The Narrator In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

There are many points of view in which a narrator can tell a story. There are also two types of narrators such as a participant narrator or nonparticipant narrator. Narrators also have different levels of knowledge about the characters thoughts, feelings, and actions which can affect the point of view of a story and its influence on the reader. The narrators point of view can be omniscience, editorial omniscience, limited omniscience, impartial omniscience, selective omniscience, total omniscience, objective, or in some rare short stories innocent or naive.

In Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried,” the point of view the narrator portrays throughout the novella is in first-person point of view from the protagonist of the short story Tim O’Brien.

This has influenced the reader’s interpretation of the story by providing many different viewpoints within the story using a nonparticipant narrator point of view. The narrator sees into the minds of the other platoon members of Tim O’Brien’s squad. For example, the narrator describes the feelings and mindset of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, as he is becoming home sick and missing his friends and family back home. “In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire (O’Brien 615).” This quote from the readings provides an example of the nonparticipant omniscience point of view that they narrator portrayed, as First Lieutenant Cross was in a dangerous environment far from home in an environment where he did not want to be. This point of view has influenced the readers interpretation of the story by allowing the reader to understand the hardships that soldiers were going through in the dangerous Vietnam

The story explains the strain it has on the narrator and Sonny’s sibling relationship. The short story is told from a participant narrator point of view. The narrator of the novella is the older brother of Sonny, which has a limited omniscience point of view. The selective omniscience shows the events of Sonny’s life which, effects his older brother, are only seen through the narrator’s perspective throughout the entire novella. This limited omniscience point of view influences the readers interpretation of this novella of this being the best recollection of what happened throughout Sonny’s life as Sonny could be considered an unreliable narrator since he suffered from drug addiction. Also, from this point of view it explains the meaning of being a brother’s keeper and being able to understand it from a first-person view. The narrator puts the reader in his shoes, as the reader is influenced by feeling what the narrator felt throughout the story. The narrator also influences the readers by allowing them to understand the thought process he went through as these tragic things were happening in his life. Also, it can be interpreted by the reader that Sonny’s older brother had the best point of view as he could be regarded as a reliable narrator since all family members throughout the novella expressed their