical and emontional events of war (O'Brien 4 ). The author's use of storytelling helps the reader understand the physical and emotional impact of war and how each soldier coped while carrying items of "necessity or near-necessities" (O'Brien 2 ). I will be exploring the burden of "necessity and near-necessities"of the soldier's as they " hump" thier way

In the story “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien explores the themes of the emotional and physical objects soldiers in Vietnam carried along with them on their marches. Some men carried more ammunition because they were scared, others carried letters from their loved ones. Lieutenant Cross, who is perceived to be the protagonist of the story carries the responsibility of his platoon. He spends most of his days fantasizing about a girl he loves from back home, Martha and it’s not until Ted Lavender is shot in the head that he now has to carry the grief of being responsible for his death. Meanwhile, a fellow member of the platoon, Kiowa, admires the lieutenant's capacity for grief, since his emotional response to Lavender’s death is just surprise.

“Things They Carry” by Tim O’Brien is a book based off of remembering. O’Brien admits this in the chapter “Spin”. He remembers Jimmy’s love for Martha; Norman wanting his father to be accepting of Norman not winning any medals; Kiowa teaching a “rain dance to Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen, the three of them whooping and leaping around barefoot while a bunch of villagers looked on with a mix of fascination and giggly horror” (36). He remembers close to everything which shows how big of a role the war plays in his mind.

War changes everyone, and it can turn even the most innocent into warriors. Mary Anne Bell is whisked to Vietnam when her lover Mark Fossie arranges for her to do so. She becomes everyone’s favorite, and only, “cheerleader” for the medics and soldiers, but the war ends up changing her in ways that make the reader question the real effects of Vietnam. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien uses Mary Anne’s transformation to explore innocence in Vietnam.

What Do We Carry? When someone asks “what do you carry,” what comes to mind? In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, soldiers who were in Vietnam during the war carried a select number of personal items with them that they valued and had to have with them. These soldiers have given up a lot and have to make decisions when they have to think about what they will keep with them at all times. Throughout the book, O’Brien refers to the question: “What do we carry with us?”

The literal meaning of this passage is just how it sits. These men are thrown into war and are set with these ideals that it is not okay for them to express emotion towards what they are faced with on a daily basis. Although each and every one of those men were impacted by those gruesome sights and feelings, it was just an accepted way that things were. Real men were not supposed to be affected by their experiences. The greater significance it that it is everyone in life is changed somehow and influenced by each sight they see. One should not feel ashamed for letting an experience find it was truly into their heart and letting it take a role in their life. O’Brien is trying to highlight the plethora of things that each person carried beyond