Tim Obrien's The Things They Carried: Burdens Of War
Christian Mueller
Professor Marek
ENC1102 Sec 81
25 September 2013
Burdens of War Tim Obrien’s “The Things They Carried”
To understand literature, especially the more abstract and intricate stuff, you must comprehend beyond the literal text. To really see the point an author is hinting at you must be able to read the covert messages masked within the overt ones. Not only must you take the authors background into consideration but also the time period that the piece takes place in. You must take into account the culture and context of a story, only then can you truly understand the symbols, allusions, and metaphors intended to give insight. In Tim Obrien’s “The Things They Carried” he uses metafiction and extensive lists of symbolic …show more content…
“The Things They Carried” portrays this trait in all of the men during their daily struggles in Vietnam. “In different ways it happened to all of them. Afterward, when the firing ended, they would blink and peek up. They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it. They would force themselves to stand” (Obrien 1140). Regardless if the soldiers were in support of or against the war, none would forsake it for fear of the shame it would bring. The GIs who had thrown in the towel and shot themselves in the foot to be evacuated he ridicules as “Pussies” or “Candyasses”. All the soldiers long for home and naturally sympathize with those who self-inflicted injury because none are there to fight for glory; they only fight to avoid the humiliation of quitting. The ignominy the warriors dread is strikingly similar to what Obrien would have felt if he dodged the draft. Parallel with Obrien’s own experience, the squad avoids embarrassment by forcing their way through each day. This is one of the numerous burdens the men must cope with in their new hellish …show more content…
"THE WORDS ARE ALL: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF TIM O’BRIEN." Tim O 'Brien: A Critical Companion. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2005. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 25 Sep 2013.
Poppleton-Pritchard, Rosalind. "World Beyond Measure: An Ecological Critique Of Tim O 'brien 's The Things They Carried And In The Lake Of The Woods." Critical Survey 9.2 (1997): 80-93. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 2 Oct. 2013.
Kluge, P. F. "Talking To Saipan: American Lit In A Pacific Outpost." Humanities 31.3 (2010): 20-23. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 25 Sept. 2013. Obrien, T. (2012). “The things they carried.” In F. Madden (Ed.), Exploring Literature (5 ed.). NY: Pearson.
ROBINSON, DANIEL. "Getting It Right: The Short Fiction of Tim O 'Brien." CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 40.3 (1999): 257. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Oct. 2013.
Professor Marek
ENC1102 Sec 81
25 September 2013
Burdens of War Tim Obrien’s “The Things They Carried”
To understand literature, especially the more abstract and intricate stuff, you must comprehend beyond the literal text. To really see the point an author is hinting at you must be able to read the covert messages masked within the overt ones. Not only must you take the authors background into consideration but also the time period that the piece takes place in. You must take into account the culture and context of a story, only then can you truly understand the symbols, allusions, and metaphors intended to give insight. In Tim Obrien’s “The Things They Carried” he uses metafiction and extensive lists of symbolic …show more content…
“The Things They Carried” portrays this trait in all of the men during their daily struggles in Vietnam. “In different ways it happened to all of them. Afterward, when the firing ended, they would blink and peek up. They would touch their bodies, feeling shame, then quickly hiding it. They would force themselves to stand” (Obrien 1140). Regardless if the soldiers were in support of or against the war, none would forsake it for fear of the shame it would bring. The GIs who had thrown in the towel and shot themselves in the foot to be evacuated he ridicules as “Pussies” or “Candyasses”. All the soldiers long for home and naturally sympathize with those who self-inflicted injury because none are there to fight for glory; they only fight to avoid the humiliation of quitting. The ignominy the warriors dread is strikingly similar to what Obrien would have felt if he dodged the draft. Parallel with Obrien’s own experience, the squad avoids embarrassment by forcing their way through each day. This is one of the numerous burdens the men must cope with in their new hellish …show more content…
"THE WORDS ARE ALL: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF TIM O’BRIEN." Tim O 'Brien: A Critical Companion. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2005. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 25 Sep 2013.
Poppleton-Pritchard, Rosalind. "World Beyond Measure: An Ecological Critique Of Tim O 'brien 's The Things They Carried And In The Lake Of The Woods." Critical Survey 9.2 (1997): 80-93. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 2 Oct. 2013.
Kluge, P. F. "Talking To Saipan: American Lit In A Pacific Outpost." Humanities 31.3 (2010): 20-23. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson). Web. 25 Sept. 2013. Obrien, T. (2012). “The things they carried.” In F. Madden (Ed.), Exploring Literature (5 ed.). NY: Pearson.
ROBINSON, DANIEL. "Getting It Right: The Short Fiction of Tim O 'Brien." CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 40.3 (1999): 257. Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Oct. 2013.