The Things They Carried By Tim O ' Brien

One of the most overlooked aspects in the life of a soldier is the weight of the things they carry. In Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien details the plight of Vietnam soldiers along with how they shoulder the numerous burdens placed upon them. Literally, the heavy supplies weigh down each soldier -- but the physical load imposed on each soldier symbolizes the psychological baggage a soldier carries during war. Though O'Brien lists the things each soldier carries, the focal point centers around the leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and his roles in the war. Lt. Cross has multiple burdens, but his emotional baggage is

Memories and stories swarming the mind and twisted by imagination are the only glimpse of humanity a man can hold on to while at war. Through stories, men at war can share their thinning humanity with one another. The deafening silence of war defeats the human spirit and moral compass, thus it is not only man against man but man against sanity. Tim O 'Brien 's “The Things They Carried” provides a narrative of soldiers in the Vietnam War holding on to the only parts of themselves through their imagination. O’Brien employs symbolic tokens, heavy characterization, and the grueling conflict of man to illustrate how soldiers create metaphorical stories to ease the burden of war.

Every one of us has experienced a strong emotional fear, and in that moment of stress, we learn more about who we are. The short story “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, follows the lives of soldiers trying to survive the emotional and physical stresses of the Vietnam War. Throughout the story, O’Brien juxtaposes the physical weight of the supplies that the soldiers must carry with the immeasurable weight of their intense emotional experiences. The theme of “The Things They Carried” is the burden of fear, which O’Brien portrays through the counter-weight of objects the soldiers cling to for consolation and escape. Some men turn to objects that remind them of love, no matter how unlikely it is that they are loved back. Other men

In the novel “The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, the author destroys the stereotypical archetype of the warrior in shining armor bravely fighting for the good of his country. O’Brien presents the soldiers who openly express their fears, homesickness, and regrets. He discusses the physical and emotional burdens that come comes along with war. The “things” that soldiers carry are both literal and figurative. They carry sentimental items to remind them of home such as amulets, weapons, survival gear, and even emotional wounds, also they carry grief, longing, terror, and most prevalently, guilt. In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the burdens on these soldiers revealed the author’s opinion of how soldiers in Vietnam defines the soldier archetype.

Tim O’Brien wrote “The Things They Carried” from collected anecdotes given by Alpha Company during and after the Vietnam War. O’Brien’s work is considered fictitious, as it does not rely solely on factual accounts. The equipment listed give a mental image of the weight soldiers carry, and by using a narrator, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, readers see the emotional turmoil those who serve carry.

Truth has many meanings but the qualities of being a logical and relatable story can stand out to someone. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a novel that unfolds the truths about the Vietnam war through short stories. The Vietnam war is one of the longest war the U.S. ever participates in which lasted from 1955-1975. Furthermore, through the narration of these stories Tim O’Brien discusses about his feelings and perspective of the war. Also O’Brien writes stories that connects with ventures that has many experiences with war and people who face difficulties. Therefore, The Things They Carried is a collection of true stories because it is logical and relatable to both soldiers and people.

The story focuses on the emotions of the soldiers and describes how they endured extreme emotional torture during their time at war. All of them taken away from their homes and being thrown into a terrorizing unfamiliar area then given a gun and being told to fight most of them being young and having no combat experience. Tim O’Brien explains the amount of emotional stress each man carried “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (89). He describes how their fear affected even what supplies they brought with them from the amount of ammunition, to pocket knives, and even food. One of the soldiers in the story, Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers with him because he was scared of the physical pain he might endure. “Depending on numerous factors, such as topography and psychology, the riflemen carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines” (82). All the men struggled through

During the Vietnam War, a range of emotions occurred within every soldier. Even though some veterans can move past their memories of war, many soldiers became haunted by their dark memories. In Tim O’Brien’s fictional novel The Things They Carried, O’Brien takes his readers through several different events and emotions that occurs to his character during the Vietnam War. Although his character sometimes faces a tough time telling the story, O’Brien manages to inform his readers of the different emotions he faced from the point he enter the Vietnam War to the end of the Vietnam War. During the novel, several different themes continuously appear throughout the text. Out of all the themes that O’Brien describes, the themes of guilt and fear stand out the most during his stories of before, during, and after the war.

“Fear is a term used to show and express one’s stressful emotions which are provoked by threat of immediate danger, evil, or pain; fear is the threat that can be real or imagined, and a feeling or condition of being afraid” (Dictionary.com). The men in the Vietnam War felt this fear every single day and second they were on foot in Vietnam. War is an incredible mystery that many civilians and everyday ordinary people will never understand. The fear of death lurking around every corner, knowing that any second your life can end in a flash. The fact you are killing and ending someone else’s life for a reason you may fully not understand is truly a terrible thought to imagine. Realizing there was nowhere to hide or run, not knowing when death will be coming is the true fear of it all that many wanted not to experience firsthand. In the novel The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction, Tim O’Brien unfolds the story of young men, himself, and the unforgiving truth about the draft, who among many resisted and dodged the Vietnam War are told through experiences and stories in the novel.

Often times, the role of infantry is whitewashed when being presented to a civilian. Whether it’s John Wayne storming the beaches of Normandy in The Longest Day or Soap MacTavish and John Price defeating an entire army in Call of Duty Modern Warfare, infantry are often painted more herculean than human. But there is an often overlooked technical side to war that is just as, if not more, important than the general ideas of inspired heroics and valorous combat. It is the hours of marching and the plethora of equipment. It’s the boredom before a battle and the grateful numbness after. Most importantly, it is the fear of death and the violent will to survive. In Tim O’Brien’s short Story, The Things They Carried, the author does an excellent side of illustrating this rarely discussed side of warfare. Instead of focusing on the exploits of individual soldiers, O’Brien draws our attention to what necessitates, creates and forms the solider, his environment. Because setting is used to illustrate this immense physical and emotional burden, The Things They Carried realistically portrays the challenges and duties of a solider.

In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam war veteran himself, tells stories through a soldier’s eyes to describe the Vietnam war and to prove how war changes people. O’Brien’s stories in this novel are directly inspired by his real-life experiences in the Vietnam war. These stories go step by step telling the story of becoming and being a soldier: describing how a soldier feels when they get their draft letter, how it affects a soldier when they kill someone or a fellow soldier is killed, and how

The short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a story written in 1986 in the setting of the Vietnam War. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is a young man who struggles with the battle of love while being away at war. Cross leads his men with the thought of Martha, the woman he loves, in the back of his head at nearly all times, which distracts him from the true harshness of the war. The list of the things the soldiers carry in O’Brien’s short story tell us what tangibles the men carry with them that are necessities for the battles, but they also carry intangibles with them such as the letters, and the dope to help comfort them in a time of fear. These possessions express the character of the men in the squad. All of the men in the squad carry something with them whether it is tangible or intangible that defines who they are. These things that the soldiers carry with them are not only items strapped on their shoulders but they are now a part of who they are during this period of time in their lives.

The Things They Carried, published in 1990, is an American Novel written by Tim O’Brien. The story holds true to the Vietnam War. The different stories within the novel are never assumed to be equal, not because some are better than others, but because they hold disparate goals. These goals include everything from imparting life lessons to educating readers about their nation’s history. The Things They Carried is especially distinctive; it is overall a straightforward tragedy, with the main flaw of an otherwise likeable main character causing his downfall.

After the devastation that World War II left the world, no one wanted to go into another war. Families lost their members, countries lost their dignity, and some soldiers were left with the moments of war forever in their minds. However, the concern that communism was going to spread made Vietnam become the longest war in American History. During this time a lot of young people were anti-war, they were sick of losing people they loved to violence. Though the war still needed to be fought so men became soldiers freely or because they were drafted. In the story “Things They Carried”, soldiers are faced head on with the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien shows how the men carry the weight of physical objects through out the war. The men bog themselves

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien is a story in which the author details the possessions the emotions and the memories which were carried by the soldiers into the Vietnam War. The accuracy fact fullness and the attention to details make this story a truthful experience, riding on a thin line between fiction and a reality. It embodies the transformation that a soldier in a war zone undergoes. The author being a war veteran himself captures the events in a vivid manner. The two works of literature serve as an authentic and knowledgeable depiction of men fighting a war. They not only carry the weight of weaponry and ammunitions and supplies needed but also the weight of the struggle and the violent deaths that surround them which weigh heavier than the items they carried. The outcomes of war for the side that wins or loses results in devastation of the people but the soldiers are the ones who carry with them the memories of pain and struggle long after the war ends. Every war is partly fought on the ground and partly in the mind of soldiers.