Wounds Endured in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien wrote a collection of related short stories titled The Things They Carried, that follows a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War and when they return to their homes. Throughout the novel, O’Brien uses real names and includes himself, as the protagonist, to create a style that ebbs and flows from fiction to non-fiction without realization. According to Kathleen Laura MacArthur, it is “through this process and these stylistic innovations, the reader might then experience this

In the book The Things They Carried, Martha plays a crucial role in Tim O’Brien’s portrayal of the Vietnam war. Despite the fact that his work is nearly consumed by the men in the Alpha Company, Martha completes O’Brien’s masterpiece by portraying contrasting themes such as, love and separation, danger and focus, and the tension between reality and fantasy. Though the focus of this novel is Tim's personal experience in the war, Martha makes a critical contribution. The motif of Love is represented

In The Things They Carried, O’Brien shows the effects that war can have on a person by showing different results on multiple characters. It is very clear that one main theme expressed throughout the novel is the psychological effects that resulted from the hardships that they endured while in Vietnam. This can be inferred by the changes that each character encounters after their experiences while at war. War is an experience that changes people drastically. Throughout the novel O’Brien is continuously

Penned during two distinctly disparate eras in American military history, both Erich Maria Remarque's bleak account of trench warfare during World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Tim O'Brien's haunting elegy for a generation lost in the jungles of Vietnam, The Man I Killed, present readers with a stark reminder that beneath the veneer of glorious battle lies only suffering and death. Both authors imbue their work with a grim severity, presenting the reality of war as it truly exists. Men

E SSAYS ON TWENTIETH-C ENTURY H ISTORY In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig Also in this series: Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life Lisa M. Fine, The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. Van Gosse and Richard Moser, eds., The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture in