Absolute Justice in Tim O’Brien’s "The Things They Carried" In society today‚ we live by tired clichés‚ swearing that “justice is blind” and preaching “equal justice under law” at every opportunity. We accept justice as something both natural and deserved‚ assuming that being fair is the same thing as being right‚ but only rarely do we realize the idealism of this mindset. Try as we might to ignore it‚ universal justice cannot exist in and of itself—there is no natural law that mandates an action
Premium Morality Ethics
Dialectical Journals of The Things They Carried Idea/Stylistic aspect | Quotation | Response | Truth | “Among the men in Alpha Company‚ Rat had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement‚ a compulsion to rev up the facts…it was normal procedure to discount sixty or seventy percent of anything he had to say.” | The narrator‚ in making a seemingly offhanded comment about Rat’s tendency to lie‚ reveals another major point of the novel: the truth of a particular story is differing from person
Premium Fiction Truth Storytelling
“Spin” Passage: The Things They Carried The function of the passage from the episode “Spin” is to introduce a different interpretation of the concept of “boredom‚” one that pertains to the war and the soldiers specifically and not often experienced by civilians. The type of boredom described by the narrator in the passage is tenser‚ and encompasses many more emotions that the Alpha Company comes across. Throughout the passage‚ the reader gets the idea that the soldiers are not bored in the irritated
Premium Anxiety Emotions Fear
The Things They Carried: Chapter 1 Significant Quote: “In the accompanying letter‚ Martha wrote that she had found the pebble on the Jersey shoreline‚ precisely where the land touched the water at high tide‚ where things came together but also separated.” (8) Speaker: Tim O’Brien Audience: The reader Significance: This symbolizes Martha and Jimmy’s feelings for each other. They are separated by the war‚ but together in their minds. Questions: 1. What prompted the separate-but-together thought
Premium Bankruptcy in the United States United States bankruptcy law
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
Premium Vietnam War Guerrilla warfare Violence
fraud‚ you reach your destination‚ but are unable to return” (Ghanaian proverb). What are the assumptions underlying this quote? How possible is it to undo the bad we do? This proverb describes one of the significant themes in The Things They Carried. It describes the mental and emotional burden the soldiers are forced to carry throughout their lives as a result of the atrocities they committed during the Vietnamese War. This proverb is assuming that the soldiers had in fact committed crimes
Premium Ethics Vietnam War Army
The historic fiction book “The things they Carried” is a marvelous book that melds a bunch of short stories together to create a unique flowing narrative. The many characters throughout the book give life to the harsh land of Vietnam‚ adding color to the palette of brown‚ fatigue green‚ and constant rain/blue. Characters like Kiowa‚ who brought compassion to Alpha Company‚ Rat Kiley‚ who brought sanity to Alpha Company before he went mad himself‚ Mitchell Sanders‚ who brought a form of moral code
Premium
of the comic V for Vendetta‚ once stated‚ “Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes‚ I created a lie. But because you believed it‚ you found something true about yourself.” In the quote moore describes the power that storytelling has on people. He explains to us that just because there is lies in the story‚ that doesn’t mean that we cannot take something away from it. Similarly in the novel‚ The Things They Carried‚ the author‚ Tim O’Brien‚ uses stories to tell us about his time serving in the war
Premium Vietnam War Vietnam Army
Many ideas can be found in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien‚ especially truth‚ memory‚ imagination‚ and love. One idea that is emphasized the book are the physical and mental objects that the soldiers carried with them. These objects that they carried during and after the war‚ left an unimaginable mark on their minds and will always carry with them forever. The title of this book is the most foreshadowing and prominent theme of the book. The tittle offers a clear preview of the contents in
Premium
In the story‚ “The Things They Carried” the author describes the many tangible and intangible things the Lieutenant and soldiers carried in war. As a highschooler‚ I too‚ carry tangible and intangible things with me. Just like the characters in the story‚ these things weigh me down‚ either physically or mentally‚ distracting me from the pressures from school‚ but I learn to deal with them and keep moving forward. Some of the tangible things I carry in my backpack on a daily basis are my notebooks
Premium Army Vietnam War Fiction