How Does O Brien Use Imagery In The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried based on some of his own experiences in the Vietnam War. The characters he created are similar to the men he knew in the war. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was a character that O’Brien’s character knew very well. Lieutenant He is not focused and does not seem to know his purpose in the war or in his life. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is a character that experiences overwhelming emotions but he does not show them. He seems to feel lost in the war and burdened with responsibility.

One literary technique prominent in The Things They Carried, particularly in the story by the same name, is symbolism. Throughout this story, O’Brien mentions all the things that the soldiers carry with them, both physical and emotional. However, the physical items that the men carried is more than just

At the same time, O’Brien struggles with destructiveness of the conflicting images of violence and peace in death through the juxtaposition of the imagery of the dead man. While “his one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole.” The dead man has one shut eye that resembles a peaceful sleep, while the other side is obliterated by the grenade into a star-shaped hole. The image of the star-shaped hole in the dead soldier’s eye represents the hopes that he once had when he was alive: “He hoped the Americans would go away. Soon, he hoped. He kept hoping and hoping, always” (119). Furthermore, “his right cheek was smooth and hairless,” an image of untouched innocence that contrasts with his left cheek, which was “peeled back in three ragged strips,” destroyed by the violence O’Brien inflicts upon it. The juxtaposition of the butterfly that settles on his chin and the fatal wound on his neck, “open to the spinal cord…blood…thick and shiny” illustrate the complexity and ambiguity of the unnaturalness of war, depicted by the image of the dead man’s wrung neck, contrasted with the ironic peace and naturalism of death in the image of the fragile butterfly. These select images are also those that O’Brien chooses to fixate upon and develop throughout the chapter as he struggles to comprehend the moral implications of his actions. The innocence of the “slim, dead, almost dainty young man” is further reinforced when O’Brien describes his wrists as “wrists of a

Many life events occurred following this platoon of soldiers that will forever be remembered. Tim O'Brien once said, “The thing about remembering is that you won't forget” (pg #). Through war, many tragedies, excitement, and small unforgettable events that happened with these soldiers. They will never forget the burdens, shame, and the deaths and mortality they experienced in the Vietnam War. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim ‘O'Brien is about Vietnam war stories. O’Brien also appears in the books as the protagonist. In this platoon, he is led by Jimmy Cross, the shepherd of the group. His other comrades in the squad are Norman Bowker, Henry Dobbins, and lastly Rat Kiley. They all have their own variety of stories to express the baggage of deaths, internal struggles, and

When intrinsic motivation contrasts with a culture’s norm, the individual often feels unable to express their own beliefs. In Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, O’Brien recounts the time he was deployed to the Vietnam war to fight for the United States. As O’Brien reflects on his younger self “On Rainy River”, he reveals his old feelings of fear and resentment towards war. O’Brien uses daunting imagery to describe the scene,“I remember the rage in my stomach...I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world squeezing me tight...Moreover, I could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general principle” (O’Brien 40-41). The author uses somber

In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt, and will deal with his past. In war, a way to

The central theme of the story is the age-old conflict of life and death. On a more personal level with First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the round character and protagonist of "The Things They Carried", it is a conflict of love, his antagonist and of war.

Jimmy Cross’ recurring thoughts about Ted Lavender throughout the story, created a picture of death and how that mentally effected Jimmy to support the idea of how emotional burdens far outweigh the physical ones. In the story, “the Things They Carried” it list many things that soldiers had to bare in war, a lot of what they had to bare was physical, but more importantly they carried emotions like terror, longing, and guilt. These intangible things made there journey much more difficult then you would ever imagine.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien expresses the importance of a story-truth, as opposed to a happening-truth by use of literary elements in his writing. The novel is about war and the guilt it leaves on everyone involved in the war. Story-truth is not exactly what happened, but uses part of the truth and part made up in order to express the truth of what emotion was felt, which an important thematic element in the novel is. The three literary devices he uses to express this are diction, imagery, juxtaposition, and hyperbole. All of these elements allow the reader to identify emotion that is expressed in each story, as though that were the complete truth.

In The Things They Carried, Jimmy Cross is the lieutenant of his platoon whom feels guilt for his friend’s death. During the war, Jimmy Cross has a girlfriend back home that he always thinks of. Throughout the war, he focused mainly on his girlfriend Martha instead of his fellow soldiers in his platoon. His lack of focus to his fellow soldiers had led to the death of his friend’s, Ted Lavender. Jimmy Cross blames himself for his friend death because he feels like it is his fault for not watching over them. He feels guilty for his friend’s death, and the thoughts of Martha haunt him whenever he thinks about their death. He decides to burn everything that Martha has given him to help him concentrate on the war. However, it doesn’t help him, because he remembers everything that Martha has given him. Still thinking about Martha, he forgets about the war and finds out that his Indian friend Kiowa has died in the sewage field after drowning. Jim Cross started to feel worse about his actions, and felt even more guilty and started to write a letter to Kiowa’s father. This made Jimmy Cross feel unstable about himself because he felt guilty about his actions throughout the war and cannot turn time back.

The symbols in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” are essential to understanding the soldiers and their lives during the Vietnam War. At the opening of the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross would dig into his foxhole and read the letters while imagining romance with Martha; however, at the end of the story after the death of Ted Lavender, he “crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters” (402). The inner feelings of Cross would be mistakenly ignored without the help of symbols throughout his travel through Vietnam. O’Brien uses the emotional and physical weight carried by the soldiers as a representation of their personalities and how they prefer to cope with the war. The

Love is a powerful force, and Lieutenant Cross sometimes gets lost in his musings while thinking of Martha. O’Brien writes: “His mind wandered. He had difficulty keeping his attention on the war. On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, carrying nothing.” Like any sane person in his situation, Lieutenant Cross wants to escape – to anywhere else but the war. The war brings terrible experiences – fear, death, hunger, and pain beyond imagination. The only way that Lieutenant Cross can endure these things is by escaping to an imaginary life with Martha. Although to her, he is little more than a friend, to Lieutenant Cross, Martha represents innocence, perfection, and a world free from war.

Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing

Jimmy's transformation begins when he decides to burn the pictures and letters of his girlfriend, Martha. To be a leader in war was meaningless to Jimmy Cross compared to the love he had for Martha. Cross' subsequent burning of Martha's letters suggests that he's determined to put such romantic ideas behind him. He repeatedly convinces himself that there will be no more fantasies about Martha. The burning of Martha’s things is symbolically used by O’Brien to signify a turning point in Cross’ development. Cross realizes that Martha's feelings for him were not those of love, for she is an English major, a girl who lives in the world of words. Cross was rationalizing his un-requiting love for Martha to create a “home world” inside his mind so that he could mentally escape from the war when he needed to.

During the war, women are used to reflect society’s abandonment of the soldiers through their insensitivity that ultimately leaves the soldiers to fight alone. For Lieutenant Cross, Martha writes long letters back and forth with him, but rarely do they ever speak of Cross’s life in battle. Merely, the only time war is mentioned is to say, “Jimmy, take care of yourself” (2). Considering the pages and pages of writing that Martha writes regarding her life, she does not put in the effort to ask about Cross, who risks his life every day. Simply, she tells Cross to