Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The Vietnam War began in 1954, consisting of many extensive, horrific years of battle that seemed to create more harm to the United States and its soldiers rather than to North Vietnam. The 500,000 United States military personnel returned home with the loss of the war and the loss of their friends on their minds. Although the physical and emotional experiences that the men went through is unfathomable, Tim O’Brien does a great job portraying what life as a soldier was truly like in the Vietnam War. In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien depicts the unstable emotional and psychological condition of the American soldiers through the symbolism of their belongings and personal anecdotes from their lives.

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.

The story “The Things They Carried” reveals emotional and physical challenges soldiers face during the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien introduces the reader not only to the subject of war and physical exhaustion, but also to human feelings and inner struggle soldiers are going through at this war. Besides the equipment and necessary things, soldiers carried emotions which strengthen their hope of staying alive in order to continue their mission. Tim O’Brien uses female figure, Martha, to create psychological escape which distracts a young soldier, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, from the war. However, such a distraction leads to the death of a group member, Ted Lavender. The illusion of love for Martha and false hopes gradually transform into bitter feeling of guilt and the harsh reality of war. Tim O’Brien masterfully describes Jimmy Cross’ and other soldier’s experience and feelings during

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.

“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.

Tim O'Brien's novel, "The Things They Carried" is based upon a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam, in which as the title hint's at, focuses on the items and more emotional parts of being a soldier. These items range from the essentials of being a solider, ranging from food, water, shovels etc. To the more personal and individualistic items, with examples ranging from the more common, love letters, holding a bible and pictures of loved ones, or to the more "unique" (or odd) items chosen, such as pantyhose, a thumb and even moccasins. Whether or not these items appear weird or generic to us is irrelevant, behind those items is a deep sentimental meaning to that item to that soldier or person, which is exactly what we will be looking into for "The

Vietnam, the heart and soul of teenage rebellion to the government for creating a draft that sent over the creative and intelligent youth, was a war that was deemed to get rid of the political idea, communism, which spread as quick as the napalm that blazed over the serene green landscapes. The narrator to the story, Tim O’Brien, repeatedly recounts memories of the war, each with an added detail or an object that carried a significant amount of weight that makes the story seem more factual than what it seems. The soldiers carried loneliness, uncertainty of the truth of war, and the heavy burden of physical and emotion weight; Tim O'Brien uses war related imagery to symbolize the vim of storytelling in his book “The Things They Carried”.

As Patrick Rothfuss said in the book, The Name of the Wind, “Words can light fires in the eyes of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien uses not only words, but also strategies of language to make the readers feel that they too are interwoven in the fabric of war where O’Brien once found himself, the Vietnam War. His flawless execution of these techniques is so notable that the New York Times called the novel “ . . . A book that matters not only to the reader interested in Vietnam, but to anyone interested in the craft of writing as well.” However, making the most considerable impact is O’Brien’s use of language elements to reveal the universal moral truths about

In the first chapter of The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien makes many references of the weight the soldiers carry with them throughout the war. Perhaps “the heaviest burden of all,” (Horner 260) is the human emotions. The intangible items the soldier carry such as guilt, memories, and fear take much more of toll on the soldiers than the actual army equipment does. However, O’Brien explains in detail how much most of the equipment weighs. Some of the guns they used weighed “14 pounds at maximum,” (O’Brien 5). Although the army equipment has a real weight, the emotions they carry have more of an impact on the soldiers.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, is a series of tales about the war in Vietnam. The stories express the hardships the men of Alpha Company faced while in the war and also their feelings towards this brutal war. Tim O’Brien did a phenomenal job of recreating the scenes of the war in the readers mind, making the reader feel as if they were a member of the company. Not only is this novel telling stories of the Vietnam War, but it also expresses the emotions of pure sadness, fear, and anger of each individual soldier.

The Vietnam War was a brutal and an arguably unwarranted part of our American history during the Cold-War Era. In an attempt to contain Communism, American and Vietcong soldiers, whether they wanted to or not, were subjected to horrible antagonistic violence. Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, retells the traumatizing (and sometimes calm) events of the war from his perspective, hoping to convey the most real feelings and experiences- fictionally. In this work of fiction, O’Brien differentiates between the “happening-truth”- what events took place and “story-truth”- what those events evoke, how those events felt. In this way, story-truth is a different, more humanized understanding of time and of memory. O'Brien's use of story-truth

Finding the Truth Within the Fiction in The Things They CarriedAlthough there are many themes displayed throughout the stories told by Tim O’Brien inThe Things They Carried, none of them will have the intended impact on the audience if theylack the ability to separate the truth from the fiction. Interpreting this truth throughout the novelmay be hard due to the often made-up recollections rather than factual events, which often resultin a lack of respect for the accounts being presented. However, once the reader can comprehendthat not all of the stories are true, yet the emotions always are, a new appreciation for the storieswill be found as well as a deeper comprehension. Tim O’Brien’s recollection of his time spentfighting the war in Vietnam is not always completely truthful, but truth can always be found inthe book through the emotions and morals that come along with his blunt, brutal stories.

Throughout The Things They Carried O’Brien emphasizes that death does not truly mean you are not alive. Although members of Alpha Company experienced fear at some point, showing fear will only reveal vulnerability to both the enemy and sometimes-cruel fellow soldiers. All three short stories share a similar trait, dead guys with big hearts that will never be forgotten.

In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, several stories depicted the emotional and psychological damages towards the American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War taunted several soldiers after the forced draft and long war time memories. O’Brien presents the book as both a war memoir and a personal autobiography retrospectively. His primary motive of reiterating and working through the flashback memories is to find some meaning towards the Vietnam War. Working and reworking through the memories illuminates the raw conditions the American soldiers shared together during the time period.

Essay: In the Novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, the author, writes his texts from a soldier's point of view based during the vietnam war, his text is also metafictional which allows the author to blur the lines between truth and lies. This metafictional basis has allowed the author to write freely about his experiences while at the same time being able to create stories to to provoke the desired response from a reader. The connection I will focus on in this text is the difference between truth and war truth in the texts Spin, The Man I Killed, How to Tell a True War Story and Speaking of Courage. Truth is, as we know it to be, the facts of a situation, it is what’s real and honest regardless of factors.