In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the character, O’Brien, is shot during combat. The medic on duty, being a rooky, is unsure of how to help O’Brien. He is later hospitalized and unable to fight anymore. When he finally returns to combat duty, he feels out of place and no longer at home with the other soldiers. He becomes obsessed with exacting his revenge on the medic. In his own reflection, he wrote “I was down there with him. I was part of the night. I was the land itself—everything, everywhere—the fireflies and paddies, the midnight rustlings, the cool phosphorescent shimmer of evil—I was atrocity—I was jungle fire, jungle drums—I was the blind stare in the eyes of all those poor, dead, dumbfuck ex-pals of mine—all the pale young corpses, Lee Strunk and Kiowa and Curt Lemon—I was the …show more content…
His diction and syntax made the quote even more powerful. When I read the end of the quote, it almost felt like there was a silent echo after I finished. I remember pausing for a brief moment after I read it. The words stayed in my head even as I began to move on in the book. The passage also manages to sum up all of Tim O’Brien’s feelings and the novel’s themes in a few sentences, which is a big feat. It highlights the atrocities of war, how it consumes people, and the effect it leaves behind. In the quote, there is pain, sadness and acceptance. Even though I’ve never been to war and have never experienced anything on the level that Vietnam soldiers did, I feel like I can relate to, or at least understand, O’Brien and his situations. I feel like I know what he is going through; his thoughts and feelings are, in a way, my own. It is really remarkable when an author can get his readers to really feel and understand the characters in his or her novel; that’s what makes Tim O’ Brien such a great author and what makes “The Things They Carried” a must-read
In the book,” The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, an American novelist who is best known for his works of fiction which depict his experiences in the Vietnam War, he suggests to the audience how the Vietnam War was like to him and to the company he was in during the war. Through the use of his characters to show what they carried with them throughout the war and in the peace after the war, he uses sensory details to illustrate how it felt to be in Vietnam, he uses symbolism to depict certain points of the war, his use of irony to depict something which suggests but means something opposite, and his use of themes through the story. Tim O’Brien focuses on the characters, sensory details, symbolism, irony, and themes throughout the story
“The Things They Carried” Headline: What O’Brien and his team carried both physically and mentally will shock you Newspaper Section: This article would fit the world section of the newspaper. Single-Sentence Summary: Tim O’Brien the protagonist and the narrator of the story is describing lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who is active in Vietnam however Cross is preoccupied thinking about a girl called Martha whom he dated prior to the war. Explanation: This quotation from “The Things They Carried” provides an opinion on why men go to war. O’Brien claims that men who go to war are cowards, not as heroes. They go because they are forced to go and because they didn’t have the bravery to refuse to go.
The Things They Carried by American author Tim O’Brien, who was drafted in the Vietnam war, describes the experience of the American infantry fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien utilises various rhetorical devices to illustrate the immense emotional & physical burdens the soldiers were to bear to enlighten the reader about the true horrors of war. For example, O’Brien employs asyndeton & polysyndeton in sentences listing the many things the soldiers carried. “They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades…,” (O’Brien). The lists of items carried carry on, overwhelming & exhausting the reader of the physical burdens of war.
Griffin Imelio Mrs. Morrison AP English Language and Composition 3 September 2014 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1. ‘’The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” Some 70 miles east of the country side, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West.... The land is flat and the views are awesomely extensive: herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.’’ (3).
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.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses stories from soldiers he fought with to give firsthand accounts of the Vietnam War. Throughout the novel he is able to give a description of each of these soldiers and their personal stories before and after the war. By doing so, the reader is able to get a better understanding of what it was like fighting in the Vietnam War and why the soldiers acted the way they did throughout the novel. His descriptions of the untimely deaths of these soldiers mentioned in the novel are horrifying. With the use of imagery, diction and repetition O’Brien is able to narrate the burden the war placed on him and his fellow soldier buddies.
“O'Brien's endeavoring to tell us that albeit they're made up, there's an abundance of truth to their characters. True stories and true characters don't fit orderly into a narrative or into character roles. The best way for O'Brien to communicate his Vietnam experience in “The Things They Carried “is to give us the "story-truth," not the "transpiring-truth" (The Things They Carried Theme of Truth-http://www.shmoop.com/things-they-carried/truth). O’Brien uses story-truth in lieu of transpiring-truth as a way to show the vicissitudes in between authenticity during war time and as a way of making the reader understand the experience
O’Brien’s intended audience was young people who were not educated about the war and he discussed the themes shame/guilt and mortality/death. The chapter “The Things They Carried” gives an introduction about the men in the group, it also shows shame/guilt. The chapter talks about the equipment each soldier carried and how it affected them. During this chapter it focuses primarily on LT.
Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carry,” tells a story about the lives of young men during war. The narrator tells his story from first person, marking all of his adventures and experiences of his companions. O’Brien crafts his piece through the use of repetition, symbolism, and metaphors to convey the idea of physical and psychological hardships of soldiers during war. Though the literary device of repetition, O'Brien portrays the physical and psychological hardships of a soldier.
In The Things They Carried, O’Brien reveals his view on war through telling his readers how the Vietnam War had no point, was emotionally devastating, and displaying that there is no purpose in war unless the soldiers know what they are fighting for. O’Brien shows the pointlessness of war by
Cross’ overall experience with Martha and the soldiers? The Vietnam War was one of the most unpredictable and controversial wars that the United States had fought in. Due to the unfamiliar jungle environment, there were many casualties and horrifying experiences. Many people were getting anxious about the war and wanted the soldiers to return.
Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.
In “The Things They Carried” the protagonist Tim O'Brien who is the writer and a Vietnam War veteran, writes about all his memories of the war and the other men who served with him in order to find meaning in the memories. O'Brien uses a non-linear structure that includes frequent flashbacks throughout the book. “The Things They Carried” revealed the challenges each soldier faced and it defined why this book was different from a traditional linear narrative. Each chapter throughout the book grabs the reads and leaves them to want to read more and more. With this different structure, O'Brien was able to really reveal all the raw details that happened in the past that impacted the soldier futures.
The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.
Metafiction Analysis Tim O' Brien's complex analysis throughout The Things They Carried mutes questions yet to be answered. Many believe O' Brien wrote "another war story" or a novel described as a "biomythography". There is an explanation for Tim's writing to be a unique style of metafiction and concentrated on the author and his fictional characters. Metafiction is when the story inspects the components of fiction such as the author questioning naturalism. The powerful structure and techniques provided in the story should have created readers to think outside the box; "It wasn't a war story.