Tim O’Brien’s semi-autobiographical novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ illustrates the trauma and horrors veterans face during war‚ especially during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War ushered in a new era of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder‚ but unlike the veterans of wars before‚ there has been more research to help those suffering from the mental disability. O’Brien‚ like many veterans‚ uses writing as a medium to help ease the pain of the trauma he has suffered through the war
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Samantha Schulz Mrs. Nilles English 12-5 05 November 2012 O’Brien’s Theme of Rejection and Disconnect Why does O’Brien use the theme of rejection to convey his experience in war? In the book‚ The Things They Carried‚ Tim O’Brien writes about his experience in the Vietnam War. He uses many themes to show how the war has changed the soldiers and how the citizens perceive the war. Throughout the book‚ he uses the theme of rejection to show the disconnection between the soldiers at war
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In the passage “How to Tell a True War Story‚” Tim O’Brien explores the idea that the truth in a war story does not matter; only the emotions that the story is trying to relay matters. In the beginning of the passage O’Brien starts with a story about the death of a soldier‚ Curt Lemon. Lemon was playing around with his best friend‚ Rat Kiley‚ when he stepped on a hidden mine and was blown away. After the death of Lemon O’Brien brings up the idea that in a war story it is nearly impossible to separate
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the amount of death that soldiers encounter. During the Vietnam War‚ soldiers saw their brothers and enemies getting violently killed every day. Before war‚ the soldiers had never been around so much death and destruction. In the novel The Things They Carried‚ the narrator focuses on important deaths and analyzes them from different points of view. A death is a huge event‚ and not something that can be classified as an absolute. The way you view a death one day can be vastly different from the way
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In The Things They Carried‚ the author‚ Tim O’Brien‚ wants to emphasize different aspects of what the men carried. O’Brien provides different subjects throughout the work‚ with all having significance to the story. The items build on one another with the author’s use of anaphoras and examples‚ both general and specific‚ which stress the importance of what the men truly carried. Throughout the story‚ O’Brien uses several subjects that all have significance to the story. With each subject change‚
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Many of the facts that are included in the novel are not certain or accurate; the novel “The things they carried” is a fiction novel‚ I did not study history nor education‚ I am just a writer. Many of my days are basically writing different stories‚ some shorter than others‚ and not all of them are published‚ this is what I do for living and I the hobby that I enjoy the most. I wrote “The Things They Carried” a long time after the Vietnam war was over‚ therefore it was written from the perspective
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The Things They Carried‚ more like the things that I will carry forever‚ if there is any book I would say is the worst‚ is this book. BUT‚ it’s bad for all the GOOD reasons. I’ve read other war books that are good and EASY in making me put myself in the main characters position‚ but this book is definitely the opposite. Author Tim O’Brien continuously purposefully betrays his audience in order to construct a ‘truthful’ war story that makes the readers WISH to be in the characters position‚ not because
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Title: The Things They Carried Analyzed Essay Throughout The Things They Carried‚ Tim O’Brien uses both truth and fiction to potray the events and feelings a soldier encounters during war. While using fiction‚ O’Brien also applies symbolism through the use of women to show certain aspects of what men in the Vietnam War experienced mentally. O’Brien includes his ten year old daughter‚ Kathleen‚ who is oblivious to the tragedies of war. As well as his daughter‚ O’Brien introduces a young girl
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Surreal In The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien tends to use surrealism to tell his war stories. What is surrealism? It is a mix between fact and fantasy‚ which makes it bizarre. For example in the chapter How To Tell a War Story he tells three surreal stories. O’Brien tells us how to know when someone is telling a true story and when someone is lying. One of the story is about Mitchell Sanders telling about six men going crazy. They went crazy in the forest because they been up there for days not
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emotion that we have to channel. Guilt helps to maintain ties to the people around you. In the novel‚ “The Things They Carried‚” by Tim O’Brien‚ every soldier felt guilt when a unit member got killed or something tragic happened. This guilt felt by the soldiers was exemplified by Tim O’Brien and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Their feelings of guilt inflicted more of a burden than the things they were carrying did. O’Brien’s guilt was administered as a result of survival‚ while Cross’s guilt was set
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