ipl-logo

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

924 Words4 Pages

The Challenge of Bravery and Courage are unexpected obstacles for everyone who was drafted into the Vietnam War, especially for Tim O’Brien who is the narrator and the Author of “The Things They Carried”. Before O’Brien gets drafted into the Vietnam War, he highlights the consumption of tone and juxtaposition on the effects of war while his allies are trying to empathize to his feelings. The theme also relates to Khaled Hosseini’s story “Kite Runner” where as a kid, Amir struggled with bravery and courage when he wasn’t there for Hassan. In Order for O’Brien to seek truth behind War, he’ll need to experience the environment in-action which is why he was forced to see everything later on in the story. One of the key characteristics of how O’Brien …show more content…

In this chapter, O’Brien remained silent when he was thoroughly analyzing the man he killed who had potential to live a successful life much like himself if it wasn’t for the war. O’Brien uses tone when he described that the soldier’s 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.”(Ch. 12, Pg. 124). The use of this tone is rather remorseful; showing readers that O’Brien develops sympathy after an unforgettable cause that resulted in killing someone who was innocent as much as him. In Kite Runner, Hosseini’s use of tone was rather unforgiving than unforgettable when Amir watches Hassan getting raped by Assef, and illustrates that “Hassan didn't struggle. Didn't even whimper. He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (Hosseini, pg.133). This is evident that Amir also witnessed something that’ll impact his life as much as O’Brien’s kill, knowing that he was there long enough to illustrate the whole rape

Show More
Related

  • The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Summary

    724 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tim O’brien’s historical fiction book The Things They Carried is focused around soldiers involved in the Vietnam War. This war was a difficult time for both the Americans who were drafted to fight in the war as well as for those who were at home and disagreed with the idea of currently being in war in Vietnam. As he writes about his own fictional experiences during the war along with the stories of many other fellow troops, O’brien expresses that it is difficult to “tell a true war story”. With the use of imagination and invention, he is able to successfully convey the difficulties involving truth-telling and wartime conditions. O’brien is open with his intended audience and blatantly states that it is hard to tell a true war story.

    Read More

  • Synopsis Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    898 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hunter Berman Ms.Silver AP English P-4 6/7/2018 The things They Carried Historical Report The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O'Brien about U.S. soldiers stationed in Vietnam and their personal stories of what they literally and emotionally carry. He focus on what the soldiers have on their person and how each of those items have an effect on them for reason specific to them.

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Novel Analysis

    1469 Words  | 6 Pages

    In his book, O’Brien has three separate experience with the deaths of the enemy. Two instances involved military personal but one, a civilian in Vietnam. Within in four days of fighting in Vietnam, O’Brien sees his first dead body. But death does not shock him, but the disrespect the other men show towards the dead man. They “shook the old man’s hand… one by one the other did it too.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1166 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the short story, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, it introduces the theme of weight that the soldiers must carry during the Vietnam War. The soldiers carried things that were either of physical weight (tangible) or emotional weight (intangible). The tangible weight included photos, comics, condoms, etc, but each tangible gives the readers an insight on the internal conflicts that weigh them down. Also, the intangibles discussed, show even more of the burdens they must carry. This being said the intangibles are shown to be the real weight that must be carried by each of the soldiers.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1202 Words  | 5 Pages

    War, in whatever form it may be, significantly affects an individual’s life and postwar identity. The experiences one must endure place a tattoo, an imprint on one’s past and future. This permanent marker of the atrocities of war and of the psychological effects of violence remains with a soldier throughout his or her life. In the novel, The Things They Carried, narrator and protagonist, Tim O’ Brien, uses his gift of pen to illustrate his personal experience in the Vietnam War. His collection of stories, blurred by lines of fact and fiction, highlights the importance of the act of storytelling rather than the objective truth of a war story.

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Character Analysis

    1444 Words  | 6 Pages

    Because he uses such explicit details, it signifies this particular experience was horrendous for a young soldier like himself to witness. This appalling experience definitely left a harsh impression on his memory of the Vietnam war, causing him to remember his time in the war in a horrific fashion. The narrator also explains, "His face was suddenly brown and shining. A handsome kid, really. Sharp gray eyes, lean and narrow-waisted, and when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms" (67).

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

    1348 Words  | 6 Pages

    Realities of war The Vietnam war was a roll over from WWII, to help stop the spread of communism. On December 1, 1969, the first Vietnam wartime draft was announced1. Between the dates of August 1964 and February 1973 1,857,304 men were inducted to the united states military2. Most men drafted to the Vietnam war were between the ages of 18 and 24.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

    779 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout The Things They Carried, author, and narrator, Tim O’Brien uses what the soldiers figuratively carry, cowardice and loss, to explain what effect the war had on them. According to O’Brien, these two intangibles turn into a physical burden the soldiers are forced to carry because of the psychological effects of war. His main purpose for writing The Things They Carried is for the reader to be able to feel the same reality the soldiers feel as a result of fighting in the war. One of the main themes of these war stories is the fear of being labeled a coward by the people of the soldiers’ home country.

    Read More

  • The Vietnam Soldier In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1021 Words  | 5 Pages

    The fact that they took a moment of silence as they stared at Kiowa’s dead body showed how strong of a unit their platoon was. This is significant because it shows how O’Brien was a true Vietnam soldier: he was always engaged with what was happening with his fellow platoon members. Another example of this was Clarence Sasser, who was a medical aid in the war. Sasser would always continue to help out all his wounded men, even when he was wounded himself. In regards to receiving a medal of honor for his service, he said, “Well, it’s my job.

    Read More

  • Truth In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

    1119 Words  | 5 Pages

    No matter how many times O’Brien’s daughter asks him why he cannot let go of the past, he almost always answers with a story-truth. With his readers, it is both, so we can also slide away with the moccasins and his

    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 Paradox Of War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the author skillfully presents a paradox about war and how it is both horrible and beautiful. Through O’Brien’s vivid storytelling and sorrowful anecdotes, he is able to demonstrate various instances which show both the horrible and beautiful nature of war. Within the vulnerability of the soldiers and the resilience found in the darkest of circumstances, O’brien is able to show the uproarious emotional landscape of war with a paradox that serves as the backbone of the narrative. In the first instance, O’Brien explores the beauty in horror within the chapter “Love.”

    Read More

  • Die In A Combat Zone: Box Me Up And Ship Me, By Tim O Brien

    1291 Words  | 6 Pages

    Not only was O’Brien scared of death, he wondered what death felt like. “Mostly, though, you wonder about dying. You wonder how it feels, what it looks like inside you”(O’Brien 1975, 70). Though some soldiers in Vietnam were courageous, some soldiers such as O’Brien worried about and were scared of death. Though O’Brien feared death and thus saw himself as a coward for it, he realized after conversing with Captain Johansen, that Johansen was courageous.

    Read More

  • PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1504 Words  | 7 Pages

    In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

    Read More

  • How Does Tim O Brien Use Story Telling In The Things They Carried

    1094 Words  | 5 Pages

    This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

    Read More

More about The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Chapter Analysis

Open Document