The Things They Carried by Tim O’brien

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

The novel itself is a flashback to the pass of a nightmare that he will never forget. O’ Brien is still alive, I cannot imagine having flash backs to the past and being reminded of a frightening nightmare. The best flashback in the novel reads “his right arm was gone… At his face there were already many flies and gnats.” O’Brien then revisits his childhood: “Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love…. she died of course. Nine years old and she died.” This situation in the time of war brought him to think of someone he truly loved. Flashbacks are

The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien begins by Mr. O'Brien describing his dramatical events that happened during the middle of his Vietnam experience while he was fighting in the war. Mr. O'Brien received his draft notice in the month of June in the year of 1968. When he received this notice Mr. O'Brien had feelings of confusion, and that drove him to go north to the Canadian border, and it had him contemplating if he wanted to cross it or not because he does not want to be forced to fight in a war he really does not believe in. However, Mr. O'Brien finally decides that he would feel guilty if he avoided the war and he also feared that his family would be disappointed. Not only does this novel tell us readers about his

Following orders, digging a foxhole, carrying a twenty-three pound M-60 assault weapon, or chasing Charlie does not erase the virtues previously programmed. Typically related to ethics and the distinction between right and wrong, morality exists throughout The Things They Carried in many forms. In the book, even the most deranged characters manage to be kind to one another. When dealing with death, characters experiment with ways to respect and remember the dead. In foreign Vietnam, the soldiers deal with cultural differences and work to find a middle ground. In the book, Tim O’Brien illustrates how morality manages to survive amidst the gore of the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War was a long conflict lasting between 1955 to 1975 between the communist North and the democratic south with help from the United States. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Tim O 'brien 's short story “The Things They Carried” follows a platoon named alpha company during the peak of the Vietnam war led by first lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is very charismatic but in his mind he is unsure how to lead his squad because his mind tends to wander to a thought of a girl back home. Throughout the story he has overcome with emotions and guilt because he believes he his the reason for some of his squadmates death. “The Things They Carried” Embodies the hardship, reality, and price/toll of war, ultimately Tim O’brien writes this masterpiece as not of a war story, but as a love story and how that love changed a man.

Tim O' Brien, a soldier affected by the Vietnam War, reflects on his experiences when his daughter asks herself if he has ever taken a life. When she is nine years old, nearly 20 years after the Vietnam War is over, Kathleen asks her a question. Has he ever killed someone, she wants to know. O’Brien decides to tell her that he hasn’t. It felt like the “right thing to do”; he thinks when she is a grown-up she will understand better. Maybe then O’Brien will tell her about the slim young man who still obsesses him, whom he still thinks about when reading the newspaper.

In this final chapter, O’Brien strings the various threads of plot events together to form a cohesive message. Each of the major themes is illuminated as each of the major stories is retold mostly told about Vietnam and a younger version of himself

The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.

In “Lives of the Dead”, O’Brien’s own innocence is preserved through the memory of Linda, a memory that remains untarnished by the inevitable corruption that results from life. O’Brien’s writings “save Linda’s life. Not her body--her life” (236). Storytelling and memories preserve the value of Linda’s existence while simultaneously allowing O’Brien to process death and destruction in a way that maintains a degree of optimism regarding his own life and future. Juxtaposing the images of body and life emphasizes his desire to save the idea of Linda while accepting the loss of her physical presence. O’Brien rejects the idea of death as absolute and final; instead he suggests that “once you are alive, you can never be dead” (244). Linda’s death solidifies her importance in O’Brien’s own development; she teaches him about life and real love as much as in death as in life. O’Brien’s paradoxical statement defines the lasting impact of Linda on him; her presence in his stories keeps her alive through memory; memories that even her death

O’Brien, forty-three years old, dates back to when he “was drafted to fight a war he hated.” He planned on attending Harvard for a graduate study on a full-ride scholarship. He was way “Too smart, too compassionate, too everything ”: he knew what he wanted to do and who he was; although, the Vietnam war had no interest for the lives of its soldiers. For Tim O’Brien, he was pulled from Minnesota; for other soldiers, they were pulled from their respective hometowns-- all were taken out of comfortability to devastation. This memory moment, along with others, develops the setting by displaying

The first story O’Brien decides to tell us is the story of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Cross represents a young and inexperienced soldier who went to war for all of the wrong reasons. He deals with the savagery of the Vietnam War through letters and pictures sent from the woman he loves back home, Martha. Cross carries physical objects, pictures, letters, as well as memories from his time spent back home with Martha before signing up for war. At one point in the story after describing a date between him and Martha, he mentions how “he should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long.” (5) His thoughts of Martha are enough to help distract him from the brutal realities taking place in the war. However, his distraction becomes too much, and it ends up resulting in the death of one of his fellow squad members, Ted Lavender. He carries regret for the death of Lavender, and years later confesses his guilt to O’Brien, and that he has never forgiven himself for his death. Despite his long-lived regret, Cross finds comfort in his thoughts of Martha, and hopes one day she will return his love.

From his experience as a newspaper reporter, O’Brien was able to quickly develop his writing skills which paved his way into the field of fiction publications. Currently in his career, Tim O’Brien serves as a visiting professor at the University of Southwest Texas State where he teaches creative writing and is also a member of the advisory board for Ridenhour Prizes. Moreover, the Vietnam War, in which Tim O’Brien was drafted into, was a desperate American struggle against the spread of Communism. Occurring during the Cold War era, America struggled with the Soviet Union in an event called the “Red Scare” which was a phase of the quickly spreading Communist government. In Vietnam, the war is actually known as the “American War” due to America’s deep involvement in the war efforts. More than two million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters were killed during the span of the Vietnam War. Overall, the main cause for O’Brien’s opposition to the draft notice was that American involvement in Vietnam progressively became highly unpopular and overtime American citizens began to forget the reasons behind the war effort. Tim O’Brien was given a short notice and eventually forced to immediately leave his family in order to begin training and preparation for the war. The draft notice was a large

Ultimately, this novel is not about Vietnam--in fact, it is not about war at all. It is about the narrator 's attempt to find a place where the erosion of time will have no effect. By working through the "threads" of this novel, O 'Brien 's intentions become obvious: He is fighting to preserve the physical against deterioration, and by extension, to preserve life by immortalizing it in fiction. He is not writing as a result of neurosis or as a form of therapy; he does this since

On the fields and rice paddies of Vietnam, O’Brien constantly questions himself as to why he was a victor in the game of life and death. It is evident that there is some form of guilt that messes with him causing him to create these stories to extend the lives of those whose lives were cut short. Another form of ‘guilt’ by being one of the few survivors plays another role in the development of reviving and remembering his very first crush as a child, Linda. Linda had died when she was just nine years old to an incurable brain tumor. O’Brien’s use of his memory to reconstruct social settings and feelings allow him to repair and mend the wounds caused by her death. Experiencing the death of what O’Brien would consider a loved one, would have

O’Brien illuminates the fear in the protagonist, as he describes his (Tim’s) fear of the war but also, being an outcast within his own family “Tim” feels everything that makes him who he is will be lost even if he survives the war. (O’Brien, 1990, pg. 42). As the protagonists flees to Wisconsin on his way to Canada, to avoid the draft, he came upon little cabin where this older person knew why he was there. The old man lets “Tim” stay in the woods, there he cuts wood, fishes and repairs the cabin while he makes peace with himself only to return home, not be cowardice, and serve his country. Here the protagonists stayed several days thinking he can flee to the border easier since it was just across the lake, then comes to his senses hence, returns to face his fear of future death and