Tim O’Brien’s The Things they carried In-class writing assignment War has always been something that seemed pointless to me; it seemed like violence with no other purpose but to harm people. I felt sorry for the people who had to go to war‚ for the people who died‚ and for people who could never go back to normal after a war ended‚ because of the mental or physical impact it had on them. Howard told us his story‚ his opinion about war‚ and the book “The Things they carried”. He changed my way
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absurd tragedy. Both “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy and “Old Mother Savage” by Guy de Maupassant explore the theme that war is absurd because it makes enemies of those who would otherwise be friends. First‚ the speaker of “The Man He Killed” discovers that war makes enemies of those who would otherwise be friends. The speaker of the poem is a soldier that is on the battlefield facing his enemy. In the first stanza‚ the speaker of the poem exclaims “Had he and I but met…we should have sat
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Mr. Nenopoulos CAI September 2‚ 2014 The Things They Carried In the following book The Things They Carried by Tim O Brien‚ the title of this novel suits the story well because of many reasons. This book is written about the American soldiers that served in the Vietnam War. In the beginning of this book O Brien instantly gives us a huge nudge as to why this book titled this by telling us what each soldier carried on their backs during this war. He explains how heavy the equipment they have to carry
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The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha‚ a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters‚ but Lieutenant Cross was hoping‚ so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon‚ after a day’s march‚ he would dig his foxhole‚ wash his hands under a canteen‚ unwrap the letters‚ hold them with the tips of his fingers‚ and spend the last hour of light pretending
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American Dream The Things They Carried - Log 1 The American Dream is the desire to succeed. Success can be achieved through hard work‚ and with hard work and success the American Dream can lead to happiness as well. The American Dream is attainable by all. It does not depend on social class‚ race‚ ethnicity‚ gender‚ sexuality or anything that makes the person an individual. It relies on the ability to work hard and to strive for change. In the novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ each character transforms
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this change very subtly. In the poem‚ “The Man He Killed‚” the main character is fighting a war. He meets a man‚ and is forced to kill him because he is on the opposite side of the war. But later in the poem he wishes he could have met the person in a different environment‚ not during the war. The story starts off with our narrator stating that he wishes it was a different time. This is because currently there is a war going on‚ and he is forced to kill a man he does not even know. In the first quatrain
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“The Man He Killed”: A Reflection of Human Nature Philip Zimbardo‚ a renowned psychologist known famously for the 1971 Stanford Prison experiment‚ once said “human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The ’situation’ is the external environment. The inner environment is genes‚ moral history‚ religious training” In this quote‚ Zimbardo addresses the perceived reasoning behind any individual’s decision making. Similar to this reasoning‚ Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed”
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The Things They Carried: Catharsis and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder “Men killed‚ and died‚ because they were embarrassed not to” (O’Brien 20). Tim O’Brien is the author of The Things They Carried‚ a fictional memoir written from the perspective of the narrator‚ whose name is also Tim O’Brien. This fictional O’Brien’s experiences cover many themes‚ most notably those of fear‚ guilt and humiliation. In this novel‚ O’Brien uses a distinct blend of fact and fiction as an outlet for his actual experiences
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carry such qualities as distrust of the white man‚ all they could bear‚ grief‚ terror‚ love‚ fear. How does O’Brien use so many abstractions in these stories? a. The title of Tim O’Brien’s novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ paints a vague mental image of people carrying something – an image that is not yet complete for the reader to grasp the purpose of the novel. ‘Things’ are often assumed to be physical‚ in this novel‚ the ‘things’ that the soldiers carried were the mental burdens during and after the
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and Emotional Burdens In The Things They Carried‚ O ’Brien talks about multiple different things that the men at war carry. They take things with them that soldiers always have like guns‚ bags‚ grenades‚ ammo‚ food‚ water‚ and things like that‚ but they also carry personal items like Kiowa ’s Bible and moccasins‚ or Jensen ’s vitamins. The men however‚ have more than just physical items. They have things that always stay with them like emotional and figurative things. Throughout the novel‚ O ’Brien
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