The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Essay

interesting role in the novel, The Things They Carried. Guilt and shame come together conjointly. Shame was used in many cases of the novel. It was a form of motivation to some cases. It was also a stimulation of choices that the soldiers made that were not the best choices. The choices were unwise and possibly led to regret. Every soldier carries a piece of shame. There are soldiers who may have carried more shame than the others. The amount of shame they carried pushed them to become who they…

According to Tim O’Brien, “to carry something was to hump it” (345). Having served in the Vietnam War, O’Brien wrote a collection of stories to reflect on his experiences (Britannica). In one of his short stories, "The Things They Carried", the plot alternates between Lieutenant Jimmy Cross' daydreams of a college girl named Martha and the brutal realities of the Vietnam War. Throughout the story the protagonist, Jimmy Cross, is portrayed as a lovestruck teenager as he “humped his love for…

A “good kill.” Tim O’Brien’s story “Ambush” is about a man going through problems about killing another soldier in the Vietnam War. I believe that it was a good kill. The reasons I believe this is because the man could have killed him and his men, he took out an enemy so it was one less to worry about, and its war soldiers are suppose to kill the enemy. I believe it was a good kill because the man could have killed him and his men that were sleeping in the tents. The narrator of the story did…

The term war carries the social connotation of an over glorified battle in which one gallantly humps off into battle in search of becoming an embodiment of the perfect soldier. As Tim O’Brian explains in his novel “The Things They Carried,” no amount of ribbons, medals, or other accolades can replace the agony, misery, and remorse one could feel during a war. The glamour of war is intricately dispersed through the common act of human nature in the novel. On the battle field, the act of killing…

in “How to Tell a True War Story” form the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the movie “Platoon” directed by Oliver Stone and the iconic war song “2+2=” by Bob Seger System. More specifically, these stories share a number of themes. However, theme that most strongly unifies them is the destructiveness of Vietnam War, physical and psychological, and this…

afraid of dying since the death is unavoidable. However, in The Things They Carried, Linda’s death changes the meaning of the death. In the chapter, “The Lives of the Death,” Tim O’Brien tells readers the life can continue after death by recalling his memory with his first love, Linda. Linda died because of her disease, brain tumor, when she was nine years old. However, Linda was not afraid of her inevitable death. She rather thought Tim how to deal with death. Therefore, Linda was not only his…

The Resurrecting Power of Stories The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a fictional story that exhibits love, loss, war, coming-of-age, innocence, and so much more. O’Brien explores all of these themes through an even bigger topic: storytelling. He also inversely picks apart the various aspects of storytelling via the smaller themes. One of the products of this analysis that I find to be most intriguing is the resurrecting power of stories. O’Brien asserts that stories have the capability…

1959 to 1975. Those involved in the war have recorded their experiences; however, Tim O`Brien, an American Writer and Vietnam Veteran, has been unmatched in his story telling about the nature of the war. The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about men during the Vietnam Era and how their experiences before, during, and after the war shaped them into the men they are. Through these multiple stories O’Brien presents his theme that war destroys more than just land, it strips soldiers…

dystopian society where everyone is alarmingly equal. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, soldiers carry memories of their lives prior to the war and emotional burdens from the war. They share these burdens and war memories through storytelling. In…

The first chapter that could be applied to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien from How To Read Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster would be Chapter 11: … More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence. For the most part, violence and death are everywhere in The Things They Carried. Explosions, gun shots, open wounds, all in a typical war setting that was fought by people who did not even need to be in the war. “By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was…