Tim O Brien Critical Analysis

Tim O'brien's the Things They Carried is a collection of fictional war stories based on his own time in vietnam. Each stories features a role in a continuous narrative, fractured pieces of one squads experiences in vietnam. O'Brien throughout the novel continuously shits narration, from person to person giving the reader insights into each soldier's perspective. One of the most powerful perspectives came from a character named Tim O'Brien. Throughout the novel his perspective is consistently boyish and fraught with a terror of violence. Despite this as the novel progresses, like his he squad mates, he becomes more and more accustomed of the atrocities of war. Looking back on his experiences as a veteran he decides to write stories about war,
Franklin opens up with “Savages we call them, because their Manners differ from ours, which we think the Perfection of Civility. They think the same of theirs.” he is already calling for a greater level of respect from his colleagues, saying that they are in fact not so different from the indians. He goes on to describe his experience with their culture and social guidelines. For example he mentions hospitality and honesty as true tenants of their culture: “The same Hospitality esteem’d among them as a principal Virtue, is practiced by private Persons” Then contextualized this with about a story from a native american man’s perspective. Franklin spoke of one man's experience doing business with a white man, in order to make a larger point about the insensitive practices towards Native Americans. He solidified this point with a quote from a native american man: “This made it clear to me that my Suspicion was right; and that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn Good Things, the real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians on the Price of Beaver.” Franklin creates this cause and effect type format in his essay in order to shine a light on the humanity of native american people and the effect of his colleagues