Thesis For The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
Thesis Statement: The Things They Carried is a historical novel written by Tim O’Brien recounting the Alpha Company’s experiences in the Vietnam War. O’Brien allows insight into the physical, emotional and guilt related baggage carried on by the soldiers after the war. O’Brien alludes to the likelihood that his choice to continuously write about his experience in Vietnam is a coping mechanism.

O’Brien ties each chapter, which in reality is a short story, into the next primarily through the use of characters. Through establishing a bond between the characters and the reader, the reader can more easily become invested in the lives and the experiences of each character. Through this technique O’Brien does …show more content…

While the dates, generalized location, and even some aspects of the information regarding the war itself was accurate I feel that we could have been provided with more or left information out. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” clearly didn’t happen, you aren’t aloud to fly civilians into active and uncleared war zones, even if they’re missionaries. For me, I believe that if I were provided with a better timeline and possibly a better connection to the civilians of Vietnam I would have felt more invested in the historical accuracy. I also feel that the writing style was choppy and nonlinear, this is O’Briens signature style of writing and I understand that but I found it hard to …show more content…

While the note does state that the work is strictly fiction, there are many indicators that the stories that are conveyed are likely, in some way, real experiences. The note stating that the book is entirely fictional, aside from the details that directly relate to the authors experience feels contrived, and at the very least will pull many readers out of the emotional connections created. It is important for any reader to enter into this with the foreknowledge that this is a work of fiction, which means that the vast majority of the information can not be counted as historically

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