The Things They Carried Essay

The short story “the things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien takes place in the Vietnam War. The protagonist. Lieutenant Cross, is a soldier who is trying to be a good leader but he is also madly in love with a college student named Martha. He carries around with him photos and letters from her. However, in the first few pages of the story it shows how this deep love makes him very weak in the war. Until the death of a soldier, Lieutenant Cross is a character who, has been very loose and has not…

shows that 74% of Vietnam veterans would serve again, even knowing the outcome (Roush). This statistic makes sense, because according to the same report 2/3 of the soldiers were volunteers, not conscripted soldiers. Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, although a fictional book, very accurately depicts the hardships faced on a normal basis by soldiers serving in Vietnam. The author rarely talks about himself during the war in the book. He instead focuses on describing the other men in…

predetermined barriers and expectations through social construct fundamentally shape one's life experience. Moreover, the memories can also mold a person’s identity because it shows how one understands and experiences the world. In the novel, The Thing They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the characters exemplify that these facets are linked to the formation of one’s identity through their experiences in the Vietnam War. One’s gender and environment can shape one’s identity via social…

abstract terms. The clinical definition of insanity is “a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder” (Merriam-Webster). The abstract definition is “to deal with heightened stress in un-methodistic ways”. In The Things They Carried, by writer and Vietnam war veteran, Tim O’Brien, every character deals with being in the brutal circumstances of the Vietnam war by either using drugs, creating a delusion, or by simply giving up all forms of hope. So the question…

Friendship is one of the only concepts that is both accepted and embraced worldwide as an aid to get through hardships of any kind. It is the bond In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the author utilizes a combination of expertly located tone shifts, carefully composed and shaped character foils, and implied symbolism in order to exemplify both the differences and the constant similarities between the vital friendships that Tim constructs and bonds to throughout the novel. O’Brien uses…

The book “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien is based on multiple short stories all referring to his time during the Vietnam War. The author wanted the reader to perceive his memories from the war and to feel all the emotions that was associated with the word “war”. He described it as: death, love, mystery, adventure, terror, pity, despair, discovery, and longing; All of which I felt and detected while reading the authors short stories. The author also goes on about his stories and makes…

The Things They Carried If I were going to be found dead in war these are the things I would carry with me while in my service during the war. In the back of the picture sit my tennis raquet. I have always loved playing tennis evers since i started in sixth grade. I have never been good at sports in my life but tennis is the one sport that I am actually good at. It makes me complete and feel good about myself. Sports are tough on a high schooler but tennis puts me in my happy place where I can…

One of the biggest things to worry about when a solider comes home from war is the symptoms or challenges they maybe face while being home. They might experience things similar to what happen back in the war and might lash out or go into a depression, this stage maybe be due to a disorder they might bring back from when they were in the war and this it is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD for short. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that 's triggered…

Throughout the novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, imagination is explored as a complex concept. It is talked about immensely particularly with the character Jorgensen. O'Brien remembers how the younger version of himself and Azar torment Jorgensen by making sounds that they know will scare him and awaken his imagination. Imagination becomes a killer to Jorgensen both physically and emotionally; it causes him to physically put his body through certain movements that are abnormal,…

In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien suggests that the war itself changes a person, the changes could be negative or positive. The negative effect is the war is like a disease that takes over your body and reorganizes everything inside you making the outer layers of you to be unrecognizable to people. For instance, when Tim talks about Lemon fear of the dentist and how he got over the fear: "...something about dentists that just gave him the creeps ....Lemon kept insisting, so the man…