Things They Carried College Essays Samples For Students

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 ...

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 ( ...

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 ...

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 ...

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' ...

Memory is both a burden and a gift to humanity. Without memory, humans would have a much more difficult time connecting on any level with their fellow man; however, the burden of memories can be heavy for many, as well. When traumatic events in life occur, it can be human nature to want to forget them to try to escape the pain; however, truly forgetting is difficult and people have the tendency to carry these traumas throughout their lives. In both The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and “Janus” by Ann Beattie, the main characters are burdened by the things ...

The Things They Carried (1990) by Tim O’Brian is one of the most famous short stories in the history of English literature. The literary work has impressed the critics and readers alike, and it enjoys widespread popularity among literature lovers and readers across the globe. The stalwart author has used a number of literary devices with his aesthetic quintessence to accentuate the effect of the story on the minds of the avid readers all over. The paramount influence of the linguistic richness and the literary devices has immortalized the short story in the pages of history of literature.
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Social concerns are often expressed through different forms of media and literature. These avenues provide a way to analyze both popular and unpopular opinions about social interests. Many author strive to put forward new view points and better understand the psychology of the public. Some hope to make changes in the future, while others may only want to entertain an audience or make people remember events in a truthful manner. The truth is something that is very subjective to each reader, the truth is often clouded by opinions and social influence, literature and media gives people a chance to analyze issues and ...

O’Brien says that stories can make the dead come back to life through remembering. O’Brien explains a story of about the first dead body he witnessed in Vietnam of an old Vietnamese man. Other people in the platoon to the dead man in a mocking manner: One man proposed a slice of bread to the corpse, but O’Brien would not participate. O’Brien says that the corpse reminded him of Linda, a girl she used to know, then O’Brien all over sudden segues into the story about Linda. Despite the fact that O’Brien was ...

Within each society, people build relationships that foster growth and development as people interact with each other. The relationships vary according to the work and social standards of the specific society. In other words, most people in a particular society will work together to develop a common idea that will help to bind people together as a community. Within these societies, there are those simple or common guiding principles that are practiced for extended periods and become an integral part of the culture and the traditions of the society. But, not all consensuses within the society will guarantee the ...

The book "The Things They Carried" written by Tim O'Brien is about a historical story during the Vietnam War. This book published in the year 1990 is also called as meta-fiction and there is a confusion that whether it is fiction or reality. But if we deeply read the book it is about the real facts that occurred when author was a soldier in the Vietnam war. The author tells about the life of the soldiers in the war field including him and the incidents that happened during that time. Through his vision the author highlights the mental status ...

Tim O'Brien “The Things They Carried” is an exceptional and challenging book that rises up out of a composite of multiple customs. O'Brien writes to his audience both a war diary and a life account, and confounds this presentation by making a fictional hero who offers his name. To completely grasp and admire the novel, especially the sections that gleam the way of composing and narrating, it is essential to recall that the novel is fictional instead of a routine genuine, historical record.

Through an arrangement of interfaced life stories, "O'Brien" enlightens the characters of the men with whom ...

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Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried reads much like a list of physical items that the men of the Alpha Company carried during a tour in the Vietnam War, but at closer examination the short story is about much more than physical items. The Things They Carried blends fiction and non-fiction to detail the items American soldiers carried with them as they fight for their country – physical and emotional.
Each member of the platoon carries something specific to their own state of mentality, physicality or beliefs. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries the memory of his ...

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’ ...

In the story, The Things They Carried the author Tim O’Brien tells the story of soldiers of Alpha Company, led by First Lieutenant Jimmy cross. Most of the men are low-ranking soldiers. The platoon is there to fight in the Vietnam War. The narrator, Obrien, is one of the soldiers. This story is all about what objects those soldiers were carrying with them, and their memories or emotions associated with those objects. How all those soldiers are confronting the tension between fantasy and reality. The Dreamer of that Company is lieutenant Cross. He comes to his senses when ...

In Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” and Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried,” the death of a character serves as a focal point of the story. In both stories, the author builds suspense around the death, slowly revealing the fate of the character. However, while both stories feature the death of a character, Jackson uses a backdrop of normalcy to counterpoint the horror of death while O’Brien uses a foreign environment against which death seems almost routine. Each author achieves the goal of engaging the reader in a compelling narrative but they use different narrative techniques to achieve ...

This story is set during the American involvement in the Vietnam War and, as the title suggests, is preoccupied with “the things they carried” – all the items of military equipment and personal keepsakes that the American infantrymen carry with them on patrol. Because they are infantrymen, they walk everywhere, and what they can carry is limited by its weight and their ability to carry it. O’Brien also makes clear that the men carry not only physical objects, but memories, hopes and fears – all the emotional baggage of their past lives in the USA. In terms of narrative the ...

Tim O'Brien's “ The Things They Carried” is a work of fiction but throughout the novel there is a blend of truth and fiction. The novel is a collection of twenty two stories interrelated stories that speak of the author’s experience in the Vietnam war. By including fiction as well as the comments of the characters in his stories,O’Brien presents an ambiguous story about war. He says that war and its experiences cannot be generalized and there is so much more to it than heroism, courage, fear, death and pain. Especially in the story, “How to tell ...

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 ...

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a novel about the experiences of a group of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The fact that the narrator includes himself while also providing real names throughout the narrative creates a style of writing that borders fiction and non-fiction. The narrator introduces Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is the leader of the platoon of soldiers as well as his memories of Martha, a constant reminder of his unreciprocated love. When the platoon is faced with death, Cross reconsiders his priorities and burns everything that reminds him of his life before the ...

The Things They carried by Tim O'Brien is a story regarding a soldier who takes part in the Vietnam War. O’Brien is the narrator. The story has various themes regarding the war and a bunch of soldiers of an American platoon. One of the dominant themes is death among the soldiers. In the introductory part of the narrative, the author provides a description of the major characters by describing the things that they carry. His description of the characters goes from the physical objects to emotional expressions. He states thus, “they carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die, grief, ...

The two characters Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Oedipus the King of Thebes have been presented as being responsible characters. Oedipus is ruler who takes quick action with great insight working to the expectations of the people he rules. For instance, when the citizens request him to act on the plaque, he has is already a step in advance having sent Creon to the Delphi oracle for top seek advice on the issue. Jimmy Cross on the other hand takes responsibility in the Vietnam War. He is unwilling to take up a role as a team leader in the Vietnam War. However, he ...

Introduction

Fences is one of the great American plays of the 1950’s and as in most of Wilson’s plays it explores the theme of race relations. Most of the time, the play focuses on the main character which is Troy and his experiences in baseball in the segregated society which was prevalent in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Fences continues to harp on the main theme which is race relations during the extensive discussion Troy has with his workmates and friends especially in the aftermath of his career in sport. Due to the fact that Troy was poorly piad, he ...

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 ...

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 ...