Review Tim OBriens The Things They Carried - 1610 Words

In Tim OBriens The Things They Carried, the main theme is that the young men of Alpha Company carry many physical and emotional burdens which linger on long after the war. As they walked through the jungles and swamps of South Vietnam, they carried weapons, equipment, personal items, and also carried the dead and wounded off the battlefield as well as the guilt for having survived. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried the responsibility for the men under his command and guilt about the war they died, as well as a peculiar love for Martha that was probably not real. All of them carried fear, not only of the enemy but also the fear of appearing to be fearful, cowardly or dishonorable, which was very similar to George Orwells fear of looking indecisive or weak in front of the natives in his short story Shooting an Elephant. Like Orwells characters his novel Burmese Days, they are often skeptical about the war and the entire colonial-imperial enterprise in Asia, finding the death of thei r comrades in the jungles and swamps to be futile and pointless. They will carry all the memories and images with them for the rest of their lives, just as Orwell did of his many experiences. Tom OBrien also carried the burden of recalling and recording the war and its aftermath, although like his namesake in Orwells 1984, by his own description of these characters and events may or may not be true. In general, the entire atmosphere of the novel could be described as Orwelllian, with aShow MoreRelatedEssay On The Things They Carried1624 Words   |  7 PagesFor the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in â€Å"The Things We Carried† by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false secu rity. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now stillRead MoreEssay on The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien1253 Words   |  6 Pages The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brein, is a story told through the eyes of members of a United States Army troop trudging their way through the Vietnamese country side and jungles during the Vietnam War. Each man has a specific job and so they carry specific belongings that they need to fulfill that job as well as a few mementos from home. These men also carry unseen baggage that is all too real to these men, their families and responsibilities back home preying on their minds, the horrorsRead MoreThe Things They Carried1417 Words   |  6 PagesSpring Book Review In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien tells the tale of not about war, but rather about war’s effect on one’s mentality. Ultimately, this novel is built on a foundation of the items that the soldiers of the Vietnam War carried. Whether it was the way Jimmy Cross uses the pebble to escape from his duties as a soldier or when Norman Bowker realizes that courage comes form within, not from receiving a Silver Star; O’Brien uses baggage as a symbol throughout the book to teachRead More Myth of Courage Exposed in The Things They Carried Essay2662 Words   |  11 Pagesvalorous warrior praised. Yet, modern novels such as Tim OBriens The Things They Carried (THINGS) challenge those very notions. Like The Iliad, THINGS is about war. It is about battles and soldiers, victory and survival, yet the message OBrien gives us in THINGS runs almost contradictory to the traditional war story. Whereas traditional stories of war take place on battlefields where soldier battles soldier and the mettle of man is tested, OBriens battle occurs in the shadowy, private place of aRead MoreThe Vietnam War Has Far Reaching Consequences For The United States1710 Words   |  7 PagesPowers Act, restricting a president s ability to send American forces into combat without explicit Congressional approbation (The War’s Conseq.). Tim O’Brien, author of, â€Å"The Things They Carried,† efficaciously demonstrates the psychological effect the military draft and an all-volunteer force had on the adolescent men during those times. O’Brien’s personal experience shows that the trepidation of being shamed afore one’s peers is a potent motivating factor in war. His story â€Å"On the Rainy River†Read MoreSymbolism in Tim O Briens quot;The Things They Carriedquot;605 Words   |  3 PagesSymbolism In The Things They Carried In Tim OBriens story The Things They Carried we see how OBrien uses symbolism in order to indirectly give us a message and help us to connect to what the soldiers are thinking and feeling. During a war soldiers tend to take with them items from home kind of as a security blanket. The items they normally take with them tend to reveal certain characteristics of their personality. Henry Dobbins is the guy who loves to eat so he made sure he took someRead MoreEssay on The 1960’s: A Decade of Hope, Energy, and Prosperity2159 Words   |  9 PagesVietnam War was fought between America and Vietnam. Many American men were drafted for the war with no choice. One such draftee was a man named Tim O’Brien who, because of the war, became a writer. Tim O’Brien, an author and a Vietnam War veteran, pinpoints the major aspects of the decade in his writing. Tim O’Brien’s short story, â€Å"The Things They Carried†, published in 1990, uses symbolism and recurring motifs and themes that fully embody the great turbulence of the decade, and act to connect hisRead MoreA Soldier’s War2706 Words   |  11 Pagesâ€Å"journalistic style† to a more modern skeptical outlook on war. Just as Hemingway’s work provides graphic detail of World War I, Tim O’Brien’s novels â€Å"[have] become the Vietnam l iterature of record . . . [in] contemporary war fiction† (Smith 12). Like Hemingway,1 O’Brien takes on a journalistic approach to his novels. Narrating with his typical method of fragmented stream-of-consciousness, Tim O’Brien recalls his past experiences as a soldier and creates a meta-fiction that illustrates the Vietnam War as a senselessRead MoreHow to Tell a True Story by Tim OBriean Essay869 Words   |  4 Pagesencountered during the war. In â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story,† Tim O’Brien applies rhetorical devices to his war stories, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction in order to effectively tell a â€Å"true war story† while portraying the treachery of war. Throughout the chapter, the distinction between truth and fiction constantly becomes blurred. With each story told how a soldier perceived it to have happened rather than how it actually happened; Tim O’Brien â€Å"underscores the importance of manipulatingRead MoreA Study of The Things They Carried by Tim O ´brien1664 Words   |  7 PagesThe Study of â€Å"Things They Carried† by Tim O’Brien George Carlin, during the early 80’s, had a routine that was a witticism on the importance of having personal effects. These â€Å"personal effects† or items that a person accumulates through life symbolize their identity. The impractical things carried in pockets, purses, bags and suitcases that make people feel as themselves while in strange surroundings. These things are so essential to identify the person these â€Å"personal effects† represents. If