“The Things They Carried” was written through the eyes of the main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Throughout the duration of this short story, Lieutenant Cross is battling with himself internally.…
Contradictions, guilt, physical, and emotional burdens are pains that all human beings face throughout their lives. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, this is no different. This novel is a collection of the adversities he and his comrades face while fighting in the Vietnam War. This collection comes with accounts from various perspectives, but each story has argument that provides a deeper understanding of the stories. Each story in The Things They Carried centers around the exaggerated truths each story presents. "Most of the time in Vietnam, there were some things that seemed just too terrible and strange to be true and others…
Tim O'Brien, in his short story “The Things They Carried,” writes about what soldiers in Vietnam carried, literally and figuratively. He discusses what they “humped,” the tangible things and the intangible ones too. For example, all the men carried flak jackets which had a real defined weight but also they carried fear and “all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (21). We can touch the flak jacket but not the fear or Jimmy Cross' love for Martha.…
In “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien takes us back to the Vietnam War. He demonstrates to the reader that not only does each United States soldier carry something physical with them, but they also carry an emotional burden as well. What each man carries is a combination of thoughts, emotions, and past experiences.…
The title of Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, paints a vague mental image of people carrying something – an image that is not yet complete for the reader to grasp the purpose of the novel. ‘Things’ are often assumed to be physical, in this novel, the ‘things’ that the soldiers carried were the mental burdens during and after the Vietnam War. Through the use of narratives of the different soldiers, O’Brien is able to follow each characters physical and mental weight that they carried. The…
The story conveys physical, mental and emotional strain that soldiers must endure during times of war. The reader is asked to consider each and every aspect of war and what soldiers leave behind them as they go overseas. The Items They Carried, talks about items issued to them by the military and the personnel items they carry. The story began with Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who carries with him letters and photographs of Martha, a college student in New Jersey. Throughout the story, Lt. Cross carries her letters and photographs signifying a bond and love her has for Martha. Lt. Cross is constantly daydreaming and…
Tim O’Brien authored the novel “The Things They Carried” a novel filled with short stories about the Vietnam War. The first passage in the collection lists the numerous things the solders in O’Brien’s platoon carried. Varying from weapons, to thoughts of loved ones back home. Distorting the line between the tangible and intangible, O’Brien writes about the things like bibles, pantyhose, moccasins, and pictures. Things the men carried tangibly, but are used to give them something to think about other than the waning darkness of the war, that making them intangible. The intangible things are used to escape the war; weighing heavier than anything tangible possibly could. Specifically, they are burdened with death. The men carry the intangible burden of death, something always on their minds and weighing more than anything tangible they could ever carry. They did what they could not to acknowledge death, each using their own techniques try and put a spin on and lift the emotional baggage of war and war’s mortality.…
In the book, The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, the challenges faced by war are explained in the form of stories. The effects that war can have on a soldier in Vietnam are not solely limited to the physical state, but also the mental state, as is shown when O’Brien introduces the character Mary Anne Bell in chapter nine. The corruption that war brought to an individual’s life led to an altered view of morality and Innocence, as well as the desensitization of an individual.…
In the novel The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien offers the “happy ending” described by Fay Weldon through his own “spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation.” While the novel itself is not a series of happy memories or events, the telling of them allows the author to come to terms with the loss of his innocence and his own limitations. As the author closes, he finally concludes that while his war-time experiences change him from the person he once was, telling stories is the way he can preserve his innocence and the memories of those he has lost.…
For the era of the Vietnam War, it was definitely most advanced in technology. Yet it was almost impossible for the soldiers to overcome the war because there were no war limitations. The combats were more horrendous and petrifying in the Vietnam War. The soldiers also worried about the weather, land, viruses and more important their selves. The many physical and physiological factors of war multiplies the burdens of stress on the soldiers. In The Things They Carried, the soldiers had a duty of fighting two wars at once, an external war and an internal war.…
Throughout his novel, the things The Carried, author Tim O’Brien uses a plethora of strategies to give the reader a deeper incite into the day to day life of an American ground soldier during the Vietnam War. O’ Brian shares with us his extensive knowledge and first hand experiences throughout the novel. Being a veteran of the Vietnam War helps O ‘Brian gives us a look into American’s longest war, not often given. Aside from recalling past events, he uses many unique techniques that we may be less used to. The first is the use of characters and objects as representations. This is one of the tactics most often used in the book. Another way that O ‘Brian uses rliterature to emphasize a point is the use of meta-fiction. This is basically telling the truth in a lie. Lastly, his knowledge and experiences add another dimension to this book that can really engage the reader. All of these components working together are what has mad the Things They Carried, such a critically acclaimed book.…
1. Lt. Cross is a weak leader because the traditional training he received is at odds with what he faces in-country. His training forced him to be concerned more with marching in line, following fixed maps, and keeping guns clean rather than adapting to his environment and the attitude of his men. Lt. Cross attempts to persuade himself of his own ability by relying on typical operating procedure after Lavender is killed to exonerate himself from feelings of personal blame in Lavender's death as well as his pitiful want for Martha's love. Lt. Cross’s concerns unifies the story because of his strong love for Martha, who maintain a strong link to love and his life at home.…
The short story I chose to write my essay on is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. The soldiers in the story had to deal with not only accepting the deaths of those they became close with, but also dealing with the knowledge that they took another human beings' life. The author shows how they had to carry not only their equipment; but the emotions that came along with being in a war. The emotions I speak of are ones that come from knowing they were mere grunts-and as such, were replaceable. That moment where they silly cease to exist could arrive when they least expected it. This analysis is about the way Cross and his soldiers dealt with the war, not physically but emotionally.…
The author is Tim O’Brien The Things they Carried written in 1986. The story is told by the author almost 20 years after the Vietnam war, it tells a story of men in combat and the things they carried before, during and after the war and how many of the things the soldiers carried help to shape and define their lives. In life people are defined by the things they carry like social class, education or lack of; race, religious belief, what we possess, while the author states “it is determined by necessity”(637), while necessity does dictate and define our everyday lives, like school after the age of 30, some do it for career advancement, some do it to re-enter the job market, whatever the reason necessity dictates that it must be done.…
In “The Things They Carried,” a short story by Tim O’Brien, the reader is able to see, in great detail, each of the characters ways of dealing with the atrocities of the Vietnam War by what they choose to carry; how symbolically they use these objects as a means for remembrance of what they have left behind, to escape what they deal with each day, and for some, a false sense of security and/or control over the violence and death that surrounds them.…