Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

“The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed” (O’Brien 68). In Tim O'Brien's’ novel, The Things They Carried, the author creates an overall reflection of war and the memories that come from the experiences. O’Brien describes his experiences in the Vietnam War and how the outcomes can lead to PTSD. Soldiers can not possibly capture these experiences in literal truth, but by storytelling. Tim kills an enemy and feels the guilt from it, so he makes up a backstory for

In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt, and will deal with his past. In war, a way to

The war of Vietnam played a significant role in Tim O’Brien’s life throughout his works and experiences. He was drafted to the Vietnam war after graduating college in 1968 where he served two years. O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried after returning from the war as a way to clear off his mind from the experiences he went through. In the novel he constructed many memories that may or may not be true, but are told using imagination as a guide to explore the mind of the readers. O’Brien used his novel to liberate his many occurrences he faced and dealt with throughout his journey. In an interview with Michael Coffey on Patrick Smith’s article O’Brien states, “My goal was to write something utterly convincing but without any rules as to what’s real and made up…” (97). Tim O’Brien uses imagination to establish a therapy within his writing as a way to cope with reality based on his war transition, allusions, and stories to save him.

Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried is a riveting war story that has the power to evoke emotion from the coldest soul; O’Brien depicts graphic events from his time served in the Vietnam war. From death to drugs, O’Brien’s seen it all. On pages 57-61, O’Brien is at a crossroads; he is debating on whether or not he should fight in the Vietnam War. At this point in the novel, O’Brien quits his job, leaves his conventional life behind and flees to northern Minnesota. Towards the end of his trip, O’Brien goes fishing with the lodge owner; this is where he makes his emotional decision to go to war. O’Brien’s powerful word choice, use of imagery, and oxymoron work in conjunction to develop a somber mood.

Tim O’Brien uses literary devices such as Imagery and repetition to show how conflict affects humanity. It changed the way they think to care for what they have and the time they have with the people they care for. In the book it says “And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about special way thar dawn spreads out on a river when you must cross the river and march into the mountain and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen” (81). It’s telling us that you should care for what you have and the memories and the sorrows.

“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.

Very few authors who write fictional stories decide to mix fact with fiction to demonstrate certain ideas, however that is exactly what author Tim O’Brien does in the book The Things They Carried, to demonstrate what these soldiers had carried in the Vietnam War and after the war.

He follows the same seven-mile loop around the lake in his hometown day after day because he can’t think of a place to go. Tim O’Brien later receives a letter from Norman in which he writes, “The thing is, there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam. Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him” (O’Brien 150). Norman couldn’t find a meaningful use for his life after the war which caused him to take his own life. I believe the struggles Norman faced in his life after war exemplifies what actual soldiers went through after coming home. During the Vietnam War, atrocities such as rape and abuse were often committed against women of war. For many women, the challenges they faced during the war brought upon them physical and mental distress that has been evident for the past four decades. As stated in the article “Civilian Women at War:Psychological Impact Decades After The Vietnam War”, “Little is know about how these women made sense of their experiences both in a war zone and returning to a hostile society over a lifetime, the long-term impact on their mental well-being, or how

These stories are a form of his emotions and thoughts that he can’t express to others. Furthermore, the stories I feel also help him deal with the PTSD instead of runaway from it . But in the case of Norman Bowker could’nt. Tim stated that Norman “ At one point he had enrolled in junior college in his hometown, but the course work, he said, seemed too abstract, too distant, with nothing real or tangible at stake, certainly not the stakes of a war.”(156) From this I could see that sadly Norman Bowker was living the war even when the war was over. He should’nt have to feel that he doesn't deserve a life that is outside of war. And the reason I feel that he feels this way is that there is no one who he can talk to because they don’t understand but

“The only certain thing during the Vietnam War was that nothing was certain” the war the soldiers were going into was uncertain, the country was unknown full of jungles and diseases waiting to infect, and most of them felt uncertain that the United States should even be in the war since it was a war of politics to eliminate the worlds influence of communism (Kaplan). Of all the uncertainty, the only thing real to the soldiers was imagination; imagination became reality. “Imagination was a killer,” imagination caused the death of Ted Lavender from his drugs that departs him from reality, the burning of Martha’s uncertain love, and stricken fear into the soldiers (O’ Brien 235). Elizabeth Piedmont-Marton phrases fear as “infinitely heavy with the weighed fear,” and this fear caused a prolonged salvation. They needed to be saved from the god forsaken war and country that was out to kill them with each and every step they took into the jungle. Johnathan Tran believes that stories, “relives the lives of dead people.” O’ Brien goes on to mention a childhood memory of his nine year old friend named Linda who was bullied, and O’ Brien had no confidence to stand up to her bully and her torment right then and there. She died of cancer shortly after. But for O’Brien, she lives on to stay in his memories to be brought back to life in the power of his stories of her (Tran). The power of salvation from stories are derived from forgiveness, and to tell a story of someone that is to employ good feelings and thoughts of them. One of the objects carried by the soldiers that is infinite in abundance is the amount of stories to be told and the amount of power from these

The Vietnam War began in 1955 and ended in 1976. The North Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Congress fought against France and then America, and eventually against South Vietnam to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, he tells some of his experiences during the Vietnam War. During the war, he learns that it’s not only the violence that makes war such a dreaded experience, but the intangible weight that each soldier carries.

For most soldiers, war is so mentally damaging that it is very difficult for them to get back into a normal routine after coming home. In Tim O 'brien 's “The Things They Carried”, it becomes very apparent that the Vietnam conflict has proved to be one that many participants have not been able move away from when trying to get on with their lives. In the chapter “Speaking of Courage”, O 'Brien introduces a character by the name of Norman Bowker, who is home after serving his time in Vietnam. Even though he is back home, things do not seem the same to him. The war seems to have put a new spin on his life and the memories he holds from the war are almost unbearable. Most of the story he spends driving in circles while thinking about the war and his lack of place in

Although he later admits to not personally killing him, this story is more real and truer to O’Brien himself than the former. Throughout this story he does not give procedural event details, yet he spends the majority of the chapter imagining and creating the detailed life of a dead Vietcong soldier who’s body was seen near My Khe. He gives him a story, humanizing the man as an attempt to honor his life. O’Brien does not speak dialogue for the entire story, despite Kiowa’s gentle reassurance, instead he is writing the story of the soldier, from the details of his face to the intricacies of his family. O’Brien determines that, “The young man would not have wanted to be a soldier and in his heart feared performing badly in battle” (127). O’Brien so badly wants to give a reason for this trauma, but that’s war: dead bodies for no reason. He feels the heavy weight of responsibility for being a part of this war and offers to share his story to keep the man alive. O’Brien relates deeply to him because they are both out there together. Through story, O’Brien offers us as readers the real truth; what it really feels like to be a soldier in the jungle seeing dead soldiers as opposed to reading

O’Brien writes the novel to look at select experiences, not the Vietnam War as a whole. The reader looks at the novel on a person by person basis, one being the event of looking for Kiowa’s body. This experience is a break from the political side of war, a thing they do for themselves or their friend rather than for their country. There are three perspectives when looking for Kiowa’s body. Lieutenant Cross, an unnamed soldier, and the rest of the troop each have their own perception.

O’Brien gains a new perspective on his experiences in Vietnam when he thinks about how he should relay the story of the man he killed to his impressionable young daughter.