Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

In the book, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'brien, the title of the first chapter perfectly mimics the name of the book itself. The author talks about the many items soldier’s carried with them into the Vietnam War, as well as the effects they had on his many teammates. Each new chapter, though, gives new insight as to what they carried around with them besides physical objects. Despite palpable things in which they were required to have, young men would find themselves bearing the heavy weight of responsibility and emotional trauma that came with them. In order to cope with these endeavors, soldier’s would also bring with them something to help, whether it was simply the knowledge of God, or a reason for fighting. O’brien’s stories give

As Tim O’Brien states in his short story book, The Things They Carried, the only true thing about war is its allegiance to evil and obscenity. One example of this faithfulness war has to stick to its truth is the inevitable death of many soldiers. War consumes. It consumes a large amount of resources, money, energy, time, but most of all it consumes human lives. The ones who don’t pass must bear the witness of the death of the others. “In the Field”, one of the short stories in O’Brien’s book, explores the way death is handled by soldiers and the process by which absorb the emotions that come along with it.

The Vietnam War began in 1955 and ended in 1976. The North Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Congress fought against France and then America, and eventually against South Vietnam to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, he tells some of his experiences during the Vietnam War. During the war, he learns that it’s not only the violence that makes war such a dreaded experience, but the intangible weight that each soldier carries.

Often in the years following a war the notion of warfare is warped by common conceptions or cliches so that it no longer resembles the realities that the soldiers experienced. However, Tim O’Brien uses his own personal experiences from Vietnam to create stories which exhibit the real situations that these soldiers faced. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, demonstrates this unfiltered reality through multiple literary elements and the creation of fictional stories in order to portray the war accurately. Courage and valor are often associated with the idea of war and are often expected to be traits that all soldiers live by.

There are many roads to go down in life, and nobody knows what road to go down until that time has passed and a new time has come. The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, was written to explore the purpose of storytelling itself. It is also written in a non chronological order to show and tell the meaning of the story. The best way to tell a true war story is not by putting the story in order, but by telling the meaning of the book even if it does not make sense. Tim O’Brien uses the themes shame/guilt and storytelling/memory to show the feelings and look back on life from the soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War.

People view war in a variety of different viewpoints. Not everyone believes it is negative. In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’brien explains his perspective on war. He believes that many people are quick to brush away the fact that war is truthfully an astonishing event.

War changes people and Tim O’ Brien is a great example because in The Things they Carried, the novel observes a struggle to conquer grief and the struggle to deal with death; which shows the human side. The story displays strong sentiment and lets the reader sympathize with the characters, especially Tim O’ Brien. Tim O’ Brien permits the spectators to feel the emotion by writing this fictional story.

The Things They Carried, told by Tim O'Brien, tells of the adventures and experiences of many young men during the Vietnam War. He describes everything the men carried on their missions all physically, mentally, and emotionally. Many of these burdens had a huge effect on the men and still do today. This novel is told with neither an anti-war perspective nor a pro-war perspective on war, but rather a neutral perspective.

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses the art of fabricating stories as a coping mechanism. Trying to distinguish the difference between fictional and factual stories is a challenge in this book, but literal truth cannot capture the real violence that the soldiers dealt with in Vietnam, only “story truth” can. He explains, “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made victim of a very old and terrible lie.” (O’Brien 65). The novel illustrates that storytelling is a way to keep the dead alive, even if it may not be a true story.

Furthermore, the use of this style shows that all of the men experienced similar problems. Nevertheless, each of them handled each situation different way and by switching from first to third person, O’Brien shows the multitude of different perspectives and ways each man copes with hardships. For example, in the story, “The Man I Killed”, O’Brien tells it in a third person perspective, yet in the next chapter,”Ambush”, he reverts back to first person. O’Brien uses third person in the first story to humanize the Vietnamese man and O’Brien says that, “In the presence of his father and uncles, he pretended to look forward to doing his patriotic duty, which was also a privilege, but at night he prayed with his mother that the war might end soon,” even though he never knew the man or his life (O’Brien 88). However, tells the story to show that the Vietnamese fighting were just like the American soldiers as both were young, afraid, and risked their lives for their country. Furthermore, O’Brien shows sympathy for the man that he killed (even though later it is reviled that he did not even kill the man) since he saw himself in the young

When one tells a story, one has a motive for telling their tale, even if the story is fictional; but as Tim O’Brien, the narrator, says “a true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done” (O’Brien 65). The reader can assume O’Brien tells the story to reveal the horrors of war. O’Brien, the narrator, says a true war story can be told by the way it is evil (O’Brien 65-66). The buffalo story, O’Brien says, is a true war story, despite the story not being true. In the novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien uses the buffalo story to back up the claim a true war story is told in a way obscenity and evil.

Vietnam war veteran and novelist Tim O’Brien, in his piece titled, “The Things They Carried,” portrays personal war stories of a group of soldiers during the Vietnam War to convey how stories and memories can aid in coping with death. The novel was extremely emotional and thought provoking, causing me to question what was real or not, and how these stories were more than just stories. As the novel progressed, it became increasingly clear how, for O’Brien and some of the other soldiers, these stories were not just stories for the them to reminisce on, they were a form of therapy, helping them to live on, even when faced with death and morbid experiences. Through these various stories ranging from the distant past and the present, O’Brien successfully

The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien was published in New York in 1990. O’Brien’s use of storytelling helps the reader to understand the raw and fascinating complexity of life in Vietnam as an American soldier. Tim O’Brien, born in Minnesota in 1946 was drafted at age 22, just 2 weeks after earning his bachelor's degree in government and politics.

In the Chapter “Good Form,” O’Brien states that “story truth” is a more effective way to tell what happened during the Vietnam War than “happening truth” or historical truth. Journalists and historians would disagree arguing that historical truth shows the facts which people can learn from and make more informed decisions in the present than they did in the past. By contrast, story truth, according to O’Brien is a fictionalized account of the war which presents some facts but mostly the feelings and highly personal perspective of the soldiers. The passages staging what might have happened, while simultaneously questioning the accuracy and credibility of the narrative acts itself. By forcing the readers to experience the impossibility of ever knowing with any certainty what actually happened, O’Brien liberates himself from the lonesome responsibility of remembering and trying to understand the events. O’Brien believes that stories contain immense power, since they allow tellers and listeners to confront the past together and share otherwise unknowable experiences.Although O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, unwillingly drafted in 1968 and serving until 1970, he purposively fictionalizes the war experience throughout The Things They Carried while simultaneously insisting that the essence of the work is true, a notion that many scholars question. His credentials for war stories establish a premise for the rest of the collection

What is “truth”? In The Things They Carried, the reader has their eyes opened to a new kind of “truth”; a “truth” that is not based on the honesty of events, the “happening-truth”, but the honesty of human nature, the “story-truth.” The novel itself, The Things They Carried, is comprised of many different stories based on the author Tim O’Brien’s service in the Vietnam war. Recalling from memories of his service, Tim O’Brien intricately weaves fact and fiction into his novel to force the reader into a turmoil of emotions by telling “true war stories,” that are not, in fact, war stories. Although many readers believe that “truth” is the act of retelling reality, “truth” is, in O'Brien's reality, the act of portraying emotions; that is why a “true war story” is not about war, but emotions.