Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a war story. It tells about the physical and not so physical things that his friends and himself bared during the Vietnam War. This book portrays how these things weighted or lightened their load and how it impacted their time in Vietnam. Throughout the story O’Brien contradicts himself multiple times, making it difficult to separate fact and fiction. Just about everyone that has or will read this book will surely be confused, but pay close enough attention and the beauty behind it might just reveal itself. By casting doubt on the veracity of his stories, O’Brien is able to relay the true meanings they hold.

In The Things They Carried , O’Brien really likes to get the reader wondering if what he is saying is true. This makes it impossible to figure out whether or not his stories actually happened. It may be frustrating to most readers, but there is a greater purpose behind this strategy. Think of this book as a therapy …show more content…
O’Brien is suffering and he is in an ongoing wrestling match with his thoughts and feelings. Such a state of mind is beyond imaginable, for some readers, and this book, and the way he tells it, is the only way O’Brien can properly express it. So the reader really has no excuse for why this story should not be told exactly how it is. On the other hand, O’Brien’s method of storytelling is so biased towards him, that it becomes dishonest to the reader. How could the average person begin to appreciate the value of an exerpt such as this. “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”(pg.83). There are countless ways this statement could be interpreted, but there is only one way O’Brien wants the reader to see it. It that sense it would be unfair to the reader because O’Brien makes his book so complex that trying to find the correct meaning in it would pose a great