The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

Improved Essays
Elene Bezarashvili War and change the book the things they carried written by Tim O’Brien provides examples of young men who are going through the path of change during Vietnam war. Even author himself experiences and characterizes this change and shows influence of war on soldiers. war changes people and their sense of identity and place in society as well as their moral.

One of the soldiers who is going through rough time after war is Norman Bowman. Bowman felt a sense of uncertainty, isolation and alienation from himself and society. He found that he was questioning

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the chapter, On the Rainy River, of Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, the main character, is considered a coward. This is because he first ran away from the war, and his responsibility to his country, and he then chickened out and did not follow through with his plan. This is very much related to both the Declaration of Independence and Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. In this chapter, O’Brien is conflicted between not knowing what he will be fighting for when he goes to war, and feeling like he needs to meet the expectations of others and being loyal to his country.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the chapter, On the Rainy River, of Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, the main character, is considered a coward. Mainly because he first wants to dodge the draft, and his responsibility to his country by going to Canada. He then chickens out and does not follow through with his plan. On the Rainy River chronicles his struggle to decide what he will do. Both the Declaration of Independence and Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God relate in different ways to his perspective on the war and his choices.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Tim O’Brien is a writer that, while impressive, can be described as indulgent with his words; going on for pages at a time on one topic and not sparing a single detail. This, of course, is part of his charm, which is why his vignettes are never lacking in any rhetorical devices. However, in his “The Man I Killed” from his The Things They Carried the rhetorical devices become much less prominent, because the protagonist, Tim O’Brien, retreats into himself. Instead the reader must then shift gears to understand O’Brien’s message—the feeling, shock, obsession, and delusion that comes from killing someone—which he communicates using more subtle and less assertive devices such as tone, hyperbole, and antithesis.…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Synthesis Essay The novel “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien is a simple yet intriguing story about the items a troop of soldiers carried while stationed in Vietnam. Tim O’brien makes sure the story circles and centers around the horrible conditions of Vietnam. He also puts a voice in his writing so it seems like this topic was very difficult to write about. Throughout the story, O’brien seems to gain trust and courage in his writing and in his audience of young adults.. “The Things They Carried” describes the Vietnam experience and focuses on and prepares O’brien to discuss emotional issues and not just physical or environmental.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Suicide and Bravery In The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, the reader is educated about the horrors of war and the effects it can have on the people who return from it. Soldiers kill and watch people, ranging from close friends to the enemies they are fighting against getting killed. This leaves a lasting impact. A lot of soldiers who return from war suffer from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, which is “a debilitating anxiety disorder that occurs after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event” (www.healthline.com).…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien, purposely places the stories out of chronological order in order for readers to fully feel the impact and importance of the stories and make them come to life. He begins by writing tales as if they were real and later admits they were simply stories made up to keep the dead alive. A particular story that stood out was the piece surrounding Curt Lemon. Towards the beginning, there is a story of how Bob Kiley wrote a letter to Curt Lemon’s sister after his death and mentions how the man painted himself up and went trick-or-treating on Halloween in a village in “just boots and balls and an M-16”. By inserting this story in the beginning the readers automatically associate Curt Lemon…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried follows a group of soldiers through their tour of Vietnam. Throughout the story the reader is provided with imagery from a soldier coincidentally named Tim O’Brien, detailing the items his fellow soldiers carry in their knapsacks. The items carried show great personal connections to one another, as well as their lives outside of the war. Not only are the items described, but the emotion of warfare is depicted in great detail. Therefore, O’Brien’s imagery creates an important narrative from a soldier’s point of view.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tim O’Brien has outstandingly portrayed what the life of a soldier in and out of the Army during the Vietnam War is in his own distinctive way of fictional writing. O’Brien is especially known for this book because of the way he switched from a narrative to a conversational writing style. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien constantly uses multiple literary devices to make his remarkable war stories seem as if the reader were actually there to experience the situation for themselves. Throughout the story, O’Brien tends to use symbolism to explain his short stories. Also, scattered through the stories dark satire can be found, which makes these stories a bit more intriguing.…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Things They Carried”, we are presented with a story about a group of military men during the Vietnam War. The story is told by an unnamed narrator, from a third-person subjective (limited omniscient) point of view. While the story goes on to describe what each of the characters carried during their missions in Vietnam. The author focuses mainly on the emotional dilemma of the group’s lieutenant ,Jimmy Cross, and the effect it has on his group. Being that the conflict is an emotional struggle, I categorize the main conflict as an internal conflict.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O’Brien that consists of multiple short stories that occurred around the time of the Vietnam War. The short stories within the book revolve around their struggles and hardships that Tim O’Brien’s platoon experienced during the war. In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien tells stories of Martha, Mary Anne, and Linda in order to show how women were used as coping devices for soldiers during the war. Their stories as a whole help develop the theme seed of love and war and how they develop their own identity in order to help or hurt the soldiers in an emotional way.…

    • 1241 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator demonstrates his struggle of figuring out who he is through expressing his experience about his detachment…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Burdens of the Battlefield “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (O’Brein, 20). The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a collection of stories from the Vietnam war. The stories in the novel range from harsh and violent to deep and emotionally resonating.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Therapy of the Vietnam War In the book “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien describes his and others experiences during and after the Vietnam War. (1) O’Brien tells this story to explain the different ways that troops were able to cope with the killing, death, and changes that went on during the war so that they could continue fighting. (2) O’Brien included many first hand accounts of the different ways the troops coped with the experiences they had during the war and when they returned to life back home in America after their time of duty. (3) Some people in the war were able to cope or were not able to cope depending on how you look at it.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Things They Carried is a collection of stories that Tim O’Brien the author of the novel uses to portray his experiences and feelings throughout the Vietnam War. This book conveys the life of the men throughout the war and post war and shares his vivid experiences as if you were almost there. O’Brien not only tells the cruel part of his experiences but the love and sacrifice that bonded the soldiers to form a sense of brotherhood. In the Book The Thing They Carried, O’Brien conveys bonds soldiers created for emotional support and shows soldiers struggles post war to form other connections to convey the importance of brotherhood. Brotherhood is necessary to help soldiers deal with the hardships of the war which is shown as the overall truth in the novel.…

    • 1944 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Personal identity is a common philosophical struggle that humans face. What makes us who we are, and why are we here are two crucial questions we have debated over since the dawn of civilization. From birth, we are constantly gaining experience and knowledge not only to survive but also to create our own world-view. Even though we are complex creatures, we have a tendency to categorize the world around us into simple boxes. When a new topic is introduced which doesn’t already fit in one of our boxes, we are offset by this idea.…

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays