...Tim O Brien’s mental thinking in “The Things They Carried,” and “In the Lake Of The Woods.” Tim Obrien’s “The Things They Carried,” and “In the Lake Of the Woods,” shows how the Vietnam War affected his writing style. Tim Obrien was a Vietnam War Veteran. This mental state is brought out through his style of writing through Characterization, Setting, and Theme. These things show how the Vietnam War affected his writing in a psychological way. I believe these stories and many others are ways he coped with the memories of Vietnam. First the characterization Obrien uses in “The things they carried,” and “In the lake of the woods,” shows how Obrien coped with his War past. Both of these stories have two men that portray Obrien. In “the things...
Words: 637 - Pages: 3
...He is my favorite character from the book "The Things They Carried" diligent and honest, with drawn and quite caring to others. He is very smart and practical. A couple examples of his smart and practical are he carried extra shoes "Moccasins" in order to sneak up on enemies and walk more quietly. He also helped his other soldiers think more clearly about their actions. Specifically when O'Brien kills of a child soldier in the Vietnamese army. He is also a Baptist, Christian and a Native American, therefore he brings a unique perspective that is quite different from the soldiers who fight alongside with him to the tragic events that the Alpha Company is forced to endure. Kiowa is a complicated character in this book....
Words: 520 - Pages: 3
...In Tim O’Brien’s, “The Things They Carried” these soldiers experience very traumatic ordeals. These young men are in a war where everyday one of their fellow servicemen is being killed. Each soldier deals with being in this precarious position by holding on to an item that is symbolic to them. These symbols offer security in a place where there is a constant fear for their lives, and gives them temporary relief from thinking about their situation. The story offers insight into the war that they were facing. The narrator went into careful detail of how each soldier went through the day to day operations of being miles away from home and in enemy territory. The main character Jimmy Cross carried letters form a girl back home named Martha. These letters helped him to take his mind off of the war and focus solely on her. Sometimes his mind would drift and wander throughout the day causing him to lose focus on the situation around him. Some of the situations he faced were critical and traumatizing and others were not. The soldiers even though they had weapons and were covered in body armor, never felt safe and were very fearful for their lives. Ted Lavender was the most fearful out of the unit. A typical soldier would carry at most 25 rounds of ammunition. However, Lavender in his fearful state carried 34 rounds when he was shot. Kiowa, a soldier who witnessed him Lavender’s death said it was like a rock falling “just boom then down.” Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose...
Words: 508 - Pages: 3
...The Things They Carried In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” the story has a bittersweet tone throughout as the author takes us down a road of what being in the war is really like. The story jumps from each soldier’s point of view to invite us into their thoughts and emotions. The author uses long paragraphs to show that the soldiers’ days were long and drawn out. Repetition is used to show the importance of things and also to show what the soldier’s woke up and did every day. Random scenes of violence pop up to show the reader how unexpected things can happen at any given moment in the war. The theme of the story is of these soldiers being “men” and putting on a mask that shows no fear rather than being weak and showing they are scared....
Words: 675 - Pages: 3
...Shane McDonald The Things They Carried In 1990, Tim O'Brien released his second novel about Vietnam, and in the late Sunday edition of the New York Times in March, Robert Harris, editor of The Book Review, reviewed O'Brien's work. According to Harris, only a few novels have found a way to clarify, with any lasting impression the meaning the war had for the soldiers who served there. He believes that O'Brien's work moves beyond the typical war story filled with fighting and battle and instead spends his time examining courage and fear. Harris believes that this is done with sensitivity and insight and by "questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our memories and our own versions of the truth" (1). The Things They Carried is a collection of interwoven stories, and while it is a work of fiction dealing with the same platoon, Harris believes that it can in no way be considered a novel due to the structure, but rather it is a collection of short stories unified by characters and theme. At the same time, he also believes that while it is not a novel, all of the stories cohere and it is still a worthy piece of fiction. Harris goes on to say that while there is a lot of gore, as is typical of war stories, O'Brien explains why it was necessary through the voice of the text. Harris quotes from the story "How to Tell a True War Story" which states, "If you do not care for obscenity, you don't care for truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch...
Words: 458 - Pages: 2
...The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.” In The Things they Carried by Tim O’Brien, A soldier recalls his Vietnam stories. Through storytelling and various other methods, he is able to remember what happened when he was younger. He tells the stories of all of his friends and the memories he created years back in the Vietnam war. An apparent theme during the storytelling is describing what his fellow comrades had with them while in Vietnam. Symbolism wafts through this book, for each thing that various characters represent who they truly are. Key characters like Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa are all symbolized who they are through the items these soldiers...
Words: 662 - Pages: 3
...evil, right and wrong, civilized and uncivilized, freedom and oppression for Vietnam, according to American standards; then it traveled the long physical distance to Vietnam and attempted to make its own notions about these things clear to the Vietnamese people—ultimately by brute, technological force. For the U.S. military and government, the Vietnam that they had in effect invented became fact. For the soldiers that the government then sent there, however, the facts that their government had created about who was the enemy, what were the issues, and how the war was to be won were quickly overshadowed by a world of uncertainty. Ultimately, trying to stay alive long enough to return home in one piece was the only thing that made any sense to them. As David Halberstam puts it in his novel, One Very Hot Day, the only fact of which an American soldier in Vietnam could be certain was that "yes was no longer yes, no was no longer no, maybe was more certainly maybe." Almost all of the literature on the war, both fictional and nonfictional, makes clear that the only certain thing during the Vietnam War was that nothing was certain. Philip Beidler has pointed out in an impressive study of the literature of that war that "most of the time in Vietnam, there were some things that seemed just too terrible and strange to be true and others that were just too terrible and true to be strange." The main question that Beidler's study raises is how, in light of the overwhelming ambiguity that...
Words: 5116 - Pages: 21
...The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, was not just about the physical things that each soldier carried in their pack, but also the emotional weight of loved ones, fears, and death that they have witnessed. O’Brien used details about each item the soldiers carried, especially the weight. By letting the reader know how much physical weight the soldier was carrying, it allowed them to indirectly experience the hardship of marching days on end, carrying their gear. Along with the physical weight, each soldier had to overcome their emotions and focus on the task at hand, something Lieutenant Cross failed to do so, therefore causing death among the men he oversaw and was supposed to protect. In the story, O’Brien added specific details about each item the soldiers carried. He talked about the things that were necessary for survival, but the soldiers also carried items that were important to them. The reader could plainly see that when the speaker stated “Very few carried underwear. On their feet, they carried jungle boots-2.1 pounds,” (799) and “Rat Kiley carried comic books.” (799) This allowed the reader to know more about the soldiers belongs, which helped them develop a connection or an understanding of what they each carried to keep their lives and their sanity. Unfortunately, in some cases, carrying personal items didn’t always help...
Words: 598 - Pages: 3
...Kylie Miller English 2025 Lisa Beans 24 January 2014 First Writing Response In the two short stories we read in class, “The Things They Carried” and “The School”, there were to very different, yet very similar journeys the characters had to face. In “The Things They Carried”, the journey was the war. The soldiers taking this journey were faced with many ups and downs during their time spent on it. They faced death and sorrow when someone in their troop was killed, but they also found joy and comfort in the things they carried with them on their long journey. They traveled, almost aimlessly, along the warpath trying to reach the end of their journey until the main character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, decides that he is going to make the best of this journey; that he will make what they are doing mean something. Before, Jimmy Cross was facing an entirely different journey on the inside. He struggled with the thought of if a girl from back home, whom he loved, truly loved him back. However, the biggest struggle of Jimmy Cross’s journey was the one he faced when his fellow soldier Ted Lavender was killed. Cross blamed himself for Lavender’s death. He thought that if he wouldn’t have been spending all of his time thinking about the girl from back home he could have been a better leader. After this, Cross burned all of his love’s pictures and letters and vowed to be a better lieutenant for his men thinking, “He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence...
Words: 669 - Pages: 3
...O’Brien explains all the physical objects that the men carried during the war. He then moves on to several war stories, describing his experiences in Vietnam. These chapters present other intangible things that these soldiers also carried- such as Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s loneliness. In these first few chapters he also depicts the setting in Vietnam. In the fourth chapter, “On the Rainy River,” O’Brien gives readers a glimpse into his life before the war, and tells of his almost escape to Canada after being drafted. O’Brien then moves back into war stories telling of the man he killed to Henry Dobbins carrying pantyhose around his neck. These semi-true stories further illustrate the extra emotional baggage these soldiers carried. In the chapter “Speaking of Courage,” O’Brien tells a fictional story of Norman Bowker trying to communicate his post-war feelings, and in the next tribute explains his tribute to Norman Bowker (who committed suicide.) O’Brien then tells of his post war life and of his trip back to Vietnam with his own daughter. When O’Brien is finished with war anecdotes, he tells one final story of how when he was nine, the love of his life, Linda, passed away. This final story brings the book to end with O’Brien explaining how stories help him survive because they give him an illusion of aliveness for those who have passed away and help lift the burden that he carries. 2) Throughout the entire book, the things soldiers carry to war appear as a major theme and they...
Words: 516 - Pages: 3
...is one way they can improve it. Another thing that has helped Cadbury’s is that they have made many improvements to their websites. Cadbury’s have also done a lot more international business with countries like India over the past few months. Cadbury’s have also done a lot more for their customers over the past few months. Including adding a lot more wider range of chocolates to their selection in order to keep the customers happy and coming to buy more Cadbury’s chocolate and in order to get more people to buy who haven’t bought before. So they are attracting more customers than before and from that they are making a lot more profit/money. There are two types of market research, these are primary and secondary research. Quantitative and qualitative and sampling are also used as types of research for market research. Research that is carried out by Cadbury’s is that they use primary research through surveys, questionnaires and face to face interviews which has increased their customer feedback. By using the primary research Cadbury’s has managed to improve on their products because they are attracting more and more customers. Secondary research that is carried out by Cadbury’s in which they use it find out about their other competitors. So other chocolate brands. They use old reports, surveys and questionnaires to help them promote their business in a way that their competitors may not have used. By using secondary research they have increased their range of products to make...
Words: 442 - Pages: 2
...the majority of college students in the country opposed the war in Vietnam, but against his own personal beliefs, laced up his boots for his country and touched down in Vietnam in the winter of 1969. As a young man who was dropped dead center in a war he did not even support, the twenty-two year struggled in every sense of the word. Luckily for generations to come, O’Brien keep journals of the horrific daily situations soldiers had to endure. The short story collection of The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien is regarded as one of the most important...
Words: 1130 - Pages: 5
...Ryan Canady 3/7/11 EWRT 1B A Soldier’s Burden Tim O’Brien is regarded as the preeminent American novelist of the Vietnam experience and his novels have gained widespread critical and significant popular success. His popularity can be attributed to his ability to translate the experience of wartime into perspectives on the larger questions of life and death. The three stories by O’Brien listed in the title are based on his own personal experiences and memories of his time in and after the Vietnam War. Although these stories are based upon real experiences, he embellishes some facts or puts instances from separate events into one timeline making his work is fiction. I believe that O’Brien wrote these stories not only as a therapeutic release for himself, but he is able to retell these stories and give an incredible insight to such a dark and controversial piece of American history. But his career has spanned a wider range of topics than his experiences from Vietnam. One consistent theme in his works is morality and the timeless struggle that humans have had with it. Along with morality, the amount burden that people carry, both physical and emotional, is a major theme in the stories I will be discussing. Another great attribute to O’Brien’s writing is his uncanny ability to blur the lines between fiction and reality. This style of writing is commonly referred to as metafiction; which is fiction that discusses the function and effect of storytelling. He believes that...
Words: 1750 - Pages: 7
...the variety we see every day and are deeply intertwined and can be problematic. Mutations occur when new genetic information is introduced to a population within a species and modify the alleles that currently exist. Some mutations can be harmful to one species and not affect the other. For example, if an insect is a carrier of a disease causing allele, the insect can transmit this disease to a human if stung. Initially, it may just be a few insects that are troublesome. Over time, mutations can occur that enable a significant number of insects to be carriers. This would now be considered a major issue for humans. Sexual reproduction is responsible for passing these alleles along through generations. It does not create new alleles but it does form different sets of genetic combinations due to varying partners. Looking at the insect mentioned earlier, sexual reproduction allowed for continuous breeding of the few insects that carried the disease trait. The mutated genes became stronger than the original genes so they became more prevalent. Over time, these combinations of alleles increased the number of insects carrying it and, therefore, posed the bigger issue. Migration refers to introducing a species into an area that had not been exposed to that species previously. Perhaps the insect in our example inhabited a country in the south. Some of...
Words: 522 - Pages: 3
...state what these seven are and how they could possible effect someone's work. The first factor that a sociologist would have to consider when looking to carry out research is practicality, this includes; is the study worth undertaking? And what are the practical issues involved? The practical issues that the sociologist will have to explore include; how much money will the experiment need in order to fully function? How much time will they have to carry out the study and how will it be done? If they don't have much time, a online questionnaire would be a good way of carrying out research. Having a lot of time and money would mean you'd be able to conduct a laboratory experiment. The second thing that needs to be considered is the ethical implications of any data gathering. Obviously, data doesn't want to be gathered covertly because you wouldn't have the informed consent of the studied person. If you have the informed consent of a person, you will have to guarantee them anonymity. A debriefing should be carried out at the end of the experiment, just to inform everyone involved of your findings and your conclusions. Having reliable data is important, especially to positivists, this means that you should choose a research method that will get you a reliable and accurate set of results. Doing interviews won't get you accurate results as they're carried out in false environments and the interviewee could feel pressured into giving an answer the interviewer wants them too....
Words: 502 - Pages: 3
