In The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien is successful in addressing essential details about emotional life of soldiers during the Vietnam War instead of historically recorded facts. O’Brien tends to focus profusely more on the emotional impact on each aspect of the war. He certainly does not focus on the historical events or facts. The premise of the novel regards the soldiers, nothing in this novel is entirely factual, as it was comprised of mostly emotional anecdotes and personal stories of those soldiers. Because the focus of his work of literature is not the premise of historical fact, he has no obligation to convey the pure truth in contrast to adjusting the facts to appeal to his preferred focus, the emotional aspect of the war. O’Brien achieves this intense emotional appeal with the use of vivid details, as well as …show more content…
O’Brien sets a focus more on the emotional impact the war has overall. He practically voids the notion of addressing historical events or facts. Nothing in the novel was ever told in complete truth. It primarily consisted of sentimental stories and intriguing anecdotes of the soldiers. O’Brien attains this powerful emotional appeal through the usage of vivid details such as imagery, character development, and accentuates the impact that the war had on it’s soldiers. He never focused on the facts or what had actually happened during the war, typically emphasizing the experience of the war, the experience of the soldiers. The storytelling and the emotion felt in and out of the anecdotes were always the prioritized focus, not the historical facts. Throughout the entire novel, his audience is constantly engaged in the series of short stories that connect them to a core theme of the novel. The tangible and intangible objects that the Vietnam War soldiers carried are the fundamental focus of this
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.
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.
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.
O’Briens intended audience is people who have an interest in war, and uses mortality and death, along with morality to help the audience get a deeper understanding of what could possibly occur at war. First, O’Brien discusses how mortality and death greatly affected many of the men around him. In the chapter ” In the Field” Kiowa is gone and there is nothing they could do to save him. The
O’Brien reveals the inner workings of the men’s mind subtly by putting hints throughout the story that the reader must look out for. Most hints are often revealed with the use of irony. At times of war stress will always be a common occurrence
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
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.
(page 68). This is why Tim O’Brien writes the way he does. He wants the reader to believe his story and get a sense of what war is truly
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.
Originally published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of war stories that took place during the Vietnam War. Due to its accurate and honest depiction of war, it has been banned for crude language, violence, drug use, and sexual innuendo. The author, Tim O’Brien, was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1946. Due to his service in the United States military during the Vietnam War, O’Brien is able to depict the war in a more graphic, and realistic manner.
In the chapter when he describes the man he kills, he talks about the state of the dead body by saying, “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him” (O’Brien Chapter 11). This brutal and horrifying imagery displays an irrefutable element of truth to O’Brien’s writing. Not only does this imagery highlight the truth to his writing, but it also sheds light on the brutal truth about the war in Vietnam. By using imagery as such a strong rhetorical device in his writing, he gives the average person a taste of just how barbaric and cruel Vietnam felt for the people who experience the war first hand on either side of the fighting. Tim O’Brien gives a very detailed and intense description of his time fighting in Vietnam during their war with America.
Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).
There is no doubt that O’Brien actually went to Vietnam, however, there is some doubt that events that occurred within the text actually happened. When addressing these occurrences, he uses language that leads the reader to believe that the account itself may be fictional. For example, in “How to Tell a True War Story” alone, O’Brien essentially convinces the reader that many of his accounts in Vietnam are fabricated. He goes to the extent of saying things like: “In many cases a true war story cannot be
The soldiers in the Vietnams war were there for different reasons, some soldiers were forced against their will and some were there by choice. Because of that, each soldier has their own thoughts about the war, O’Brien has interpreted that “The twenty –six men were very quiet: some of them excited by the adventure, some of them afraid”. This clearly shows how the men
The things they carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien. About the Vietnam war. About the lives of people going there. It’s a collection of war stories. Some of them true, some of the untrue and that’s the main topic that’ll be discussed in this paper.