Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The distractions of war, misinterpretation of reality and limited control of fate as a result of the human condition appear throughout the Vietnam War at all times. Tim O’Brien, as a narrator describes the struggles of storytelling during and after the war. The constant struggle to determine reality versus personal perception arises in many aspects of his memory. Some factors of recalling events are uncontrollable such as interference of imagination and uncertainty as a result of the human condition. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the telling of story-truth, rather than happening-truth, is necessary, as no replica can be as genuine as the original.

It’s safe to say, that The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien has significantly impacted my life and my outlook on life. One of the reasons that I connected to it, was because it “tapped” into my emotions. Because I was emotionally connected to the book, it was easy to relate to some parts of it. Although I related to some parts of the book, other parts were a complete mystery to me because it was unfamiliar to what I know.

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein). War can be a drastic change for the life of a person as war can ultimately morph them into a slave of the battlefield. In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’ Brien describes the experiences of people in the Vietnam War and how they have become changed individuals from their past lives before combat. War pummels you with things that transcend your typical escapades and the more you try to understand them, the more you get sucked into the void of combat. The increased time the characters are in the battlefield, the more they have to think about it, thus shaping who they are. Only time can determine how much war can affect you.

Negative experiences can have lifelong effects on a person, no matter what situation they were in. They live the rest of their lives with flashbacks, nightmares, and survivor’s trauma. Some trauma survivors have help coping with the effects of their situation but most people don’t have any way of coping with what they have seen and gone through. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, the narrator, Tim O’Brien, writes the stories about the Vietnam War that he was in, 20 years after the war ends. The narrator O’Brien has trouble with coping after the war so he writes stories about the war describing what they went through in detail. He was fresh out of college when he was drafted into the war, so he was very young and inexperienced. He had to go into a war that he knew nothing about and

In chapter one of The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien discusses how war influences soldiers psychologically. The vivid description of the “things” each soldier carries tells a story. Thoughts, memories, and physical items are extremely valuable in their abnormal situation. These possessions are the only things the soldiers have and mean everything to them. No training or life experience could have prepared them for what they endure in war. Soldiers grasp onto these shreds of hope from their past as a reminder of the outside world. There is no escape from this place of constant fear and death. Here, death is unpredictable and sudden and the soldiers are forced to carry on. For example, when Lavender is shot dead by a hidden sniper,

When one tells a story, one has a motive for telling their tale, even if the story is fictional; but as Tim O’Brien, the narrator, says “a true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done” (O’Brien 65). The reader can assume O’Brien tells the story to reveal the horrors of war. O’Brien, the narrator, says a true war story can be told by the way it is evil (O’Brien 65-66). The buffalo story, O’Brien says, is a true war story, despite the story not being true. In the novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien uses the buffalo story to back up the claim a true war story is told in a way obscenity and evil.

The Vietnam War started November 1, 1955. It started when President Eisenhower didn’t want communism to spread throughout the world. Tim O’Brien served in Vietnam as a foot soldier from 1968 to 1970. In Tim O’Brien’s novel “The Things They Carried”, shame, love, and violence play a vital role in the soldiers’ lives.

A traumatic event occurs when a person is in a situation where there is a risk of harm or danger to themselves or other people. Situations like this are usually frightening or cause a lot of stress. In such situations, people feel helpless. We all cope with these traumas in different ways, in the protagonist’s case, he writes about it. Tim O’Brien expresses a candid tone in the passage corresponding to Lavender’s death from fictional novel, The Things They Carried using specific rhetorical strategies in order to create a relatable dilemma with how often times horrific stories are unintentionally skewed.

The Things They Carried is a brutally honest novel about, not the Vietnam war itself, but about a veterans experiences with it. The war itself is merely a setting, taking a backseat to the characters who are coping with things ranging from love, fear, and, most importantly to this book, loss. The novel is somewhat reminiscent of an anthology, with each chapter usually surrounding a new story that O’Brien experienced or heard about. This haphazard way of storytelling reflects the war itself, and the way these soldiers had no idea where they would be the following day, if they were even still alive. O’Brien also consistently questions the honesty of the stories his fellow soldiers told, as well as the stories he himself is telling the readers. This, once again, may be to evoke feelings of deceit and fear, not knowing if anything being

“I think it's important to have closure in any relationship that ends-from a romantic relationship to a friendship. You should always have a sense of clarity at the end and know why it began and why it ended. You need that in your life to move cleanly into your next phase,” (Jennifer Aniston). The best teachers are those experiences which challenge us. If people work to understand these relationships, they will gain great knowledge. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie is a girl who goes through life clueless of what love means and struggles to find its true purpose. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien tells his stories about the Vietnam War and talks about those he has lost in the

In Tim O’Brien’s historical fiction novel The Things They Carried, O’Brien uses a character also called Tim O’Brien to tell about experiences from the Vietnam War (1954-57). In the chapter, “How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien states “a true war story is never moral.” (65) War is not only horrid and unsightly, it also affects a soldiers’ mental make-up. Filled with death and gore, the Vietnam War has the capability to leave soldiers physically and mentally unstable. O’Brien begins his journey as a frightened, inexperienced young man, terrified of the great dishonor that follows evading the war. Tim O’Brien departs the Vietnam War full of remorse then tells short stories throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, about the Vietnam war as a coping skill. To show vivid emotions O’Brien uses the novel to fill in the blanks of his memories. Indulging in The Things They Carried is comparable to sitting in a living room, having a conversation with a war veteran.

Many times, when a story is told about one’s personal experiences, it is believed to be all true. However, in the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the stories that were told were not the real Truth about what actually happened. In The Things They Carried, stories are told about Tim O’Brien’s experiences in the Vietnam War. All of these stories are very realistic, and for these stories, it would not be difficult to believe that they are completely true. However, In this book, it is revealed that the meaning of Truth in a story is different from the meaning of Truth in real life. Two stories in particular, “The Man I Killed,” and “Speaking of Courage,” seem true but it is revealed that

The Things They Carried, told by Tim O'Brien, tells of the adventures and experiences of many young men during the Vietnam War. He describes everything the men carried on their missions all physically, mentally, and emotionally. Many of these burdens had a huge effect on the men and still do today. This novel is told with neither an anti-war perspective nor a pro-war perspective on war, but rather a neutral perspective.

In “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, the narrator introduces the reader to the protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who is in charge of a platoon of soldiers during the Vietnam War. O’Brien initiates by explaining to the reader that to carry something means to “hump”. O’Brien further explains that for our protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, he specifically “humps” photographs, letters and mementos of the woman he loves, Martha. The lieutenant has such an emotional attachment to everything he receives from Martha, that for him, it becomes problematic through the story since it leads to the death of one of his soldiers in the alpha team. He blames himself because when Lavender is shot, he is distracted, thinking of Martha, when he could’ve

As long as he does this, Holden will disallow himself from making outside connections. Ever since the death of Allie, Holden was so hurt and disturbed that he put up a metaphorical “social-emotional wall” between himself and others to abstain from getting hurt again. After losing Allie, whom Holden loved dearly, and regarded as “the nicest” and “the most intelligent” kid, he closed up, and subconsciously decided to hide his true character (22).