Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is set in Vietnam during the Vietnam War‚ and describes a soldier’s burden by listing what they carried and portraying scenes in a war. Critics have debated over the classification of O’Brien’s story. The major dispute is over whether “The Things They Carried” is appropriately classified as war literature. Although Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is fictitious‚ it is war literature since it conveys the physical and emotional
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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien Plot: 1. RISING ACTION • In the summer of 1968‚ Tim O’Brien receives a draft notice. Despite a desire to follow his convictions and flee to Canada‚ he feels he would be embarrassed to refuse to fulfill his patriotic duty and so concedes to fight in Vietnam. CLIMAX • During their tour of duty‚ the men of the Alpha Company must cope with the loss of their own men and the guilt that comes from killing and watching others die. FALLING ACTION • After he returns
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worked‚ and from there it was a natural progression to learning how to use the weapon" (98). As the story goes on it shows that she is becoming more of a soldier. She in the end acted very differently than most women‚ this for women was a positive thing because it is giving her power‚ and a new look on life. This can be negative as well because Mark Fossie lost the girl he once loved. Her image continues to become more negative‚ once Mary Anne goes crazy and starts sleeping with the greenies. She
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The Things They Carried Essay Questions Directions: Choose one of the following essay questions to respond to and develop a critically thoughtful‚ analytical essay. 1. Tone is an important aspect of writing in war literature. Examine the stories again and analyze the most prevalent tones O’Brien uses throughout the book. How does the use of these tones help to establish the meaning behind these stories and an overarching theme to this collection? 2. Consider the role of the narrator throughout
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Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war. O’Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war‚ he makes an effective antiwar statement‚ and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific
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Most people don’t know what surrealism is. Surrealism is when things are real but exaggerated. For example when you watch a sci-fi movie not all of it can be true. Surrealism pertains to these chapters in” The Things They Carried” because it talks about war stories that might be true or have some facts that are stretched out. One chapter is called “How to Tell a True War Story” It’s about all these stories that his friend rat told and how some of them might be real our fake. There was one story
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The Things They Carried analysis paper Themes in The Things They Carried “In a story‚ which is a kind of dreaming‚ the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world‚” writes Tim O’Brien in his novel The Things They Carried (225). Throughout the story‚ O’Brien discusses themes such as death‚ the loss of innocence‚ and truth. Not only does O’Brien successfully thematically connect his final story “The Lives of the Dead” to the rest of his book‚ he also creates a “true war story‚” as
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People carry all kinds of things on the daily basis. From little things like car keys to a traumatic memory from the past. The soldiers who fought in the vietnam war had to go through many incredibly horrifying experiences and it was those exact events that make “The Things They carried” by Tim O’Brien such a marvellous vivid book. Tim O’Brien uses imagery‚ figurative language and repetition to get a ridiculous emotional connection with the reader. He uses story-telling to clear his conscious about
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but with imagery that make a story easier to picture it when reading it. When an author writes a story they need to use facts to make a good story‚ but they need to add things to make the readers picture what is happening‚ they make them think deeper about the story. An example of when this happens in The Things They Carried is when O’Brien is talking about Curt Lemons death‚ “I can see him turning looking back at Rat Kiley‚ then he laughed and took that curious half step from the shade into sunlight
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The excerpt of “The Things They Carried” inspired me to write about minimalism and the burden that excessive amounts of possessions can create and how ultimately it can weigh down an individual’s happiness. It inspired me to write about this topic by listing off all the things the soldiers in the story had to carry and how much each thing weighed. It made me think about how unhappy carrying the heavy equipment might have made each soldier and how unhappy I was with the things weighing me down. To
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