Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried Essay The book The Things They Carried is a very touching book that describes the hardships of war and the details of the Vietnam War. The book is a marvel of storytelling Vietnam and also intrigued anyone in the craft of writing as well (New York Times, 1990). The author, is Tim O'Brien who has written many other books involving war. Kiowa who was in the Alpha company in Vietnam perished in Vietnam. Kiowa’s death represents the transitory nature of life and the horrifying suddenness with which it can be snatched away. Kiowa’s died in a awful way, drowning under the lake of a sewage field, Norman Bowker’s story was that he tried pulling Kiowa out of the shit field that was sinking in and he said he couldn’t take the smell so he let go of Kiowa’s leg as he was engulfed in the muck and lost forever. Jimmy Cross’s role in Kiowa’s death is that when they arrived in the small village not far from the Song Tra Bong river the women of the village shoed them away from the field that they wanted to camp at for the night. Cross scared them away with the firing of his pistol. During the night they realized they had made a bad decision because the field the women tried shooing them away from was a field used …show more content…
It rained constantly that night and made the earth bubble with the heat and excess moisture. Suddenly, rounds of mortar fell on the camp, and the field seemed to boil and explode (O’Brien, 1990). When