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.
Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carry,” tells a story about the lives of young men during war. The narrator tells his story from first person, marking all of his adventures and experiences of his companions. O’Brien crafts his piece through the use of repetition, symbolism, and metaphors to convey the idea of physical and psychological hardships of soldiers during war. Though the literary device of repetition, O'Brien portrays the physical and psychological hardships of a soldier.
Combat is one of those incidents, where the best and the worst of people will be shown. The effects from combat could last minutes to a lifetime and will define people for the rest of their lives. To overcome the effects, people must have coping mechanisms. In the book, The Things They Carried, a platoon of soldiers is followed in their quest to survive the Vietnam War. The soldiers developed coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they can function normally and survive the war.
In the book, The Things They Carried written by Tim O’brien, after effects of war are one of the main themes. Not everyone makes it out of war alive and most who do come home never go back to who they were. The Things They Carried is a novel about the Vietnam war. This novel shows different soldiers' experiences but is narrated by Tim O’Brien and mainly talks about his experience with the war. In this novel, it touches the effect war has on soldiers during the war and how death was dealt with differently.
In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, who also narrates through the perspective of Lt’ Cross’s state of mind, describes what it is like to endure the trials of the Vietnam War. Tim receives his draft notice in June of 1968, and contemplates crossing the Canadian border to escape fighting in a war he does not believe in. Guilt and fear took over Tim and he decided he has no choice but to go back to Minnesota and then later to Vietnam. He is but one of many different characters with many different thoughts, motives, and feelings, but also have one thing in common; they all carried with them something that held value to them. For some it was a physical object that the can hold or see, and for others it might have been a mental state of mind, a belief or even a superstition;
In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien, the author conveys the theme that the burdens of war last a lifetime through the use of the literary element Characterization. The author conveys the theme primarily through the use of characterization. One example of this is on page 131 of the chapter entitled Ambush in which Tim O’Brien states, “When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had killed anyone… It was a difficult moment but I did what I thought was right, which was to say, ‘Of course not,’ and then take her into my lap and hold her for a while.”
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.
The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.
The Things They Carried “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story set during the Vietnam War. In the story, O’Brien lists many different items soldiers in the Alpha Company carried with them as they humped across the rugged terrain. Many carried necessities such as rations, matches, ammunition and things of that nature; however, many soldiers also carried quite peculiar objects such as condoms, pantyhose, and M&Ms. Readers can grasp a closer insight of the characters’ lives after further examination of the symbolism and meaning of the things they carried.
Challenges at War Robert E. Lee once said, “What a cruel thing war is… to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors”. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien takes place in Vietnam. He and a handful of other men experience things only one can image and hope they will never have to experience again. They learn how death among them can greatly affect them, and many others. War is not an easy task to get through and these men all had different coping methods.
Entry 1 In the first chapter titled “The Things They Carried,” the author said that they carried the physical items like ponchos and ammunition, but what resonated with me was how he described the intangible things that each of them carried. They carry the life that they left back in the United States. I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave the life that’s lived for eighteen years to fight for something that’s not even clearly understood.
Numerous scenes in the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, are riddled with violence. Those horrid scenes shape the themes of a heightened mental state and revenge. The actions of the Alpha Company are driven by emotion and stress. These issues create great problems for the Company, stripping them of their civilized societal standards and leaving only natural human instinct.
During the Vietnam War the soldiers, whether or not they wanted to be there, many of them developed mental illnesses. The things they would experience would cause burdens on them for the rest of their lives. “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April.” (The Things They Carried) Lavender carried tranquilizers until he died, because he was scared.
“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.
