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The war in Vietnam was a conflict that started in the 1950s and ended in the early 1970s. During this time period, the United States became increasingly involved in Vietnamese political, economic and military affairs. There were a combination of reasons as to why the United States became more involved, the most important of which in my opinion were the Domino Theory and the growing influence of the National Liberation Front (NFL).…
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The Things They Carried, a novel by Tim O’Brien, is a collection of war stories told from a fictional Vietnam veteran’s perspective. O’Brien elucidates the physical and emotional barrier war creates between men and women to help demonstrate the frustration soldiers have with women in war.…
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The Things They Carried” is a short story written by Tim O'Brien in 1990. This story is about several young American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War. The main focus of O'Brien's story was the burdens that the soldiers each carried individually. The soldiers did not just carry tangible burdens like weapons, gear, and other essentials. The greatest burdens the platoon had to carry throughout the war, were the ones that they struggled with internally. Not only were these burdens heavy, but they could ultimately cost the soldiers their lives.…
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Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, applies multiple techniques in his memoir in order to produce the theme of horror in war. He utilizes word connotation, literary/rhetorical techniques, sentence structure, and overall structure in the memoir. In an excerpt on page 199, O’Brien employs the combination of anaphora, metaphor, and negative word connotation to illustrate the horror of the Vietnam War.…
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The Things They Carried is a memoir of twenty-two stories about the author, Tim O'Brien and his half truth memories of his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. O'Brien admits in the novel often blurring the line between the real story and the absurd fallacy the names of the characters in the book are those of his comrades the entire collect serves as a self-contained work because it is so loyal to its themes and characters.…
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Tim O’Brien is a very gifted author, but he is also a veteran of the Vietnam War and fought with the United States in that controversial war. Tim O’Brien was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1968. He served as an infantryman, and obtained the rank of sergeant and won a Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel. He was discharged from the Vietnam War in 1970. I believe that O’Brien’s own images and past experiences he encountered in the Vietnam War gave him inspiration to write the story “The Things They Carried.” O’Brien tells the story in third person narrative form about Lt. Jimmy Cross and his platoon of young American men in the Vietnam War. In “The Things They Carried” we can see differences and similarities between the characters…
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“The Things They Carried” was written by Tim O’Brien. Tim was born on October 1st, 1946 in Austin, Minnesota. He earned a degree in political science at Macalester College in 1968 then was drafted in to the military. From 1968 to 1970 he served as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War. O’Brien was awarded a purple heart; following discharge he attended Harvard University although he left in 1976 without completing the Ph. D program. Tim stabilized his publishing career and started focusing on writing. Tim O’Brien wrote “If I Die in Combat Zone, Box Me up and Ship Me Home” which was a popular critical success. He earned a foothold in American Literature and received the 1979 National Book Award in Fiction for “Going after Cacciato”. O’Brien has eight works published and six of them were novels. In O’Brien’s works he is noted for branching out in themes like: family conflicts, betrayal, loss of faith, and social principles. Tim was labeled as a meta-fictional writer using illusion and fantasy to express troubling nature of reality (“Tim O’Brien”).…
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In “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien takes us back to the Vietnam War. He demonstrates to the reader that not only does each United States soldier carry something physical with them, but they also carry an emotional burden as well. What each man carries is a combination of thoughts, emotions, and past experiences.…
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Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carry, an emotional story about soldiers leaving home to fight in the Vietnam War and the items they carried with them. O’Brien begins his story, when soldiers go into combat and overseas to serve our country include military issue equipment as well as personal items, which hold memories of fear or emotional value. O’Brien shows readers the weight soldiers carry while serving in the military. The love for family and country are important and how memories can be carried to aid in relieving stress of the battle.…
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Literature Summary: “The Things They Carried”, published in 1990 tells a true story of Tim O’Brian, author and main character, who is drafted for the Vietnam war. He tells about the different items that him and his fellow soldiers carried with them to help cope with the traumatic environment that they were placed in.…
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Tim O’Brien’s story about vietnam war is The Things They Carried. This work tells what the soldiers went through the time during Vietnam. As the story begins, it focuses on the Alpha Company is sent to fight in Vietnam war. The soldiers carry goods and personal items to be able to survive. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters and pictures from a female named Martha. The first casualty for the company is Ted Lavender, shot dead. Cross blames himself for the death because he thinks he was too busy thinking about Martha to properly take care of his troops. O’Brien received a draft letter and he is not looking forward to going into war because he had just graduated Harvard for graduate school. He was stuck between wanting to run or doing what everyone expected which…
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“The Vietnamese Communists, or Vietcong, were the military branch of the National Liberation Front (NLF).”(Guerrilla Tactics: An Overview.) The National Liberation Front more commonly known for the Viet Cong was essentially a North Vietnamese army organization based in the south of Vietnam and parts of Cambodia near the border. The Viet Cong army was formed in 1954 and ultimately was functional until it was demobilized in 1976. The Viet Cong administration had both political views and military purpose. “While the organization also had political leadership, it was primarily concerned with military action and comprised the forces that fought against the United States and its allies…
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Bloom, Harold. Tim O 'Brien 's The Things They Carried. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005. Print.…
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In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses fiction to create his own war story. His feelings and experiences are expressed through less than true events.…
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In many respects, Tim O 'Brien 's The Things They Carried concerns the relationship between fiction and the narrator. In this novel, O 'Brien himself is the main character--he is a Vietnam veteran recounting his experiences during the war, as well as a writer who is examining the mechanics behind writing stories. These two aspects of the novel are juxtaposed to produce a work of literature that comments not only upon the war, but also upon the actual art of fiction: the means of storytelling, the purposes behind them, and ultimately the relationship between fiction and reality itself.…
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