A Brief Review Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien starts the book The Things They Carried with a chapter that literally tells the audience what each soldier carries. This ranges from mandatory equipment to sentimental items. These sentimental items also indicate the figurative things that the soldiers carry. The first chapter is all about O’Brien stating which man in the unit carries the guns and radios.

“Things They Carry” by Tim O’Brien is a book based off of remembering. O’Brien admits this in the chapter “Spin”. He remembers Jimmy’s love for Martha; Norman wanting his father to be accepting of Norman not winning any medals; Kiowa teaching a “rain dance to Rat Kiley and Dave Jensen, the three of them whooping and leaping around barefoot while a bunch of villagers looked on with a mix of fascination and giggly horror” (36). He remembers close to everything which shows how big of a role the war plays in his mind.

In Tim O'Brien's book "The Things They Carried", the chapter "Church" take places at a camp in an abandoned place called "pagoda" where a gathering of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam who has chosen to remain with two monks that treated them well. Looking through the cultural lens in this chapter, the dread of death changes the individual's perspective of the afterlife and higher power.

In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author emphasizes on the items to tell the story. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters and a rock from Martha. In the war, Cross would focus on his love towards Martha to carry him out through his days and his sufferings. All the men carried something to get their minds off the war. They did not want to be cowards, so they stuck it out and moved on. They used these items to motivate them. For the letters Cross states, “They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that love was only a way of signing…” (p.366). Martha just added to the illusion to Cross. She never mentioned the war and never said she loved him. She just kept teasing him. However, Cross just kept “humped” his

The story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is a story of Vietam soldiers and the things they carried; itmes of necessities of war protection, items of function of rank and field specialty, personal mementos and their feelings. The author depicts the load "to carry something was to hump, but it implied burdens", burdens each soldier carried while moving through the physical and emontional events of war (O'Brien 4 ). The author's use of storytelling helps the reader understand the physical and emotional impact of war and how each soldier coped while carrying items of "necessity or near-necessities" (O'Brien 2 ). I will be exploring the burden of "necessity and near-necessities"of the soldier's as they " hump" thier way

In the short story “The Things They Carried”  by Tim O’Brien, he tells the story of the experiences of the soldiers. O'Brien uses symbolism in order to give us a message and helps us connect to what the soldiers are thinking and feeling mentally and physically.

In the story "The Things They Carried" Tim voices that the mental burdens outweigh all of the physical pain and weakness. Many of soldiers carried the emotional baggage of the men who will die. The emotional baggage that the soldiers carry such as fear, grief, and love; these were all intangible but carried lots of mass and weight on the soldiers. The fear and the responsibilities far outweigh all of the physical torture that the soldiers must endure in order to stay alive, each soldier has a little bit of hope that they may return home.

Metafiction can be described as a reference to a fictional story within the fictional book itself. This is similar to when an actor “breaks the fourth wall” and speaks directly to the audience. Authors and directors, alike, use these methods to connect with the audience and provide them with background information about the story they are telling. This book, in particular, is about one soldier’s memories of his time in Vietnam and what he has learned from this traumatic experience. Throughout the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the narrator, Tim O’Brien, uses metafiction to help the reader further understand and interpret the feelings of war.

In Tim O’Brien’s short story, “The Things They Carried,” he explains more than just what people face while fighting a war. He gives detail of each struggle, memory, and heartache each soldier carries on their shoulders into the war. O’Brien describes of a battle more destructive than a war filled with any ammo. He describes a battle within the human mind, a battle in which is harder than any man has faced. A battle within the mind controls one’s every decision. O’Brien explains the importance on having one’s mind “battle-free” so memories will not distract one making successful decisions.

The Things They Carried, is a story written about the experiences in Vietnam shared by the author Tim Obrien. The story centers around soldiers from Alpha company and the “things” they carried. In this story, I believe Tim O’Brien uses the “things” they carried in a literal and descriptive sense. Every solider was literally responsible for carrying large loads of gear and they also carried tremendous emotional loads. Each soldier carried personal items to remind themselves of life after war. I believe that the emotional burden carries these soldiers through the battles of war and they far outweigh the physical obstacles being thrown at them. These men are responsible for themselves, fellow soldiers and families back home. Henry dobbins is

     How does death affect the behavior of people? Although death affects everyone's behavior differently, knowledge of one's imminent death is a main force behind behavioral changes. This knowledge causes emotions that motivate people to act in ways that they normally would not. In Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried,'; the knowledge of death and its closeness causes the men in the story to alter their behavior by changing they way they display power, modifying emotions to relieve guilt, and by exhibiting different actions to ease anxiety.

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story written about the Vietnam War. The title has two meanings. The first is their duties and equipment for the war. The second, the emotional sorrows they were put through while at war. Their wants and needs, the constant worry of death were just a few of the emotional baggage they carried. During the Vietnam War, like all wars, there were hard times. Being a soldier wasn’t easy. Soldiers always see death, whether it be another soldier or an enemy. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien explores the motivation of solders in the Vietnam War to understand their role in combat, to stay in good health, and accept the death of a fellow soldier.

The decision to go to war is not a decision that is taken lightly. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien faces cultural, social and political push factors that end up leading him to forgo his plan to dodge the draft, and to report as instructed, a mere yards away from his destination of Canada. In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Rocky and Tayo, two young Native American men, experience cultural, social and political pull factors that draw them into the Army, fighting the Second World War for a country that considers them less than human. The stories of these characters are not unique, they are stories that are representative of the stories of young American men at the time, that faced cultural, social, and political push and pull factors during both conflicts. The purpose of this inquiry essay is to determine what those push and pull factors were, and why they lead these men to willingly engage in two of the most destructive conflicts in human history.

Tim O’Brien wrote a collection of related short stories titled The Things They Carried, that follows a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War and when they return to their homes. Throughout the novel, O’Brien uses real names and includes himself, as the protagonist, to create a style that ebbs and flows from fiction to non-fiction without realization. According to Kathleen Laura MacArthur, it is “through this process and these stylistic innovations, the reader might then experience this trauma secondhand and, perhaps, relate this trauma to one’s own personal traumatic experience” (26). At first, the reader is introduced to the narrator First Lieutenant Tim O’Brien; he begins to talk about his love for a woman named Martha and how he carries her letters and good-luck pebble with him. As O’Brien continues, he explains all the various things the men of the company carry. In most cases, these “things” are physical objects and depend on factors such as the individual’s priorities and necessities. In addition, he talks about items that are universal among the men, such as mosquito repellent, chewing gum, matches, C rations and a multi-use poncho. These possessions serve as an opportunity for us to see into the emotional burdens each soldier carries. As the title of this novel refers to the things, or “weight,” the soldiers carry, the soldiers are changed from lively, young people to hardened and cold throughout the war by the tragic events they go through, tasks they must

The Vietnam War was the largest, most prolonged military conflict for the United States of America in world history, besides the recent war in Afghanistan. Many Vietnam veterans have written books and novels about their experiences, however, Tim O’Brien, an American who was drafted into the Vietnam war and an American writer, has written numerous books about his war experiences. In particular, Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, tells all his experiences in detail about the war, what it was like, and his friends he made because of the war. He reflects his feelings through war stories that are difficult to grasp as “true”. The Things They Carried depicts that the young soldiers had a bigger burden besides the heavy weight of their required SOP, or Standard Operating Procedure of luggage. O’Brien’s novel shows us his friends and his own personal experiences of love, hurt, friendship, and war and how they affect them emotionally and psychologically today, through the use storytelling and recalling flashbacks in their journey as soldiers in Vietnam at the time of war.