Things They Carried - 1106 Words

The Things They Carried Report â€Å"The Things They Carried† was a story about soldiers caught in the confusion of the Vietnam War. There are a lot of apparent themes that are dealt with when writing a story about war, especially about death. I enjoyed reading this story; however there were some things about it that I was concerned about. I would like to discuss the author’s style of writing, his meaning of the title â€Å"The Things They Carried† and the way the author and his characters deal with death. This story was written with a variety of styles, and it was in a non-traditional format. The main style seems to be a third person, limited omniscient story. However, this story also includes elements of flashback. In a traditional flashback†¦show more content†¦Finally, I would like to comment on how the author and the characters deal with death. Even though the characters were acting in a un-humanlike way, the author points out the minds behind the soldiers. Lavenders death is rea lly a central theme in the story, so much so that the event of his death keeps getting repeated over and over again. The author makes it a point to tell the different positions on death. Lavenders death only affects one person in the entire squad, the leader Jimmy. Everyone else in the platoon carried on as if nothing was wrong. In fact, some of the troops were â€Å"smoking the dead man’s dope† while waiting for the chopper to arrive to take Lavender away. At first I was appalled at this fact. If a comrade of mine died, the last thing I would do is try to find something to profit from his dead corpse. I would also be afraid for my own life because someone close to me just died. I understand that these are soldiers, and that they deal with death, and are trained to kill. However, when someone close to you dies, that is a different situation. The author does make a point to mention, â€Å"They (the soldiers) carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die† , which indicates that the soldiers did feel some kind of emotion. However, it amazes me that these soldiers can even mask their true emotions in the face of their friend dying. I do appreciate the fact that the author points out the true feelings of the characters, even though their actions doShow MoreRelated the things they carried Essay1091 Words   |  5 Pages The things they carried,by Tim Obrien nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;quot;Oh man, you fuckin trashed the fucker. You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like fuckin Shredded Wheat.quot; I chose to start off my essay with this particular exert from the book because I think that it very much represents the story in itself. Azar said this, after Tim (supposedly) killed a Vietnamese soldier with a hand grenade. It shows that in times of war, how callous men can becomeRead More Necessity in The Things They Carried Essay2336 Words   |  10 PagesNecessity in The Things They Carried Necessity is a rather slippery concept in terms of definition. The notion of what an individual requires for his or her survival varies with the particular situation at any given time. These needs may intensify or become distorted as one finds himself in an increasingly dangerous situation, particularly a life-and-death one such as war. Such dire circumstances may provoke in an average person feelings of extreme vulnerability, and the desire to hold onRead MoreOverview: The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien1510 Words   |  7 Pages The Things They Carried is a novel written by Vietnam Veteran Tim O’Brien. The Vietnam War took place between 1955 and 1975. Most of the soldiers fighting were young teenage men around the age of eighteen and nineteen years old. Like O’Brien many of these young men were pulled away from their families and life to fight a war they didn’t approve of or even know about. This had a strong affect on most of these men and O’Brien us es different ways to show how the Vietnam War affected them both physicallyRead MoreArgumentative Synthesis The Things They Carried1783 Words   |  8 PagesArgumentative Synthesis â€Å"The Things They Carried† Tim O’ Brien, having the memories of war engraved in his mind, recalls the memories of his youth during battle in â€Å"The Things They Carried,† an intriguing collection of military accounts that symbolize his attempt to resist closure from past experiences. O’ Brien’s story reflects the difficult choices people have to make in their struggle to confront the war waging inside their bodies as well as on the ground they tread. In Steven Kaplan’s criticismRead MoreThings They Carried – Coping Mechanisms:1529 Words   |  7 PagesThe Things They Carried –Coping Mechanisms to Survive During the Vietnam war, soldiers were not exposed to the traditional coping mechanisms of our American society, as illustrated in Tim Obrien s The Things They Carried. These men were forced to discover and invent new ways to deal with the pressures of war, using only their resources while in the Vietnamese jungle. It was not possible for any soldier to carry many items or burdens with them, but if something was a necessity, a way wasRead MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1242 Words   |  5 Pagesinduction into genuine experience is clearly destructive as well as empowering† (p.12) Tim O’s text, The Things they Carried, details his uses of word choice to portray his tone and bias. Tim O’Brien uses Martha to represents the idea of home and all it attendant images. He also uses letters and quotes to convey his image. Despite the fact that women assume a little part in The Things They Carried, it is a critical one. The Female characters Martha, Mary Anne Be ll, and Kathleen Cross all affect theRead MoreThe Things They Carried by Tim OBrien Essay977 Words   |  4 PagesThe Things They Carried by Tim OBrien The Things They Carried list the variety of things his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company brought on their missions. Several of these things cannot be seen, including guilt and fear, while others are specific physical objects, including matches, morphine, M-16 rifles, and MMs candy. Throughout the collection, the same characters reappear in various stories. The first member of the Alpha Company to die is Ted Lavender, a grunt, or low-rankingRead MoreCoping Methods in the Things They Carried Essay875 Words   |  4 Pages 1. How does O’Brien use The Things They Carried to cope with the psychological impact of his experience in the war? In â€Å"The Things They Carried† Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. TimRead MoreEssay on The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien1253 Words   |  6 Pages The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brein, is a story told through the eyes of members of a United States Army troop trudging their way through the Vietnamese country side and jungles during the Vietnam War. Each man has a specific job and so they carry specific belongings that they need to fulfill that job as well as a few mementos from home. These men also carry unseen baggage that is all too real to these men, their families and responsibilities back home preying on their minds, the horrorsRead MoreThe Struggle of Weight in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried1315 Words   |  6 PagesThe Struggle of Weight in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word weight as a mass or quantity of something taken up and carried, conveyed, or transported. Tim OBriens war story The Things They Carried, published in 1990, explores the theme of weight and its importance to men at war in considerable depth. The opening chapter of this book, which was originally written as a short story, is comprised of a collection of lists. OBrien details