The Things They Carried

Literary accounts of war have provided new generations with a great deal of insight into the horrors of war beyond what can be discerned from the images carried home through newspapers or the factual accounts conveyed through statistics and progress reports.  Through the text of literary works, the reader is…

Tim O’Brien’s modernistic piece of writing is both a realistic account of historic events which were present in US history: the My Lai Massacre in 1968. At the same time, it is a fictional mystery written with the help of numerous reminiscences as well as flow of consciousness. The protagonist…

In the short story “How to Tell a True War Story”, novelist Tim O’Brien asserts that it is not feasible to tell a moral story. He scrutinizes the complicated connection between experiencing the war in actuality and telling it in a story. The story is told half in the perspective…

The Vietnam War was America’s longest and most divisive conflict to date. It helped to define a generation and provoked great soul searching on the part of American youth and elders alike. Even today, decades after America retired from the area, many questions remain to be answered. One way of…

Death associates with immense blame. Individuals blame diverse factors upon the demise of a loved one. This is an evident trend in “Speaking of courage,” “Notes,” as well as “In the field.” “Speaking of courage” reflects Kiowa and Bowker as main characters. They are reflected as close friends in the…

‘The Things they Carried’ by Tim O’Brien kindled great interest in me from the time I started reading it. The pages 1 to 85 of the book describes the different events that took place during the author’s experiences in Vietnam which made me relate to it because it was so…

Introduction In “The Things They Carried” by O’Brien, references are made to the Vietnam War whereby soldiers are considered to have suffered from physical, psychological and emotional burdens. Mostly, the story explains different things the soldiers carried and tries to explain the motives for holding on to the objects. The…

Essay Introduction The book d “The Things They Carried” was ed by Tim O’Brien and documents several stories that describe the experiences of the author and other soldiers who has participated in the Vietnam War. Although the stories in the book are given different titles, they are interrelated and serve…

Introduction In any war, the soldiers get paranoid; they are dispossessed of the sense of justice and morality, once they are part of the war. The solider will never be the same individual again, having seen action in a war. It is a terrible evil exercise for humanity and the…

Tim O’Brien is both the speaker and central character of “The Things They Carried”. The story describes his personal involvement in the Vietnam War and lets him to make an observation on the combat. He comes into the war a frightened young man fearful of the embarrassment that ducking the…