The Things They Carried Person Analysis Essay

People get so caught up in what others think and expect of them that they let it completely control the decisions they make. The soldiers in “The Things They Carried” have a fear of looking weak and cowardice. They let this fear and their pride control them even if it is not what they want. Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, and Curt Lemon are examples of soldiers who let fear control them. The soldiers fear that the people close to them and around them will discover their weaknesses.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien falls into the new historism category based on the different forms of discourse. For example, O’Brien often writes about the various soldiers of Alpha company and the various things they carried them in addition to why they carried them. This provides a helpful insight because we are able to see the differences of this squad of men, whether it is their height, build or religious preferences, the things they carry are all a piece of that individuals character. Although this story was produced in 1990 it calls on the experiences of the author and the validity of his experiences.

In war, there is no clarity, no sense of definite, everything swirls and mixes together. In Tim O’Brien’s novel named “The Things They Carried”, the author blurs the lines between the concepts like ugliness and beauty to show how the war has the potential to blend even the most contrary concepts into one another. “How to Tell a True War Story” is a chapter where the reader encounters one of the most horrible images and the beautiful descriptions of the nature at the same time. This juxtaposition helps to heighten the blurry lines between concepts during war. War photography has the power to imprint a strong image in the reader’s mind as it captures images from an unimaginable world full of violence, fear and sometimes beauty.

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.

Point of View Analysis of “The Things They Carried” Some people can tell stories better than others. In the same way, the point of view is extremely important to the effect of the story. This is very evident in the story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian through which uses a total omniscient point of view. In the story, all the characters are soldiers in the Vietnam War. The narrator starts by telling all the physical weights of the things the men had to carry, and then gets into their inner thoughts and reveals the emotional weight of the things the men had to carry.

The Complex Emotions Of War The amount of feelings soldiers experience during and after war affect their actions for the rest of their life. Tim O’Brien is able to explain the complexity and impact of these many emotions in his novel, The Things They Carried. The soldiers feel an unbelievable range of emotions, but the ones with the most impact are guilt and obligation. Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the themes obligation and guilt build off each other and are shown through the soldiers’ actions and emotions in different situations.

In chapter 1, “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien introduces his readers to the men he served with in Vietnam. O’Brien uses the list of physical objects that the members of the members of his unit in Vietnam to portray the things that are important to a soldier and their emotional burden. Based on chapter 1, O’Brien demonstrates the emotional burden soldiers must carry. For instance, Cross was “… grieving for Ted Lavender, but mostly for himself, and for himself…” (O’Brien 16).

Reviews of the The Things They Carried tend to praise O’Brien for the detail and truth of his recordings of Vietnam. Writing for the Washington Times, John Greenya truly reviews that O 'Brien does not misconstrue the emotions and events of Vietnam in The Things They Carried First, Greenya explains that O’Brien is truthful to admit that he tried to escape from fighting in the war. This brings The Things They Carried closer to nonfiction because O’Brien does not exaggerate the details of Vietnam to make himself seem like the hero. If pure fiction, O’Brien would have been ready to fight, eagerly receiving his draft letter.

The chapter On the Rainy River is a depiction of what it is a like to get a draft notice. Tim O’Brien exemplifies the emotions a soldier goes through when they get a draft card. The feelings he wants the readers to feel is arguably the best depicted in this chapter. The story is believable, even when as a reader, we know it is not true, because the book is fiction. Tim O’Brien wants us to believe this story because he wants the reader to understand the emotion truth.

In the book “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien admits to killing only one man during his war career, and relays it in the chapter “The Man I Killed”. In this chapter, O’Brien surveys the mangled body of the Vietnamese man he has just murdered, and desperately attempts to humanize the dead man as a coping method for his guilt. The chapter embodies a unique, and extremely detailed repetitive writing style which serves as a symbol of O’Brien’s scrutiny over his irrevocable action. The chapter begins with an exceptionally detailed description of the Vietnamese soldier’s body, as O’Brien surveys his destruction.

1.Guilt is one of the worst things accompanied by death. Guilt plays a huge role throughout the novel. In war, men are constantly dying and these men all become best friends with one another. For example, Norman Bowker felt a tremendous amount of quilt towards the death of Kiowa.