The audience has the feeling that O'Brian is presenting them with significant and personal stories from his life. This slowly but surely makes readers feel that they too are connected to the war and to the narrator.
It sometimes seems that O'Brian also addresses present day issues in the book, not just happenings from the war. The bond between him and the audience is strengthened through this technique because people become aware that there is not much difference between themselves and the author, given that they too are against immoral wars. People are drawn into O'Brian's game and start to identify with the writer, since the fact that they believe to think similarly to him makes them easier to influence as the book's action progresses. At some point in the book, most readers are liable to abandon any previous convictions they had in regard to the Vietnam ar in order…...
mlaWorks cited
1. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
" (O'rien, Chapter 15, pg. 143)
Norman owker is a disillusioned person because he feels that his service in the war has been meaningless. The quote speaks a lot about what he feels about the people of his town. He has just returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam where he witnessed a lot of bloodshed and violence, which has left deep wounds in his soul. owker has gone through a lot of hardship in the battlefront where he has lost his best friend Kiowa to a mortar attack. The townspeople cannot do anything for him because they don't have the memories of the war he has. They have not experienced what he has seen out there. He feels tortured inside because he is unable to share the trauma of his war experience with anyone. At the same time it's impossible for him to erase the horrifying memories on the…...
mlaBibliography
1. Beidler, Philip D. American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam.
Athens: U. Of Georgia P, 1982.
2. Lyons, Gene. "No More Bugles, No More Drums." Entertainment Weekly 23 Feb.
1990: 50-52.
I can make myself feel again (O'rien, p. 180).
And, through story truth, what the story is able to do for O'rien, it becomes able also to do for the reader.
In "The Lives of the Dead," O'rien further elaborates on his need for stories universally. Through make-believe -- imagination, stories, fiction -- O'rien finds that he can not only resurrect the dead but also lay a barrier between himself and death. His response to the death of Linda is a retreat into imagination, just as the response of the soldiers of Alpha Company to the corpse of the old man by the pig pen is to engage in an elaborate game of make-believe: "It was more than mockery" (O'rien, p.227). O'rien's distress as the bizarre ritual unfolds is related to his inability to participate in the imaginative fiction occurring, through which the other soldiers cope. "It was my fourth day,…...
mlaBibliography
1. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Random House, 1990. Print.
2. SparkNotes Editors. "SparkNote on the Things They Carried." SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 6 May 2010.
Hence, we need to learn from the experience of our veterans. Perhaps the greatest lesson is already evident in our clear distinction that is made as a society that we can disagree with the ideology behind the war, but support the man or woman in uniform. Additionally, if the emotional toll and the economic costs of PTSD after Vietnam teaches us anything, it is that perhaps that the military's means of training and supporting our soldiers for the brutality and inhumanity of war is not sufficient. We ask our soldiers to do the unthinkable; thus, every effort must be made to not only heal their physical wounds upon their return, but to heal the emotional wounds that linger as well so that in the future, papers written about the Iraq and Afghanistan veteran will reflect that we learned from Vietnam and such lessons benefitted today's brave young men and…...
mlaBibliography
"Agent Orange: Information about Agent Orange, possible health problems, and related VA benefits." In United States Department of Veterans Affairs: Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards, / (accessed April 21, 2010).http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange
Berger, MD, Fred K. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." In National Institute of Health, (accessed April 21, 2010).http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000925.htm
Boulanger, C., and C. Kadushin. "The Vietnam Veteran Redefined: Fact and Fic-tion." Postservice Mortal-ity (1986). Lawrence Erlbaum Boyle: Hillsdale, NJ.
Cromie, William J. "Mental casualties of Vietnam War persist." Harvard Gazette Journal Archives (August 17, 2006). President and Fellows of Harvard College (accessed April 19, 2010).
Things They Carried and in the Field
The novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is an episodic account of Alpha Company, a platoon of American soldiers and their experiences during the Vietnam conflict. e will focus on two chapters of the book, "The Things They Carried," and "In the Field." These are the only chapters in the book that are told from an omniscient point-of-view. Both of these chapters evoke the horrendous fear, sadness, stress, chaos, loneliness, and uncertainty of one's future brought on by active combat.
In the first chapter, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien works to bring order and comprehension into a chaotic and incomprehensible situation by spotlighting the burdens, both physical such as photographs, rations, weapons and their weights and so forth as well as the less tangible such as their memories, hopes, guilt, and stories. This device works well to give the reader an understanding…...
mlaWorks Cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Print.
W.B. Yeats' poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death illustrates the close proximity life shares with death much like The Things They Carried. Yeats' poem is brief and in the first person describes an Irish military man explaining his decision to fight in a war in which he foresees his inevitable death. This relates to O'Brien's short story in that both protagonists understand their life is near an end due to war and both recognize the relationship death and life have. The two pieces of literature do have some contrasting aspects though. For one, though it is labeled as fiction, The Things They Carried is largely based on real events from O'Brien's war years. Yeats' poem on the other hand, was inspired by Major Gregory, an Irish pilot who served in WWI. Ironically, O'Brien's almost autobiographical work is written in third person and Yeats' inspired poem is in first person.…...
1). The character in the novel/author 'Tim' never believed in the cause of the Vietnam ar, and nearly fled to Canada to avoid serving. That decision to servie affected him in an unalterable fashion, and O'Brien's recounts the story of Vietnam to himself, in both truthful and fanciful ways, to make sense of his experience. Yet every re-telling removes him farther and farther away from the realities of the experience, and father and farther away from the truth he is seeking to convey to the reader.
orks Cited
Fox, ade. "The Things They Carried." hole Earth Review. Fall 1995. FindArticles.com.
December 6, 2010.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n86/ai_17461953/
O'Brien, Tim. Going after Cacciato. New York: Broadway, 1999.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Mariner, 2009.
Peschel, Joseph. "Tim O'Brien's the Things They Carried, released in 20th anniversary edition, renews war's ambiguity." The ashington Post. March 2010. December 6, 2010.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/03/tim_obriens_the_things_they_ca.html
Timmerman, John H. "Tim O'Brien and the Art of the True…...
mlaWorks Cited
Fox, Wade. "The Things They Carried." Whole Earth Review. Fall 1995. FindArticles.com.
December 6, 2010.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n86/ai_17461953/
O'Brien, Tim. Going after Cacciato. New York: Broadway, 1999.
Things They Carried is known as the novel and also as a book containing stories which are interrelated to each other. Written by Tim O'Brien, the book is considered to be a book representing complex ideas and perspectives hence presenting a complex variety of literary cultures. The writer puts forward in front of his readers a very interesting memoir in front of his readers and at the same time also presents writers biography wrapped in one. He makes the reading experience interesting by creating a fictional hero who adopts the writers name and narrates the story. To completely understand and appreciate this literary masterpiece it is important to understand that even though the events in the book might be true but it still stands as an aspiration hence it is a pure work of fiction rather than a non-fictional, historic account of events.
The hero or the story narrator in…...
mlaReferences
Bonn, Maria S., "Can Stories Save Us? Tim O'Brien and the Efficacy of the Text," in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 36, No. 1, Fall, 1994, pp. 2-14.
Coffey, Michael, An Interview with Tim O'Brien in Publishers Weekly, February 16, 1990.
Harris, Robert R., "Too Embarrassed Not to Kill: A review of The Things They Carried," in New York Times Book Review, March 11, 1990, p. 8.
Karnow, Stanley, Vietnam: A History, New York: Viking Press, 1983
It is very difficult to reach a conclusion regarding "The Things They Carried" and the purpose for which O'Brien wrote it. hile a first look on the collection of books is probable to provide someone with the feeling that it is easy to read and does not involve a lot of strong feelings, the truth is that this is what the writer intended it to look like. Not only is this more than a collection of stories, as it is actually very similar to a novel containing deep psychological ideas meant to have a strong effect on virtually anyone reading it.
All things considered, most readers coming across the collection of stories are probable to agree with O'Brien in thinking that war is not only damaging because of the physical damage it causes, as it is also destructive from a psychological point-of-view. Moreover, the number of victims is even greater when…...
mlaWorks cited:
Colella, Jill, "CliffsNotes on O'Brien's the Things They Carried," (John Wiley & Sons, 18.05.2011)
Greasley, Philip, a., "Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume 1: The Authors," (Indiana University Press, 30.05.2001)
McNally, John, "The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist," (University of Iowa Press, 15.04.2010)
O'Brien, Tim, "The Things They Carried," (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 13.10.2009)
Tim O'Brien's the Things They Carried
The most shocking aspects of the novel, The Things They Carried, are the graphic descriptions and the striking honesty with which Tim O'Brien employs to describe the devastating effects of war. Several stories are written with an honesty that reveals the horrors of war as well as the frailty of the human spirit. The most moving of these stories are "The Man I Killed" and "The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong."
Perhaps one of the most shocking stories is "The Man I Killed." This story is written in first person narrative and the most compelling aspect of the story is the fact that the narrator never speaks. This effect emphasizes the shock of killing someone, even if it is an act of self-defense. The narrator cannot takes his eyes off of the enemy soldier. For instance, the beginning of the story describes "His jaw was in…...
mlaWorks Cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books. 1990.
Mary Anne becomes obsessed with the war in a strange way. It is as if she sees another kind of life that is so radically different than her own that it consumes her. She seems to be so sweet and innocent at the beginning of the story and at the end she is like an animal that She adopt the Green Beret way of life and becomes one of them in just a few days. She states, "I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark -- I'm on fire almost -- I'm burning away into nothing -- but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am" (121). Mary Anne's change was one that made me think of the war in a way that I never had before because I had never thought of the rituals of war becoming something that someone could become obsessed with…...
mlaWorks Cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books. 1990.
psychological consequences of war, of fighting in a war, of eating and sleeping in a "war zone," are not merely limited to the implications of witnessing and partaking in death; war deeply influences the mental attitudes of those involved because of the organizational framework of power and authority that soldiers are subject to. The common assumption is that soldiers' troubles coping with war are somehow linked to the extraordinary violence that conflict entails. However, significant trauma often stems from the apparently irrational framework soldiers are asked to operate under. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien reflects the fact that the lens through which soldiers view war -- as they are in it and afterwards -- is necessarily attuned to the way in which the military is structured; its seeming randomness and often nonsensical consequences are not overlooked by the individual soldier, and contribute to his fundamental…...
mlaWork Cited:
1. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1990.
O'Brien illustrates the wide array of emotions experienced during war with "Ambush" and "The Man I Killed." Emotions and perspectives of war and death change with exposure to war and death. In "Ambush," war and death seem casual as the speaker tells us how the sees the young man walking and pills the pin on the grenade because he was afraid. He writes, "I did not hate the young man: I did not see him as the enemy" (132). The image before him on the trail is something vague, like a part of the morning fog but the soldier's instincts kick in before he has time to think. He kills the man without even thinking about it because he was "afraid of something" (131). In "The Man I Killed," the death of the enemy is suffocating because it is so shocking. To have killed a man is more than the…...
Kiowa's death also evokes the notion that for the U.S. Vietnam was a quagmire; his drowning functions almost emblematically to suggest America's deepening entanglement in Southeast Asia. 'This field,' O'Brien writes, 'had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam'" (Neilson 193).
The entire book is an antiwar message, and it continues in the chapters and memories where O'Brien follows the men home after the war.
The Chapter "Notes" follows Norman Bowker, one of O'Brien's fellow soldiers who felt especially responsible for Kiowa's death. After he returns to the United Sates after he was discharged, he continues to write to O'Brien, telling him of his life back home. It is a life that he feels he no longer fits. O'Brien writes, "I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war" (O'Brien 155). This was a problem with many…...
mlaReferences
Adams, Leslie Kennedy. "5 Fragmentation in American and Vietnamese War Fiction." America's Wars in Asia: A Cultural Approach to History and Memory. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. 84-96.
Calloway, Catherine. "How to Tell a True War Story: Metafiction in the Things They Carried." Critique 36.4 (1995): 249-257.
Neilson, Jim. Warring Fictions: American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Tim O'Brien's the Things They Carried
In his book, The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien is allowing the reader to see the negative effects war has on people, especially on soldiers. Through a variety of short stories focused primarily on the Vietnam war, O'Brien illustrates the horror of war through exquisite detail of the violent nature that each soldier seemed to have adopted as time went on in Vietnam. By focusing not only on the physical things the men carried, but also on the intangible things, the reader can easily relate to the emotional cost of an ambiguous war. O'Brien paints a compelling picture of the gruesome side of war and how it cripples the human psyche, as well as delivering a convincing antiwar statement as a result of such an experience.
The violence that seems to become embedded in the soldiers is a major topic in O'Brien's novel. Through elaborate details…...
mlaWorks Cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway. 1998.
1. The Weight of War: Exploring the Burden of Physical and Emotional Baggage in 'The Things They Carried'
2. Carrying Memories: How Objects Shape Identity in Tim O'Brien's Novel
3. The Power of Symbolism: Examining the Significance of the Items Carried in 'The Things They Carried'
4. Packing for Survival: Strategies for Coping with Trauma in a War Zone
5. Unpacking the Truth: Fictionalized Narratives and Historical Realities in 'The Things They Carried'
6. The Ultimate Sacrifice: Understanding the Cost of Carrying the Weight of War
7. Object Lessons: Analyzing the Role of Keepsakes in Memory and Meaning-Making in 'The Things They Carried'
8. Carrying the Past:....
The Weight of Memory and War: An Exploration of "The Things They Carried"
This title conveys the central themes of the essay, namely the psychological and emotional burden that soldiers carry during wartime and the lasting impact of these experiences.
Deconstructing the Burden: An Analysis of the Things They Carried
This title highlights the analytical approach of the essay, focusing on the specific objects and their symbolic significance in understanding the soldiers' experiences.
The Weight of War: The Things They Carried as a Metaphor for Trauma
This title emphasizes the broader implications of the soldiers' experiences, suggesting that the physical objects they carried represent the....
Literary Analysis and Criticism
The Power of Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter: Explore the significance of the scarlet letter as a potent symbol of sin, shame, and redemption. Analyze how Hawthorne uses it to develop the characters' struggles and the novel's themes.
The Complexity of Hamlet's Character: Delve into the enigmatic character of Hamlet, examining his introspective nature, indecisiveness, and tragic flaw. Discuss his motivations and actions in light of Shakespeare's play.
The Feminist Critique of Jane Eyre: Examine the novel through a feminist lens, analyzing the portrayal of gender roles, female empowerment, and domesticity. Discuss the significance of Jane's....
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