The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried- Physical and Emotional Weights The Things They Carried is a short story, written by Tim O’Brien that was developed into a novel. It’s a war drama that takes place in the later 1900’s during the Vietnam War. In the story, an unnamed narrator describes, in the third person, the thoughts of Jimmy Cross. Cross is a lieutenant in the war but is distracted by his thoughts of Martha. Martha is a young woman that he dated before he joined the army. He thinks about the letters…

rather than one that describes the characters, plot, or settings unique to one story" (Norton, 385), and these different literary elements are used by writers to make comments on these themes. "The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien both carry the themes about love and death. In "The Birthmark", Hawthorne uses Aylmer and Georgiana, a couple, to ask questions about love. Aylmer is obsessed with Georgiana's birthmark on her cheek and he cannot stop…

mistreatment of the dead is commonplace. In The Iliad, after Achilles kills Hector, he proceeds to abuse his corpse by dragging the body on a chariot behind him. In The Things They Carried we see the soldiers kicking corpses and cutting off thumbs. Death has become so normalized to soldiers during war that in The Things They Carried Mitchell Sanders claims that there is a moral behind the cut off thumb. The moral might be that there is no moral. This distortion of what is normal causes…

through intensive training and expectations from everyone that brings out not only their toughness, but also their strength to do the unthinkable. The book The Things they carried by Tim O’brien is a book based on a true story about a platoon of American soldiers and their significant belongings-- both physical and metaphorical-- that they carried along with them during the Vietnam war. Examining the standards made for men by the society, the articles Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear shame and…

“The Things They Carried” Essay At war, a battlefield is a perilous place, a place where blood is stained red. It is where men and women carry physical as well as emotional loads such as grief, love, terror, longing and etc. In "The Things They Carried", by Tim O'Brien, the American novelist tells his readers about the transformations of Lieutenant Cross. At the beginning of the story, Lieutenant Cross was on the battlefield of the Vietnam War with his comrades. While he was there, Cross keeps…

comes to light in the short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. The burden of war on soldiers is more than physical strain. Tim O’Brien displays the extra burdens of soldiers through the use of poetic elements such as repetition, onomatopoeia, symbols, metaphors, similes and irony. Ultimately, the use of metaphors in “The Things They Carried” adds importance to soldiers and the burdens that they carry through war. O’Brien writes about the things soldiers carry such as ammunitions,…

The Horror of Endless War The story “The things they carried,” written by Tim O’Brien portrays the glory and horrors of war from the perspective of a traveling platoon. The author tells of experiences both mental and physical that occur between six “grunts” as they continue on in the war campaign (335). The emotional connection of this story is revealed by everything that they “humped” day in and day out through the Vietnamese jungle, not only their backs but in their minds as well(335). The…

Elizabeth Hurwitz ENG – L 203 Essay 1 25 September, 2017 “The Things They Carried” By Tim O’Brien In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author highlights an internal realization in the main character which further uncovers the central theme of emotional and physical burdens in humans at war. He uncovers this theme through the epiphany of the main character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, when one of his men die while he is daydreaming about life at home and a woman who does not feel…

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…

discussion and group presentations regarding The Things They Carried introduced new ideas and points of view. Various themes and rhetorical devices were found throughout each vignette, and connected to the novel’s larger theme. Some universal themes most groups touched upon were that the soldiers had to deal with emotional burdens during the war, the importance of writing as a coping mechanism, and that war takes away the soldier’s past identities. One thing I noticed is that symbolism was a…