ipl-logo

The Things They Carried Reflective Essay

576 Words3 Pages

In the book, “The Things They Carried,” there are many things that I like, and some that I dislike. I like how the story took place in a third world country, instead of Europe or America itself. For the setting to take place somewhere else really captured my attention, because most war books takes place in Europe or in the United States. Another key factor that I liked about the book is the character development. This book really explained the characteristics of each character, how they act, and what they experienced. It even explained what was going through the minds of the soldiers, and put their emotions into great detail. The character development in “The Things They Carried,” is really descriptive. Not only is the character's’ development phenomenal, the scenes and experiences of each soldier was greatly described. It provided different types of figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, personification, symbolism, etc. Also, the way that the violent scenes were described was very descriptive, to the point where …show more content…

When I first read the story, it was very slow. The way it started in the first chapter did not really catch my attention, and it is also because I am not into war stories. Usually when I read books, it would immediately catch my attention, in which this book has not. Another key factor that I did not like about this book is that there should be more fighting scenes, or more experiences. A good fight scene between the soldiers and the Vietnam people would have catched all of our attention, because everyone likes a good fighting description. The last key factor that I did not really enjoy was that, since this book is half fictional information, then parts of this book is unbelievable. This will lead us into being confused on which parts were true and which parts weren’t. These are the dislikes that I have in the

Show More
Related

  • Analyzing O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

    1520 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Things They Carried Analysis More often than not, a reader picks up the story, “The Things They Carried,” and notices the unavoidable overload of symbolism intertwined. The heavy burdens the soldiers carry is portrayed extremely well by the author’s use of symbols, as it is one of the main focuses the author seeks to make evident to the reader. However, the author does not only want you to focus on the symbols of the burdens these fictional characters carry, but he wants you to understand what they really went through and that his story symbolizes the lives of these real, brave soldiers.  “War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In The Things They Carried

    606 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien uses many rhetorical devices and specific narrative elements to enhance the overall themes by using point of view, imagery, and metaphors. Tim O’Brien uses his friend’s point of view to elaborate on the war experiences and the feelings of his fellow friends. On Page 62, O’Brien states, “Rat almost bawls writing it. He gets all teary telling about good times they had together and how her brother made the war almost fun.” This shows the emotions and feeling Rat was experiencing during the war.

    Read More

  • Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    784 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’brien reveals the hardship of war through different accounts of soldiers who experienced them. More specifically, he discusses the impact different characteristics of war had on the soldiers and the war itself. Tim O’brien uses personification, cause and effect, descriptive diction, and metaphor to convey how the animals made war horrifying, and the soldiers paranoid. Tim O’Brien’s purpose for having descriptive diction is to emphasize how the unordinary bugs terrified Rat, which ultimately made war horrifying. He reveals, “{Rat} couldn’t stop talking.

    Read More

  • How Does Tim O Brien Tell The Reader To Read The Things They Carried

    925 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tim O'Brien did a fantastic job when he wrote the book The Things They Carried. He was able to bring out his personal experiences from it. He was able to captivate the audience by both having the theme feel what he was feeling and also how he was able to express what was going on when it was going on. One of the most important parts was when he was explaining the feeling of the war on the men when one of their comrades was killed. He also does a great job when he shows death he is not only able to show the dark dirty gruesome parts of it but also the light clean beautiful parts of it.

    Read More

  • Realistic Depiction Of War In Fallen Angels By Walter Dean Myers

    654 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like what you ate for breakfast and who ranked up you think what soldiers go through nowadays and why they act so different when they come back because of how much war changes you. This depiction of war that the writer Walter Dean Myers shows us everything these soldiers go through and how it changes a man you could be a nonviolent man and never believe in god but once you're thrown in war your whole life will be

    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 Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    693 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975, consisted of unplanned, impulsive guerilla warfare with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers in an attempt to stop the spread of communism in the region. This type of warfare, specifically the disorganization and lack of strategy present, is accurately represented in the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. The chaotic nature of warfare is a major theme throughout the novel and heavily influences the plot. Within the first chapter, O’Brien introduces the poor planning present in the Vietnam War through

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Character Analysis Essay

    1264 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the The Things They Carried, the emotions are more than just a mental problem, they become life changing conflicts. The author of this book is Tim O’Brien. Tim O’Brien is the main character throughout the whole book. In the beginning of the book, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien goes in depth describing what each of the men carried with them. He started with actual things having to deal with war, then talking about the emotional burdens the men carried.

    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 Things They Carried Critical Analysis Essay

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    Once the explosions and the gunfire subside, they gather themselves and return to acting as soldiers. Warfare has been an unfortunate reality during the past, present, and will be in the future. Tim O’Brien writes The Things They Carried not to be an action story, but as a reflection on the human element present in the soldiers who fight. O’Brien uses the listing narrative to highlight these human traits to show the idea that soldiers are humans too, and he highlights the humanity found in

    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

  • 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

  • Rhetorical Strategies In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    201 Words  | 1 Pages

    In The Things They Carried the author, Tim O’Brien, uses rhetorical strategies in order to emphasize the events of war, which then assists the reader into experiencing the burden and overall experiences of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of Chapter One, O’Brien arranges his writing in a way that relates back to the experience of war. By organizing the paragraph into a list, the reader is dragged through the burden of a paragraph with it’s repetition and boring content. This directly correlates with the event of the war, the soldiers are going through the same feeling of burden when they constantly march. Along with war comes new relationships with the soldiers.

    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 The Things They Carried Reflective Essay

Open Document