The Things They Carried Essay
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien Essay
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, narrative elements shape an author’s idea, and can even contribute to how effective they were in re-telling their experiences. Without them, the story would be bland and boring to the reader, and sometimes unbelievable. Tim O’Brien effectively uses different points of view to retell the soldiers’ Vietnam War experiences. Tim O’Brien first used a change in point of view when Curt Lemmon died. In How to Tell a True War Story, O’Brien uses this point of view change to vividly describe Curt Lemmon’s death. Curt Lemmon was like a brother to Rat Kiley, and the two of them went and did everything together. A week after Curt Lemmon died by stepping on a rigged mortar round, Rat Kiley wrote a letter to his sister explaining how much he loved Curt and how much of a hero he was. But after two months, Rat Kiley did not receive a reply from Lemmon’s sister. Kiley simply brushed the lack of acknowledgement from Lemmon’s sister off and called her a “dumb cooze”, an immature move, but deep inside and through a different point of view, O’Brien could make the reader understand that Kiley was hurt because of this. “It wasn’t a war story, it was a love story.” (85) O’Brien described the scene of Curt Lemmon’s death as beautiful by focusing on the sunlight, even though it was in fact gruesome. By telling this specific story in a different point of view than his own, O’Brien manages to shape the reader’s opinions much like the Vietnam War shaped the soldier’s views of right and wrong. “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty, war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (80) O’Brien also talked about how the war messed with the soldier’s heads, making it difficult to remember what they thought
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, narrative elements shape an author’s idea, and can even contribute to how effective they were in re-telling their experiences. Without them, the story would be bland and boring to the reader, and sometimes unbelievable. Tim O’Brien effectively uses different points of view to retell the soldiers’ Vietnam War experiences. Tim O’Brien first used a change in point of view when Curt Lemmon died. In How to Tell a True War Story, O’Brien uses this point of view change to vividly describe Curt Lemmon’s death. Curt Lemmon was like a brother to Rat Kiley, and the two of them went and did everything together. A week after Curt Lemmon died by stepping on a rigged mortar round, Rat Kiley wrote a letter to his sister explaining how much he loved Curt and how much of a hero he was. But after two months, Rat Kiley did not receive a reply from Lemmon’s sister. Kiley simply brushed the lack of acknowledgement from Lemmon’s sister off and called her a “dumb cooze”, an immature move, but deep inside and through a different point of view, O’Brien could make the reader understand that Kiley was hurt because of this. “It wasn’t a war story, it was a love story.” (85) O’Brien described the scene of Curt Lemmon’s death as beautiful by focusing on the sunlight, even though it was in fact gruesome. By telling this specific story in a different point of view than his own, O’Brien manages to shape the reader’s opinions much like the Vietnam War shaped the soldier’s views of right and wrong. “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty, war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (80) O’Brien also talked about how the war messed with the soldier’s heads, making it difficult to remember what they thought