In The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien constructs a seemingly autobiographical yet ostensibly fictional story of the war in Vietnam and its effects on a platoon of American soldiers. O’Brien’s inclusion of fact within fiction strengthens the rhetoric of the individual stories in The Things They Carried while leaving readers to question the overall truthfulness and validity of the stories. The members of the American platoon also question plausibility when struggling to grasp the credibility of Rat Kiley’s story of his first assignment near the Song Tra Bong river. Kiley describes his time in the Chu Liu mountains when a young medic named Mark Fossie decides to bring a girl named Mary Anne to the camp to demonstrate the camp’s lack of safety. …show more content…
Although captivating, many aspects of Kiley’s story stand out as implausible to the members of the platoon and to the readers of O’Brien’s book. Although bizarre and fantastical in nature, Kiley’s story is not less compelling as a result. The implausible aspects of Kiley’s story actually increase the story’s allure by imparting readers and listeners with an indecision about the story’s plausibility, thus increasing the readers’ interests. For instance, Mitchell Sanders says, “The sound. You need to get a consistent sound, like slow or fast, funny or sad. All these digressions, they just screw up your story's sound. Stick to what happened” (O’Brien 102). Sanders’ interest in the story shows the irrelevance of truth in relation to the story’s
The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a collection of stories from the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien was drafted into the war in 1968 and remained there until 1970 (“The Things They Carried”, N.d.). Kiowa is a Native American and he is gentle and peaceful. He discourages excessive violence but understands difficult decisions of war may not always please his gentle nature. Even though Kiowa strongly opposes excessive violence he later finds his platoon under attack and tragically loses his life fighting for a war he did not fully agree with.
In Tim O’brien’s short story, “The Things They Carried,” O’brien explains more than just what people face at war. O’Brien gives detail of each burden, struggle, and memory each soldier carries into the war. He describes of a battle more destructive than a war filled with guns, bombs, and knives. He describes of a mind battle, one in which is the hardest any man can face. A mind battle controls your every decision.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the reader receives insight as to what soldiers experienced during the Vietnam War and what thoughts consumed their minds in those times of hardship and heartache. As Americans, we typically picture military men and women as emotionally and physically strong, while in reality, that may not be the case. They deal with more emotional and physical trauma than we come to understand. People who carry physical or emotional burdens tend to seek some kind of release or do something to feel relieved of their burdens. O’Brien uses stories about the men in his platoon to depict how soldiers are bound by their own emotional weights, and each have a different way of trying to release themselves from those tensions.
Tim O’Brien, author of “The Things They Carried”, tells a war tale which contains no heroes because his story showcases the blunt reality of war. Many men, in the past, did not go to war to become heroes; rather they were forced to enlist because of the military draft or because they felt cowardly due to the expectations of society. Tim O’Brien chose to share his story because he wanted non-military civilians to learn the truth about war; the realistic side of war that the news and Hollywood films won’t show you. War is hell; it is painful, traumatizing, and completely life changing, to say the least. In my opinion, O’Brien gives readers an inside look and understanding of how there are no heroes of war, because fighting for a cause that
“How to Tell a True War Story” and “Ambush” are stories that both explore on topics: truth, the real definition of a true war story, and the role of truth. O 'Brien starts off “How to Tell a True War Story” with “This is true.” Starting this story with such a bold sentence not only makes it seem more true, but to some extent, it acts as a comfort statement to the narrator’s own doubts, as if there were unspeakable uncertainties and lies of the narrator. The title of this story also comes into play, with a meta-fictional name “How to Tell a True War Story”, as if it were a guide, a manual, having a true war story tell the readers how to tell a true war story. However ironically, towards the middle of the story, us as
After reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, it is astoundingly clear that truth plays an essential role in the story’s overall meaning and portrayal as an authentic Vietnam War story. In this complex narrative, the topic of truth has been interpreted in many specific and intricate ways. Many interpret his usage of truth similarly to one another, stating how “war inevitably imposes a compromised version of the interpretation of a genuine experience”, causing O’Brien to project altered truths so the experience can truly connect and express its true state (Wesley 2). This common trend seen in these authors’ coverage of truth is that they examine the synthesized, story truth that Tim O’Brien utilized in his story aimed to better emphasize
In his novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien aims to convey his experience fighting in the Vietnam War. This subject is very difficult to write about, because many readers have never gone through anything like this – O’Brien is showing them a world that seems completely foreign. Throughout the novel, he portrays people from different backgrounds, all of them deeply human, living through and contributing to something that goes against the very foundations of humanity. In order to be able to convey this disparity, he needs to use every tool available to him, including bending the truth.
O’Brien shares his thoughts on what makes a “true war story” which is very interesting. Overall, O’Brien induces thought and feeling through the interesting medium of stories and language. The way O’Brien describes stories and
As O’Brien narrates his novel with these imaginative stories, he implements a series of deeper meanings behind every story, telling another story or truth beyond the initial story. “As a result, the stories become epistemological tools, multidimensional windows through which the war, the world, and the ways of telling a war story can be viewed from many different angles and visions” (Calloway, 249-250). O’Brien’s stories become differentiation between justified truth or opinion and create multiple perspectives to engage the reader into a process of imagination to determine what is true. As O’Brien carries out the novel, it doesn’t center around a “true war story” or “historical document,” but combines the concepts of fact and fiction in order to distinguish what is true and what it means for a story to be declared true or not, as well as the relevance of a story being told. “If the epigraph reads like an attempt to authorize the fiction in order to write history, O’Brien’s narrator also makes liberal use of history to develop and organize the fiction” (Silbergleid, 129).
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.
What seems to happen becomes its own happening… The angles of vision are skewed" (68). Comparably The Things They Carried is written in this fashion. Each of the characters such as Curt Lemon, or Rat Kiley are killed and then later introduced, or the narrator undercuts the truth that had only just began to be trusted, as in the case of Norman Bowker's suicide. A true war story is differentiable because of " the way it never seems to end.
“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (83). The theme of “happening-truth” versus “story-truth” is a constant opposition Tim O’Brien uses to convey his “true war story” to his audience. Many times in the book The Things They Carried, O’Brien lies to the reader to attempt to give the reader realistic events, so they can relate to the emotions O’Brien felt during the Vietnam war. O’Brien makes it clear in the chapter “Field Trip” that a person who has not been to war cannot comprehend what it was like. He uses a fictional character, Kathleen, to be a stand in for the reader; she is innocent and free from the burden of serving in wartime.
Throughout the book The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien shares a variety of short story-like stories that draw the reader into the Vietnam War. More closely in his short story titled “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien dives deeper into the thoughts and actions of a character version of himself. In the story, Tim O’Brien, the character, receives a draft notice for the Vietnam War. This is important because Tim O’Brien, the author, further develops the character O’Brien by allowing the reader to enter into this thoughts and feelings. Instead of the reader assuming how O’Brien feels upon receiving the draft notice, he/she finds out first-hand how he truly feels.
Imagine being drafted to move thousands of miles away from the life you love to fight a war you hated. This is the unfortunate reality for Tim O’Brien In The Things They Carried. O’Brien explains his experiences of war in Vietnam, what it took to get him there, and his relationships with the other men in his platoon. He portrays guilt and pride through storytelling and intertwines the two by showing how the men often feel guilty for the actions they pursue or decisions they make based on their pride.
In Tim O’Brien’s aptly named story, “The Things They Carried,” detailed lists of items carried by each of the characters are presented to the reader. Each character carries varying physical and emotional burdens on their shoulders as they march through the jungles of Vietnam. The technique of listing the things they carried is an excellent use of characterization and gives the reader an in-depth understanding of each individual which, in return, allows O’Brien to achieve a connection between his characters and his audience. The list of internal and external burdens carried by the extensive cast of characters acts as a form of characterization.