The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Passage Analysis

In the previous chapter that I have read in the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the chapters that seem to be talking about after the war and seem like actual war stories would be “Speaking of Courage”, and “Notes.” Those two chapters stand out more, where the previous talk about life during the war and what is going on.

The Vietnam War marked one of the most violent times in American history. The impact of the war affected soldiers long after the war and many of the soldiers remain traumatized from the incidents of the war today. These burdens that the soldiers carried remained largely unnoticed until the late 1990’s. “Stop the Sun” by Gary Paulsen and “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien detail the effect that the war has on soldiers through realistic fiction. “The Things They Carried” shows the physical and psychological weight that the soldiers carry while fighting in a war. O’Brien uses figurative and literal language to portray the weight that the soldiers bear. For this reason, I prefer “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien.

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried places readers in the shoes of soldiers such as Jimmy Cross, Kiowa or Rat Kiley in order to offer readers a better understanding of what American soldiers faced during the Vietnam War. By recreating the atmosphere of the Vietnam War time period accurately, O’brien had the freedom of adding realistic, but truly fictional elements to make his story more life-like. While none of the soldiers in this story are real individuals, his use of character’s point of view and their stream of consciousness helps to present their emotions and reactions in a very accurate way. Tim O'Brien employs the literary elements of perspective and syntactical expression to bring readers into a very realistic, yet fictional parallel

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" list the variety of things his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company brought on their missions. Several of these things cannot be seen, including guilt and fear, while others are specific physical objects, including matches, morphine, M-16 rifles, and M&M's candy.

At different points in our lives we change, but are we always the same person? Most would say yes, even though we grow up and our appearances change we mainly keep our values and ways of thinking. Tim O’Brien the author of The Things They Carried tackles the idea of changing personalities and thought processes, by writing different stories about his friends from the war. He argues that the trauma from experiencing literal and metaphorical death can turn you into a completely different person.

One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way

All in all, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien focuses on the internal struggles each soldier of O’Brien’s platoon battles either before, during, or after the war. In a collection of short stories, O’Brien is able to include a number of personal and meaningful experiences soldiers are willing to share which all of which includes the fight against the feelings of shame. The feelings of shame determine who the soldier becomes after the war and how they react to the past where the most horrendous and unimaginably experiences take place.

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.

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

“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.

     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.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story written about the Vietnam War. The title has two meanings. The first is their duties and equipment for the war. The second, the emotional sorrows they were put through while at war. Their wants and needs, the constant worry of death were just a few of the emotional baggage they carried. During the Vietnam War, like all wars, there were hard times. Being a soldier wasn’t easy. Soldiers always see death, whether it be another soldier or an enemy. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien explores the motivation of solders in the Vietnam War to understand their role in combat, to stay in good health, and accept the death of a fellow soldier.

O'Brien's The Things They Carried O’Connor remarks “The Things They Carried” is a short story that is written “as an experience not an abstraction” and that “the meaning has been embodied in it”. These quotations are truly pure in description and interpretation of the short story as the reader, must look beyond the crude physical properties of the objects and actions chronicled and focus more upon their hidden meanings and messages. O’Brien uses the physical characteristics of weight to make an impact upon the reader to relate with the men. In emphasizing the soldier’s everyday burden, the reader can easily relate to the situation in general. As the story progresses, the main attention of the

The protagonist of this chapter is Rat Kiley. Rat tells a story about his assignment in the mountains of Chu Lai.