Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Literary Analysis

O’Brien is not trying to give the readers a story of war; he wants to give an accurate telling of particular stories, teaching readers the truths and lies to a story, and finally the way people fail to accept the truth and decide to take a lie, no matter how accurate the story

The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien tells a thrilling stories of the vietnam war. The Things They Carried is a non linear book so it is a mix bag of stories at different times of O’brien’s life but they all relate back to the war in some way. O’ Brien used social obligation and shame and guilt to tell these stories.

“The Thing They Carried” by Tim O’Brien In the war novel “The Thing They Carry”, by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien open up his mind going down memories and stories he experience in the horrifying Vietnam war in 1950s-1980s. He used the signpost memory moment of truths and lies to reveal the burden of the war. Truth is what the soldier in the war, memories remember about, does whose location are unknown and what happens to them. Lies is everything that the soldiers can’t reveal to the public not just about the war but how they feel, damage which took place.

In 1990, Tim O’Brien published a powerful collection of short stories that was carefully composed into the novel, The Things They Carried. This novel has allowed many readers to gain insight on the appalling, yet realistic aspects of the Vietnam War that are otherwise not typically shared. O’Brien takes specific events from his own war life and applies them to stories in which various characters learn lessons on integrity, politics, rationality, life, and love. Without a doubt, O’Brien tackles difficult themes regarding life at war that allows others to feel the pain and horror that the characters are experiencing. Beyond the plethora of the themes shared, O’Brien specifically emphasizes how difficult situations can test the strength of love

Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

The stories capture real life events of happenings on the battlefield and beyond but the author intentionally opts to portray the book as fictional rather than reality. In essence he justifies himself by claiming that it was difficult to account all these events especially after twenty years after the war. Furthermore, the characters in the book, his fellow soldiers contribute a lot to the stories within the book and the author isn’t sure that all the stories that they shared were genuinely true or were mere fairytales. The author successfully

Synthesis Essay In the Vietnam war, there were many soldiers at war with each other, and most soldiers were not prepared for the fight. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien was in the Vietnam war when he was young. The book was not in order but he still talks about his experiences while in the war. His purpose for writing this novel was because he wanted younger audience to know what happened in the war and what the soldiers experienced.

He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.

Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

Cross’ overall experience with Martha and the soldiers? The Vietnam War was one of the most unpredictable and controversial wars that the United States had fought in. Due to the unfamiliar jungle environment, there were many casualties and horrifying experiences. Many people were getting anxious about the war and wanted the soldiers to return.

Tim O’Brien and Chris Kyle both use literary devices to contrast two different ideas of war. “There’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean.

In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

In the story, The Things They Carried, in the chapter, Spin, Tim O’Brien wrote the quote “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity when memory is erased when there is nothing to remember except the story.” In this quote, O’Brien uses a rhetorical device called, Anaphora. Interpreting the meaning is not always exactly what the original meaning is.

Why Is Telling A True War Story Hard Lots of stories are hard to comprehend because they’re more brutal and traumatic for listeners, even the story-teller. In three stories: “The Man I Killed”, “How To Tell A True War Story”, and “Speaking of Courage”, Tim O’Brien showed how changing certain parts of a story and making them graceful, can make them easier to comprehend. However sometimes telling the story the way it was makes it brutal and gruesome, though some listeners prefer that over gracefulness.