StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The things they carried by tim o'brien - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
‘The Things They Carried’ is an amazing set of short stories complied by Tim O’Brien on the basis of the life of a squad of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. This book is an artistically enthusiastic one with the ascription of a series of interrelated characters…
Download free paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.5% of users find it useful
The things they carried by tim obrien
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The things they carried by tim o'brien"

The Things They Carried: A Critical Review ‘The Things They Carried’ is an amazing set of short stories complied by Tim O’Brien on the basis of the life of a squad of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. This book is an artistically enthusiastic one with the ascription of a series of interrelated characters and their specific roles in the platoon life. The most significant of all the beautiful features of this work is doubtlessly the wonderful logic and the active participation of reality O’Brien provides for each incident that is described in different stories.

The reading is surely a magnificent experience for the readers because of the content and the interactive langue used in the text. Moreover, it is important to notice that the original feeling of the army life is evoked by the author with his acute care for including the highest possible amount of conversation comprising the real and phrases used by American soldiers.From my point of view as a reader, O’Brien makes the reading more sensible than the normal combat-based books with the courtesy he renders to the title.

‘The things they carried’ cannot be compared to any general work meant for the reader’s expectation about satisfaction to be at an average level. It is so, because of the beauty encompassed in the literature by the collective accreditation of all human feelings and emotions with respect to changing conditions of life. After having spent a long eight-year term for the American army as part of the fighting legion deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, I can say I have started to see things differently.

I find a lot of moments in the life of the author matching with mine. Especially when I compare the entry of my baby girl into my life and the short-term separations due to calls of duty, I feel boundlessly emotional. The book’s splendid narration of emotionally rich moments in each chapter drives me along a new reach of comfortable sensation. Surely the book gives a participatory effect with the magnetism of the author’s penmanship.Although the book is a set of twenty two beautifully organized short stories each carrying a specific emotional and perspective element to describe, the two aspects which draw my attention are passiveness and death.

The main theme of the entire platoon’s story of seems to rely on these two major points. The feelings of platoon officer Lieutenant Jimmy Cross with regards to his lady love is an example of the unusual possessiveness wrapped in the military outfit. I can compare the officer’s emotional conflicts with most of those I experienced with a Captain in our company. He used to be equally annoyed for some undisclosed reasons too. “He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there” (OBrien 1); this line is enough to sense the passion of Cross.

In the same manner, each member of the team carries one or the other things of his favorite personal possession – both tangible and intangible. O’Brien further says, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (20), in a very sensible and impressive way. Another resemblance I find with my army life in the book is in the areas of narrating the horror of death. The battle fields of Iraq where innocent civilians are shot down frighten me with nightmares. As such, the story draws great amount of appreciation for the author’s observation of the aspect of death in the perspective of a soldier.

Beyond words can explain, the story draws great amount of appreciation for the author’s observation of the aspect of death in the perspective of a soldier. O’Brien considers the fact that proximity to death in a war brings equal proximity to life too (77). Again, I can give full credit to the author for the brilliant peace of sensually touching description composed by him for telling us about the role of Kiowa from the moment of his entry to death. The story deals with the aspect of death with a spiritual consideration rather than the professional combating enthusiasm it can bring in a mortal war.

Like O’Brien, after a term of service to the American military, my mind induces me to tell the world about the way my life has been transformed by the impacts of my exposures to duty-bound cruelty and helplessness. It is truly tough to handle the life outside the military.Finally, it may be suggested that ‘The Things They Carried’ is a complete collection of the unseen stories of unnoticed emotional and aesthetic aspects of human life. With this book, O’Brien successfully achieved the aim of taking the readers to the realities of military life with a time for true introspection for each reader as a free citizen.

Works CitedOBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. US: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The things they carried by tim o'brien Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/literature/1658960-the-things-they-carried-by-tim-obrien
(The Things They Carried by Tim o'Brien Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/literature/1658960-the-things-they-carried-by-tim-obrien.
“The Things They Carried by Tim o'Brien Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/literature/1658960-the-things-they-carried-by-tim-obrien.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The things they carried by tim o'brien

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

the things they carried is an influential reflection regarding the incidents experienced by the foot soldiers in Vietnam War.... It is a collection of short stories written by Tim O'Brien, in which the first story is also named as the things they carried.... ?… the things they carried is an influential reflection regarding the incidents experienced by the foot soldiers in Vietnam War.... It is a collection of short stories written by Tim O'Brien, in which the first story is also named as the things they carried....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Literacy evidence questions

Read the incomplete sentence below, and then type out the completed sentence in the box, including the form of the Machiavelli quotation that would fit in the blank.... Depending on the item, you may be required to use the entire sentence quoted from Machiavelli or just part of it.... hellip; Make sure to punctuate and document correctly (you need provide ONLY the page number for the quotation)....
3 Pages (750 words) Coursework

Analysis of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

The author analyzes Tim O'Brien's narrative “the things they carried” which describes vividly a snippet of the American soldiers during the Vietnam War.... o'brien's story is intriguing as it presents not only the brutality of the war, but it also depicts how war dehumanizes the soldiers.... o'brien successfully arouses the reader's emotions by rendering the soldiers actual human beings with feelings and weaknesses....
1 Pages (250 words) Book Report/Review

Literature about War

When soldiers show strength, and when wars are fought with so much contention, it's usually the time when the fighters are weak and the battles are unjustified. … The stories "the things they carried and All Quiet on the Western Front" both tackle the different issues of going into warfare and the difficulties faced by soldiers.... "the things they carried" by Tim O'Brien is a novel based on war stories as told by the author.... It tells of how the protagonist, tim o'brien got himself into fighting during the Vietnam War and what his experiences on the battlefield were....
5 Pages (1250 words) Book Report/Review

The Things They Carried by Tim Obrien

The short story "the things they carried" was published in 1990.... "the things they carried" by Tim Obrien The short story "the things they carried" was published in 1990.... "the things they carried" from the things they carried.... It describes the events of Vietnam War and analyzes deep personal feelings of the main heroes, and things they were faced with during wartime.... It describes the events of Vietnam War and analyzes deep personal feelings of the main heroes, and things they were faced with during wartime....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Cultural Context of The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien

The present paper investigates a cultural context in Tim O'Brien's short story titled "the things they carried".... hellip; Tim O'Brien's short story titled the things they carried is a meditation on the experience of American soldiers during the Vietnam War.... the things they carried is the first piece in Tim O'Brien's collection of short stories of the same name.... In the short story, O'Brien uses pun throughout the entire piece: “they carried Sterno, safety pins, safety pins, trip flares, spools of wire, signal flares […]....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Tim Obriens the things they carried.... At four… , I would open my locker and stand by watching as people passed and made faces at me while going to their different clubs, wishing I could belong in one of them. Unlike many other schools you see in movies, there was no nerd club or chess club or any other that presented for us the things I Carried First, it was the small guitar that my mum bought me when I was aged four.... he things I carried were basically dictated by necessity as well as whichever day it was....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

"The Things they Carried," by Tim O'brien

Such an experience is emblematic of the conflict, explored throughout the ‘the things they carried'.... o'brien is… o'brien together with much other American in darkness about the ongoing of USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.... Further, o'brien can never distinguish the type of a person Ho Chi Minh, the North o'brien at first feels is positioned to join that war but cannot make the rational decision despite being in convention to the war at some points....
4 Pages (1000 words) Book Report/Review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us