Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses an elegiac tone and describes the thoughts and actions of the characters Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Norman Baker to shine a light on the way soldiers view the idea of courage and how they feel about being courageous in the Vietnam War. In the chapters “The Things They Carried” and “Speaking of Courage,” the author describes how the soldiers had come to fear the idea of not being courageous, perhaps because, if one was not courageous, they would perish in the strange and far-off land of Vietnam. But a more plausible reason for them acting in this manner could be because they were expected, as both men and soldiers, to not show fear, even if they were terrified.

At some time in life, a person will experience the death of a relative or lose something that was very important to him or her. After that traumatic event, will that person confront his or her pain, or will that person bury it deep within them? Both ways are possible, however, only one is effective in the long term. According to Tim O'Brien, the most effective way to heal after a traumatic experience is to share stories. In Tim’s book, The things they carried, he used the motifs of loneliness, life, and the mood of nostalgia to illustrate the importance of sharing stories during a healing process.

The Vietnam War allowed American soldiers to experience many emotions and beliefs ranging from joyful and prosperous to even sorrowful and terrifying. During this war time, the soldiers go through many obstacles and situations where they may feel overwhelmed with feelings but they cannot fall short of being tough and to ignore their feelings because in the end they still are fighting a war. The war itself contributes to the way the soldiers express certain emotions or set their beliefs. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the audience discovers what it means to be a soldier in the Vietnam War through certain events and stories that contain themes of guilt and fear.

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” focuses on war, masculinity, and the ability of objects to tether individuals to reality. Interspersed with the perspective of a group of American Vietnam soldiers are lists of objects that made their way with them, developing these characters and demonstrating the importance of items, emotions, and identity. With this focus on things, paralleled with the brutalities of war, O’Brien creates a world that is both ephemeral, set in human consciousness and mortality, and tangible, rooted in the items that prove to ground individuals to the world in extreme circumstances. Ultimately, through symbolism and characterization, O’Brien argues that the burdens of life are simultaneously insubstantial and weighty.

Throughout the story “The Things They Carried” the author Tim O’Brien constantly teeter tots on the concept of what is the truth. He contemplates whether it is possible to tell a true war story. Tim creates a story that makes the reader puzzle over what they can perceive as the truth and what is not. I believe that Tim wrote this story to expand upon the purpose of storytelling and to express this thought through a war story. When diving into the chapters “Notes” and “Speaking of Courage” Tim makes a clever use of literature to create a seamless reading that expands the way we understand the content. The seamless fit of the two chapters complement each other and construct a powerful message between them.

Tim O'Brien gives readers a greater understanding of underlying motivations of soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war in his short story "The Things They Carried." He shows the bond the soldiers share and how that bond helps to hide their fear in order to maintain an honorable reputation. He also depicts the soldiers’ common fear of showing weakness and the ways they hide that fear from the other men in order to avoid being judged. He shows how the men of Alpha Company have the principles of masculinity drilled into their minds, and therefore believe that their reputations hinge upon their manliness. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the author uses the brotherhood of the soldiers and the fear of weakness as motivators for the soldiers’ obsession with reputation.

In The Things They Carried, there are many characters that are brought up for a barely a chapter, yet they have significant meanings. Throughout the book there are more than a couple short explained characters. For example, Marry Anne, Kathleen, and El Roy. Mary Anne was described as a pure and wholesome soul who most likely did not belong in this gruesome war.

Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried follows the experiences of O’Brien himself among other American soldiers he fought with throughout the Vietnam War. While he claims that the entire story is a work of fiction, some of the events portrayed throughout the novel did, in fact, actually happen to him and his peers to an extent. The whole novel is not written on a linear timeline, but it rather reads similar to a collection of short stories that all tie together to an extent. While he was in combat, O’Brien saw a wide variety of deaths, but he also managed to bond with the other members of his platoon, each having their own personal experiences and beliefs regarding the war itself among other topics. Although the war gave Tim O’Brien a

America is a country revolved around war. The patriotism of Americans has composed multiple wars since 1775, henceforth we are currently at war with Afghanistan. It is a fact that as years proceed, the views of veterans and society have changed towards the idea of going to war. The vicious wars have not only changed those who fight it, but those who watch it as well. The novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien gives a vivid explanation of how the war, and the experiences of these brave soldiers took place. As we are still at war with Afghanistan since 2001, the comparison and contrast between both wars endure. The 10 year war with Vietnam and the 14 year continuing war with Afghanistan not only compare and contrast with the political

In German it's Krieg, in Latin it's bellun, in Spanish it's Guerra, in English it's War, a no man's land where deception meets chaos and death is no stranger. No matter the era, war has and will always creep up on us. Vietnam was no exception. Like in the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien he clarifies that war is war and regardless how big it is it leaves nothing more than trails of bodies, guilt, and scars for people to live with. As a result of such an experience, it's engraved as a mark on history, but at what cost?

Soldiers carried things that are both physical items and intangible. While they all carry heavy physical loads, they also all carry heavy emotional loads, sadness, horror, love and longing components. Each soldier in the platoon is untrained and has a weak familiarity to the weapons. In the platoon there are soldiers who are childish, careless, and a leader who has no experience how to lead his men. O’Brien is a normal young teenager who goes to school and work; he has a bright future. However, one day

The Things They Carried is a breathtaking and captivating powerful war story memoir, which is beautifully and intensely well written by Tim O Brien. The novel explores the physical and emotional trauma of the Vietnam War and its impact on soldiers fears. The author and protagonist Tim O’ Brien communicates provoking nonlinear narratives or frame stories through his own point of view presenting the audience with a window into the disturbing widespread, endless, and meaningless death, violence, and savagery in war-torn Vietnam. The author cleverly uses different literary devices such as imagery, irony, symbolism, repetition and figurative language to grab the reader’s attention and convey his message and purpose for storytelling. By telling the haunting tragic stories of young soldiers whose lives were largely forgotten by society despite their opposition to the war and to reflect the real gripping emotional truth of what it was like to be a soldier in Vietnam and a veteran suffering from the memories of it. Through O’Brien vivid description of the war, which was such a significant event in American history, he distinguishes the physical, emotional and psychological aspect of war. The characters in the story are depicted memorably and their identities represent the different aspects of human nature and their struggle with guilt and purpose.

In the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, he explores the fine line between reality and fiction. Reality is what really happened. Fiction is fabrication of the situation. Reality is distorted when a situation is serious, emotional, and traumatic. In O'Brien experience, when telling a story from the observer's point of view, the observer unnecessarily adds details to make it more dramatic and animated. Which in turn,the incident changes the story from reality to fiction. The story teller wants the audience to experience what he felt when he experience the event. When the observer highjacks the reality of the story, the audience may not know the facts from the fiction.

“The Things They Carried” is a short verisimilitude story. It was written by Tim O’Brien, who is a Vietnam veteran. He never dreamed it would have been such a captivating and life changing story that it has become. Tim O’Brien introduces us to life during the Vietnam War. He captures the feelings of each soldier as they were in the battle field. We are involved in their dreams, fears, and the ghosts that haunted them. These were some of the things they carried.

Protagonist Tim O’Brien, the author of “The Things They Carried” wrote a collection of interrelated stories all in one novel, who is a middle-aged author, and a veteran of the Vietnam War. The overall purpose of this novel was to remember the past and adding in specific details of what really goes on while at war. This novel is a flashback of the memories of O’Brien’s service in Vietnam. As presented in the novel, The Things They Carried, the main theme mostly portrayed is the physical and emotional burden each soldier has to carry during and after their duties. The “things” they carry is to be taken by figuratively and literally.