The Things They Carried‚ By Tim O’Brien Tim O’Brien’s novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ provides an incredible realization of what life was like for an American soldier who fought in Vietnam from perspectives before‚ during‚ and after the war. The story’s power draws you in. It makes the events in the story seem real and provides the reader with a sense of what it feels like to be one of the soldiers. O’Brien’s talent as a writer made a fictional story more than believable to the reader. When reading
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consequences for this war were grave and dire. Millions from both sides lost their lives for a seemingly unreasonable cause. In his novel "The Things They Carried"‚ Tim O’Brien changes the glorified way in which media and textbooks portray war‚ telling gruesome stories illustrating the irreparable damage war inflicts on the lives of young soldiers. The "things" the characters carry both concrete and emotional. Woefully‚ the ladder catapults the men into a lifetime of struggling to cope with the crushing
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In the first chapter of The Things They Carried‚ “The Thing They Carried”‚ Tim O’Brien uses the motif of intangible weights the men carry and how they have the strength to alter one’s performance and emotional state at war. The intangible weight of Martha’s love is like a barbell Jimmy Cross can never seem to let go of. Continuously carrying extra weight‚ Cross expresses how he "love[d] Martha more than his men" (6)‚ which results in the death of one of his men soldiers Ted Lavender. Cross’s love
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little do most Americans know that soldiers during the Vietnam War were corrupted by the conditions of the war and left with no choice but to use hard drugs such as heroin in order to cope with their pain. Looking through Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried the troops in his novel were guilty of using hard drugs in order to cope with the war. The Vietnam war was a highly disputed war in the United States many Americans were against the fact that we were participating in this war in the first place
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object because it was too much to bear? Tim O’brien’s novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ is about men in the middle of the Vietnam War just trying to survive. These men‚ like all soldiers‚ carried many things ranging from the physical items of war to the emotional and mental weight that comes along with the horrors of war. “They carried all they could bear‚ and then some‚ including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”(O’brien‚7) I believe in this novel‚ O’brien gives many great
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“Who’s Irish” by Gish Jen is a short story about a Chinese grandmother living in America. The grandmother lives with her granddaughter Sophie‚ her daughter Natalie‚ and her unemployed‚ Irish son-in-law John. She describes Sophie as “wild (105)”‚ and blames her Irish side. She claims: “She is not like any Chinese girl I ever saw (106)”. The grandmother babysits Sophie during the day and believes she should be spanked‚ even though Natalie and John oppose it. Sophie continues to misbehave and the
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Heavy Baggage the Soldiers Endure in Tim O’Brien‚ The Things They Carried Often times‚ when we are asked‚ “What is a burden?” we often say that it is something that is difficult to bear‚ something that often leads to a great deal of anxiety and stress‚ and something that acts as the foundation of difficulty and trouble one may face. In the literary excerpt‚ “The Things They Carried‚” written by Tim O’Brien‚ the author illustrates the significance of burdens‚ and how the consequential emotional
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like‚ but that awful song just keeps playing over and over and over‚ in your mind. Now imagine that song as your most horrific memories‚ and it never stops. This is how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder makes most people feel. The author of The Things They Carried‚ Tim O’Brien‚ is one of the men who was with the other soldiers‚ meaning that he experienced the events in the story first-hand. He himself also suffers from PTSD‚ and has chapters about his thoughts‚ feelings‚ and family intervention when he
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There are many ways in which the characters and the setting go together. By knowing where and when a story takes place‚ we are able to better understand what each character is going through. In the short story “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien‚ O’Brien does a great job describing what each character is feeling and going through‚ both emotionally and physically. In the story we are introduced to seventeen young American soldiers who are in the middle of the Vietnam War. “They are
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The Things They Carried Colby Earles In this book the author Tim O’ Brien uses many different little stories to sum of the big picture of war. He focuses in on many different characters‚ stories‚ and their specific feelings to help the reader get an actual feel of what he felt. Which he states on pg. 171 " I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth". While O’ Briens main connection to the title focus’s in on what each soldier physically carried
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