ipl-logo

Distortion In The Things They Carried

894 Words4 Pages

“'How to tell a true war story': Metafiction in 'The Things They Carried.'
Calloway, Catherine, 'How to tell a true war story': Metafiction in 'The Things They Carried.'., Vol. 36, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, June, 1995, pp 249 ff. .
Tim O'Brien's most recent book, The Things They Carried, begins with a litany of items that the soldiers "hump" in the Vietnam War - assorted weapons, dog tags, flak jackets, ear plugs, cigarettes, insect repellent, letters, can openers, C-rations, jungle boots, maps, medical supplies, and explosives as well as memories, reputations, and personal histories. In addition, the reader soon learns, the soldiers also carry stories: stories that connect "the past to the future" (40), stories that can "make …show more content…

The relationship between fiction and reality arises early in the text when the reader learns the first of many parallels that emerge as the book progresses: that the protagonist and narrator, like the real author of The Things They Carried, is named Tim O'Brien. Both the real and the fictional Tim O'Brien are in their forties and are natives of Minnesota, writers who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Macalester College, served as grunts in Vietnam after having been drafted at age twenty-one, attended graduate school at Harvard University, and wrote books entitled If I Die in a Combat Zone and Going After Cacciato. Other events of the protagonist's life are apparently invention. Unlike the real Tim O'Brien, the protagonist has a nine-year-old daughter named Kathleen and makes a return journey to Vietnam years after the war is over.(1) However, even the other supposedly fictional characters of the book sound real because of an epigraph preceding the stories that states, "This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa," leading the reader to wonder if the men of Alpha Company are real or

Show More
Related

  • A Literary Analysis Of Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

    719 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator (O’brien) lists things that the soldiers carry with them, both tangible and intangible. Other members of the unit are introduced through descriptions of the things they carry, such as Ted Lavender who carried tranquilizer pills and excessive amounts of ammunition, Jimmy Cross who carried photos of his lover back home and Kiowa who carried a hunting hatchet. O'Brien introduces readers to the short story’s primary characters by describing the “things” that the soldiers carried. The level of detail O'Brien offers about the characters is expanded upon and shown throughout

    Read More

  • Loss Of Responsibility In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    125 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Things They Carried, is a lot about what all of the men carried and what it all meant to each one of them. The author describing the material things wants to give a sense of the physical burden, but the guilt of men lost and the weight of responsibility was what truly weighed them down mentally and physically through the war. The author allows the reader to realize how each of the characters dealt with their time within the war and how they coped giving them a sense of hope to survive, and how they traveled through Vietnam carrying the weight of physical burdens and the weight of responsibility, loss and guilt and the memories they will carry for the rest of their lives.

    Read More

  • Why Does Tim O Brien Only Share Vietnam War

    516 Words  | 3 Pages

    This phase out of the book The Things They Carried, shows how important a detailed description is. Having read the fictional story about Tim O’Brien’s experience in the Vietnam War, can really set off that emotional connection because it makes you feel like you are really

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

    1292 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Literary Analysis

    1178 Words  | 5 Pages

    A lot happens in Tim O 'Brien short story "The Things They Carried", at first, the reader speculates what the short story is about and why it is called "The Things They Carried". The narrator Tim O 'Brien tells and describes all the things that the men have to carry while "in-country" during the Vietnam War in the1960 's. The text 's artistic value comes from its plot, characters, conflict, and style. In the plot of the story the protagonist, Tim O 'Brien starts by describing circumstances that happened while he was in Vietnam. In the beginning of "The Things They Carried" we are introduced to each character by the things they carry.

    Read More

  • The Song Tra Bong Theme

    1117 Words  | 5 Pages

    Therefore, it leads readers to question the cultural elements of narration. In the Irish Journal of American Studies, Donna Pasternak describes the connection between O’Brien’s The Things They Carried to the truths and surrealism of stories from the Vietnam War. Pasternak proposes, “O’Brien’s narrators are already aware of the inseparable nature of man’s ‘conjecturing’ and ‘summarizing’ in order to attain the truth”, (46). O’Brien’s characters from The Things They Carried, expect the war stories they hear to challenge their core beliefs and the three men from “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” are no

    Read More

  • Spin By Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

    791 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried: An Analysis

    688 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Fiction And Reality In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1413 Words  | 6 Pages

    Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On The Things They Carried

    1071 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Imagery In The Things They Carried

    543 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Ted Lavender Character Analysis

    510 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story, "The Things They Carried" a narrator describes the life of soldiers during the Vietnam War. The narrator lists what some of the soldiers carried during their experience in the war, emotional and tangible. Tim O'Brien presents the character of Ted Lavender, an obviously frightened soldier, in order to be a spokeperson to symbolize obvious stress within soldiers during their journey. He presents the character of Kiowa, a devoted Baptist, in order to represent how some of the soldiers cope with the exorbitant amount of stress. Tim O'Brien characterizes Ted Lavender as stressed and frightened in order to portray fright during the war within soldiers.

    Read More

  • Things They Carried Guilt

    1093 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Metafiction Analysis

    891 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are numerous examples of metafiction in The Things They Carried; many are clear, and some are harder to notice at first glance. In the text, author Tim O’Brien uses a metafictional writing style to vividly illustrate what emotions and thoughts went through the minds of the soldiers fighting in Vietnam, including himself. It is unclear whether or not some of the stories he tells in the text actually happened, but there is no doubt that they are paramount to the underlying objective of O’Brien’s writing style: to use realistic scenarios that may not have actually happened, to make whatever changes necessary to the story to get his point across. Tim O’Brien uses metafiction to obscure the line between truth and fiction by manipulating details that trigger certain emotions to influence the reader. Metafiction allows writers like Tim O’Brien to manipulate what is held to be truth, and fabricate certain details in an attempt to enhance or reinforce the meaning of a story.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried A War Story Analysis

    637 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Distortion In The Things They Carried

Open Document