Essays on Tim O'Brien

Many authors regard their work as being a single standalone piece of art. By this logic, it can be safe to assume that the authors work their literary pieces to stand out against similar genres of works. However, in some cases many different stories end up sharing the same motif and theme. In many cases like this, it is not because of two authors collaborating to come up with a theme, or lesson, to teach society but a stroke of luck. When forming their stories, authors use society around them to develop their characters, settings, and such so in ...

O’Brien’s novel “The Things They Carried” entails different tales that ranges from paragraphs to pages demonstrating how impossible it is to know the absolute reality of war. Sometimes the narrator begins a story only to abandon and continue it in another chapter. Other times, he lets another character finish the tale while others are told as if they are true only to be questioned later. O’Brien uses a technique that allows the reader to determine which of the stories are true, leading to the different angles that one can view the ways of telling war stories ( ...

“The Things They Carried” seems like a simple story concerning the items carried by soldiers while in Vietnam. But in the real sense, Tim O’Brien uses the stories to focus on the terrible conditions of Vietnam as well as the death of one soldier. He believed that the things men carried inside, and those they did or the ones they felt they had to do was so sad (O’Brien 57). It can be described as a powerful meditation by the Vietnam soldiers that is somehow fictional and fact. Besides, the author created a protagonist as a fictional ...

In his story The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien ostensibly tells a tale about the war in Vietnam that, in actuality, is a mirror of the human condition exposed through the horror of human conflict. In so doing, O’Brien uses an old philosophical theme first set in writing by Aristotle. Through the angst of conflict, O’Brien succeeds in demonstrating the essence of being. Aristotle pointed out that to be complete in essence; a being must be “in the is, and in the is not” (Aristotle 1050). That is, a whole human is the product of both ...

The stories offered for the comparison may seem totally different at first sight. However, the common trait of the two is the motive of empathy, which turns out to be crucial in both. The famous ‘What if Shakespeare had a sister’ is a part of the essay ‘A Room of One's Own’. In its form the essay presents the dialogue since it originates from the lectures Virginia Woolf gave for women in the Newnham College and Girton College (Goodreads). In her work ‘A Room of One's Own’ Virginia Woolf describes the state of the patriarchic oppression of the generations ...

Light in August, Saint Maybe, and The Things They Carried

The literature contains unique expressions of life issues. In close view, many writers have written on various matters affecting humanity. Importantly, their writings have significantly inspired society's understanding and appreciation of life. Thus, the stories and accounts told from various perspectives help to draw lessons, ideas, and various themes from the actual life. Some of the novels recount of predicaments that people went through in life. This paper considers the theme of predicaments in three novels. The first is Light in August by William Faulkner, Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler, and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Put ...

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is a story about a platoon of soldiers caught in the commotion of the Vietnam War. Reading this story was enjoyable, but there were several things about it that concerned me. In a story about war, it is all but natural for the author and his characters to have to deal with death, and Tim O'Brien’s story is no different. Tim O'Brien has used various styles to write this story, and he has written it in a non-traditional format. Mainly, he has written this story in a limited omniscient, third person style. However, elements ...

Introduction

War is truly a very terrible thing. It has a lot of confounding effects on every person who is involved. Some individuals take war well. Others undergo very horrible experiences as a result of war such that they are scarred for life. These people are still haunted by the effects of war even when the war ends and they return home. A lot of stories about the disastrous effects of war have been written by many authors. Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story" and Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” are examples of such stories. ...

Book Report on

The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien was born in the town of Austin, Minnesota, and moved to Worthington at the age of 10. He went to Macalester College and participated in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970 as an infantry soldier. After the war, he completed graduation from Harvard University and worked as a reporter with The Washington Post for a short duration. He launched his literary career in 1973 with the publication of If I Die in a Combat Zone which established him as a leading writer on Vietnam issues. In the book “The Things They Carried, Tim O’ ...

Question 4

How does love figure into the development of the text? What is O’Brien trying to say about the relationship between love and war? In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien brings a story of the American platoon soldiers who were deployed to fight for a good course in the Vietnam War. The whole novel is a collection of stories of the experiences of these soldiers during their time in the jungle as they fought far away from home. As the narrator, O’Brien brings a clear picture of the real and fictitious occurrences in the battlefield. Although the central theme ...

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried tells an anthologized story of a platoon of American soldiers throughout the Vietnam conflict, demonstrating just how significant the effect of the war was on everyone who experienced it. Drawing greatly on O’Brien’s own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, the stories are greatly extrapolated from his recollections of being there, though they do not necessarily cover strictly accurate events in the life of O’Brien. Instead, the mood and atmosphere of O’Brien’s experiences is projected onto this semi-autobiographical group of characters, creating a stylized world in which people, places ...

The things They carried is a collection of short stories written by Tim O'Brien. This is a story describing a group of soldiers and the things they carried in their bag packs and hearts. The soldiers were forced to carry vital items, which they could need for survival during the war. This novel comprises of a group of interwoven stories, which describe the soldiers’ experiences during the Vietnam War. On the other hand, Three Day Road is a novel by Joseph Boyden. This novel about two soldiers Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskey jack fought during the First World War Xavier comes home wounded after ...

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a novel and a collection of short stories related to one another. It talks of the war with a protagonist that shares the author’s name. However, perhaps the most interesting character in the book was Kiowa. He was American Indian and was raised a Baptist by his father who taught Sunday school. In the midst of war, Kiowa brought rationality and a sense of calm to the members of the Alpha Company. Kiowa was kind to everyone, and it was apparent that he was Tim O’Brien’s closest friend, although it was ...

Truth in fiction is often relative; the extent to which objective truth is embellished in favor of dramatic license or reflecting the emotional tenor of the speaker is important. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” Tim O’Brien tells various tales of his time in Vietnam from various perspectives and sources – it is equally a recounting of his own experiences and embellishment from an author looking to create an interesting story. O’Brien’s story is, in essence, about the nature of storytelling, demonstrating the ability for authors to dramatically change and determine the perception of events while providing ...

“The Things They Carried” is a non-fiction that centers on the main character Tim O’Brien about his experience in the Vietnam War. The novel starts with him and author listing off different things that his company, The Alpha Company carried with them when they were on assignment doing missions. The novel is a series of different stories, but some of the same characters weave in and out of them. Many of the things within the story mean more than is readily apparent and are symbolic of deeper meaning. This essay looks at some of the symbolism found within the book ...

Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tim O’Brien are Minnesota-based authors who have written prescient and affecting works that highlight the human experience. In The Great Gatsby, the Roaring Twenties and all its debauchery are encapsulated in the tale of Jay Gatsby, poor boy made good, whose fortune and ambition is all for the sake of one woman he wants back in his life. In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," an American platoon experiences horror, death and loss in the jungles of Vietnam, all while carrying various objects of both practical and personal significance to them. Both stories ...

“The things they carried” is a uniquely put together story by Tim O’Brien that is partially fiction and non-fictitious. This is a work that narrates events from the Vietnam War according to Tim O’Brien. Tim O’Brien is the writer of this work. Since he went and fought in the Vietnam War, it is evident that he used his own experiences as inspirations for this book. However, O’Brien maintains that the story is a fictions account of what actually happened at Vietnam (Bloom, 20). O’Brien uses the Alpha Company as the focus of his story. The story ...

Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam war anthology The Things They Carried follows a platoon of American soldiers both in and out of the field, showing the toll that the war itself took on these men and women. The nature of humanity, the senselessness of war, and the importance of relationships to human beings are highlighted in the metatextual and historical makeup of this short story collection. O’Brien makes heavy use of symbolism and metafiction to create a highly stylized world of the Vietnam experience, each of the stories providing their own perspectives and symbols to show the effect of Vietnam ...

One would wonder how it feels witnessing the Vietnam war firsthand in the combat. Well, Tim O’Brian takes us through a journey that portrays the emotional and physical burdens that the soldiers of war had to deal with during the Vietnam warfare in his book The things they carried. However, this is not a book about the Vietnam war but its story about the experiences of the soldiers and the emotional effect that was bestowed onto them. O’Brian skillfully employs various stylistic techniques of specific and a conscious selection of detail. The predominant theme in the book revolves around the ...

In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," an American platoon experiences horror, death and loss in the jungles of Vietnam, all while carrying various objects of both practical and personal significance to them. O'Brien's language in this story, as he delineates and describes in great detail the appearance and source of all of these objects and what they mean to the soldiers, is scattered and stream-of-consciousness at times. This is meant to convey the abstract importance of these things in the soldiers' lives; some of them, like the M-16, are supposed to protect them, while others, like Lt. Cross' ...

English 11

Throughout history, there have been many stories surrounding love and war that have been expressed in the forms of written materials and rhetorical tales. There are also been many books written by men and women as they engage in war activities on the battle fields. Many of these books contain short stories as to how the entire actions unfolded in the Vietnam War and many other different war battles in the world. As depicted by Tim O’Brien in the novel “The Things They Carried,” it is quite difficult to retell stories involving war, fighting, and killing. Many soldiers ...

Introduction

The things they carried was published in 1990 and is regarded as an outstanding fictional work that is based on a platoon of American soldiers who participated in the Vietnam war and how they are fought boredom and trauma of combat throughout the Vietnam War. While it seems it is based on the experiences of O’Briens, the cover page recognizes the book as a work of fiction. In one of the short stories, Good Form, the narrator draws a clear cut distinction between the happening truth and the story truth. The author, O’Brien, has a feeling that, creating a story that is ...