The Weight Of The World Carried By Tim O Brien - 1390 Words

The weight of the world carried by a few. â€Å"The Things They Carried† by Tim O’Brien is an enthralling story about a company of soldiers, their lives; and how their actions, choices, and societal influences during the Vietnam War changed them forever. Tim O’Brien used his own experiences in war to write very informative and thought provoking stories that blur the lines of reality and fiction. â€Å"The guy who s narrating this story has my name and a lot of my characteristics .... I blended my own personality with the stories, he explains. But what seems as a simple transference of identity is not. [I]t isn t really me .... everything is made up, including the commentary† (para. 10 Haswell) Soldiers carry the burden of society and life while growing up, becoming a man, and fighting for their lives. Soldiers at war have to deal with many different types of societal pressures and mental stress along with the fact that they are in a war zone. As members of the military, there are people that support you and what you are doing, and some that do not support it. O’Brien uses metaphors of weight being â€Å"carried†. He uses descriptions of the actual equipment that they have to carry to perform their specific job, along with the emotional stresses that weigh a person down, grinding away at their mental strength day in and day out. O’Brien makes lists letting the reader know that each character has an immense load of equipment to carry with them. These lists really connect theShow MoreRelatedThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1004 Words   |  5 Pages Tim O’Brien is a veteran from of the Vietnam War, and after coming home from his duty he decided to be a writer. His work â€Å"The Things They Carried† is about a group of soldiers that are fighting in the Vietnam War. The first part of the story talks mostly about physical items that each soldier carries, and also mentions the weight of the items as well. Though, there is one exception to the list of physical things. Lieutenant Cross is a character of the story, and Tim O’ Brien quickly states theRead More OBrien and Fossie in The Things They Carried Essay862 Words   |  4 Pagesage novel, or Bildungsroman. In many ways, The Things They Carried is an exemplary Bildungsroman as it carries the reader through the lives and problems of every soldier within its pages. Each man is witnessed as he goes through his own maturation and personal times of struggle and hardships. Some are focused on more than others, but each man has a story to tell, each a moral to teach. Throughout The Things They Carried, both Tim O?Brien and Mark Fossie experience a significant amount of personalRead MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1407 Words   |  6 Pages       Our introduction stated that in â€Å"The Things They Carried,† author Tim O’Brien tells us not directly of the soldiers of Vietnam, or the situations they find themselves in, but about the things they carry on their shoulders and in their pockets. These â€Å"things† identify the characters and bring them to life.   I find that to be true as the author unfolds the stories about war and the uncommon things one carries in to war both inadvertently and on purpose.  Ã‚  Ã‚  As it was noted: Stories about war –Read MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1459 Words   |  6 Pagestechnology such as the newly fashioned M-16 rifle and the Apache, a helicopter made for mass destruction. For the soldiers experiencing Vietnam, it was truly an experience which would shape their hearts and minds forever. As evidenced in Tim O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Vietnam War was an emotional tremor for the soldiers as they experience d deaths and created legendary tales which would define their lives, as well as future generations indefinitely. American soldiers who participated in theRead MoreEssay On The Things They Carried1624 Words   |  7 PagesFor the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in â€Å"The Things We Carried† by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now stillRead MoreAnalysis Of Tim O Brien s The Things They Carried Essay1574 Words   |  7 Pages To Ban or not to Ban : The Things They Carried Host: Hello and welcome to ban or not to ban, where the nations most exciting topics are discussed between opposing parties. Today we re debating whether or not to ban â€Å"Tim O Brien s novel The Things They Carried. In this book author Tim O’Brien depicts the Vietnam conflict by distinguishing between the role of whether or not to be a civilian or a soldier. Though the book is fictional, Tim O’Brien portrays himself as a man who strugglesRead MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Essay984 Words   |  4 PagesVery few novels and short stories have managed to clarify, in any lasting process, the means of the war in Vietnam for America and for the troopers who served there. With The Things They Carried, author (Tim O’Brien), captures the war s pulsing rhythms and trying dangers. However he goes abundant any. By moving on the far side the horror of the fighting to look at with sensitivity and insight the character of affection, courageousness and wo rry, by questioning the role that imagination playsRead MoreAnalyzing The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1539 Words   |  7 Pages1 Kyaw Soe Hist-10 Professor Neary 3/27/2014 Summarizing and Analyzing of â€Å"The Things They Carried† The book â€Å"The Things They Carried† is written by Tim O’Brien, the author of â€Å"In The Lake Of The Woods† and â€Å"Tomcat In Love.† In this book, O’Brien tells the details of the Vietnam war as a form of storytelling. He includes several characters in it such as Tim O’Brien, Jimmy Cross, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, Ted Lavender and so on. He starts with the primary characterRead MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien1621 Words   |  7 PagesTim O’Brien’s use of fictionalized writing in the delivery of â€Å"The Things They Carried† was the best writing style possible for a war story. Fiction, as opposed to a more conventional historical account, allows him to paint a more realistic portrayal of soldiers’ actual combat experience during the Vietnam conflict by use of imagery, real life accounts, and third person omniscient point of view. â€Å"The Things They Carried† is a story that I can personally relate to because of my service in the UnitedRead MoreThe Things They Carried By Tim O Brien865 Words   |  4 Pagesthe pain of witnessing the horrors of the war zone reality. This may manifest as emotional baggage, a reoccurring theme in â€Å"The Things They Carried† by Tim O’Brien. Emotional baggage transcends the physical weight it manifests that was in the soldier’s packs. Emotional baggage can manifest as something intangible, like an obsession, or take on physical weight and mass, like something that gives comfort simply by having it on one’s person. However, there comes a time when the emotional baggage must