thesis statement on the things they carried

83 The Things They Carried Essay Topics, Questions, & Examples

Looking for The Things They Carried essay topics? The book by Tim O’Brien, a renowned American writer, is definitely worth reading and discussing!

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Writing The Things They Carried essay on Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories is a challenging yet exciting task. In your paper, you might want to focus on the themes in The Things They Carried , talk about the key characters or symbolism of the book. In this article, you’ll find everything you might need to write an essay on this masterpiece. Below we’ve collected The Things They Carried essay questions, examples, ️and writing tips.

• Pick up your topic. Carefully read the book and make highlight places that you think you can put into consideration in your paper. Brainstorm some ideas you can use. Alternatively, take a look at our The Things They Carried essay examples to get inspiration.
• Draft your thesis statement. Take a look at your topic and think, what issue you’re going to analyze in your paper. Should it be about symbolism, or on The Things They Carried themes, or you will write a literary analysis on the author’s writing style?
• Stick to the structure. Organize your essay and make sure all your ideas and arguments follow one another in a logical sequence. First of all, present the topic and The Things They Carried essay thesis in your intro. The next step is to write the body paragraphs, where you will provide your evidence, arguments, counterarguments, illustrations, and quotes to support your point of view. And lastly, summarize all your ideas presented in the paper. Restate your thesis statement but don’t repeat it.

The Things They Carried: Thesis Statement Examples

• The Thing They Carried presents an exciting and rare combination of fiction and nonfiction.
• The distinction between “story truth” and “happening truth” presented in the short story Good Form highlights the theme of truth vs. reality that is one of the key in the book.
• The theme of morality in The Things They Carried is highlighted by the conflict faced by the soldiers when they are transitioning from their civilian lives to the reality of war.
• Why does “The Man I Killed” story focus on a Vietnamese character? Why are similar characters missing in other stories?
• Think, why did O’Brien end The Things They Carried with an episode from his childhood although the masterpiece is dedicated to the Vietnam war?
• Explore why this war stories collection doesn’t have heroes? How does the author define the term “heroism”?
• Is there a place for women on the war? Why do characters like Mary Anne, Martha, and Kathleen are essential in the novel?
• Investigate the book structure. Explore if the stories shift linearly and how the writing style contributes to the themes. How do the first person and third person narratives impact on readers perception?
• Explore the shame theme. Why did Tim O’Brien decide to go to Vietnam? Is there a place for shame in soldier’s lives? Does it drive them to heroism?
• What are the roles of women in O’Brien’s story? How does gender affect attitude to war? Analyze Mary Anne character to prove your point of view, explore her transition from an innocent girl to a killer. Check The Things They Carried essay topics for more inspiration.
• Think about the book title. Why O’Brien decided to use it? What do the main characters have to carry with them for the rest of their lives?
• Is this book fictional or non-fictional? Check the dedication page of the novel and explore how it is connected to the stories. Do you think that some book elements point to the actual events in the Vietnamese war?
• Which role does death play in The Things They Carried? Provide some examples that support your point of view, whether it is something to be afraid of or a release from a dreadful life?

Now, you can use the sample questions above or choose your own and write an excellent great paper on O’Brien’s novel. Make sure to check the essay examples below to get more sources of ideas!

• Emotional Burden in O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” Jimmy Cross, a lieutenant enlisted to take care of the other soldiers is the victim of the guilt burden. Collectively, these soldiers experienced different forms of emotional torture, which boiled down to emotional burdens as […]
• O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”: Literary Analysis Also, O’Brien seems to exaggerate in his vivid accounts of the experience the soldiers in the war. This collection of short stories is devoted to a platoon of American soldiers who fight in the Vietnam […]
• “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien The main theme of “The Things They Carried” by O’Brien is the events that were happening during the Vietnam War. It is a compelling short story of the Vietnam War.
• The Things They Carried Given the fact that he was the one in charge of the other soldiers’ well-being, he felt he could have done something to prevent Lavender’s death.
• The Things They Carried: Book Review Therefore, the Lieutenant relives this experience in his imagination, unable to escape these thoughts as a way of dealing with the difficulties and emotional burden of the war.
• Psychological Aspects of War in “The Things They Carried” by O’Brian Written in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the work conveys the brutality and bloodthirstiness of military actions as well as the mental state of soldiers.
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien – Literature Analysis As it has been mentioned, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is full of different symbols which help understand the full meaning of the story along with the significance of the title and its […]
• War Impacts in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien The book gives a true reflection of the effect of war on soldiers from the perspective of a soldier who directly participated in a war to defend his country.
• Literary Interpretation & Critique Paper Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried In reference to the statement, the author in essence questions the actuality of a “true war story,” which is also sustained by the fact that according to Tim, his story is merely a dream.”O’Brien creates […]
• Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried Critical Analysis The Things They Carried is an extraordinarily comprehensive and graphic account of the Vietnam War that paints startlingly realistic imagery of the conflict.
• The Realistic Setting in the O’Brien Story “The Things They Carried“ In the end, it was clear that the things that soldiers carried were not at all ‘things.’ The soldiers had to deal with the emotional feelings of men who were exposed to the risk of […]
• “The Things They Carried” by O’Brien The suggested statement indicates that The Things They Carried by O’Brien broadcasts the horrors of the Vietnam War to the reader and allows one to understand the psychological aspects of that impact.
• “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “The Things They Carried” Place in Protest Literature The system, as a rule, is in a state of quasi-stable equilibrium with the environment, with the transformation from one state to another occurring cyclically and permanently through some limit states of the system.
• Tim O’Brien’s Story “The Things They Carried” The objects represented a thread that connected the soldiers in the depressing war setting to the real world that still exists somewhere.
• Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried’ – Unpacking the Masterpiece The first narrative strategy to be mentioned in regards to The Things They Carried is the point of view. Repetition is a narrative strategy that is traced to the end of the story.”He hated her.
• Tim O‘Brien‘s “The Things They Carried” These soldiers were in a bad position, true, but that does not in any way excuse what happened to the village of Than Khe.
• O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily It further assesses the impact of the mode in which the information in the books is arranged compared to if it were set in a sequential manner.
• Fiction in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien In the story, the author portrays the inner nature of each of the characters via the symbolic features of the things carried by them.
• Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” This appears to be the main motif of O’Brien’s book and it is readers’ existential mode that prompts them to look at “The Things They Carried” as literary piece that promotes an anti-war sentiment or […]
• “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien: Novel Analysis It is possible to say that the author significantly contributed to the development of the comprehension of the Vietnam War in the American literature.
• Literary Success of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien He was one of the soldiers sent into the fray, but due to his sense of duty, he managed to earn a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star during his stint in the said Vietnam […]
• Conventional Repetitive in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien Additionally, the author documents the heaviness of the objects to underscore the physical items the soldiers carried. Through repetitive documentation of the tangible objects carried by the soldiers, the author opens a leeway to allow […]
• Tim O’Brien: What Were “The Things They Carried” He brings out the aspect of emotional burdens that the soldiers draw from the war. Loneliness continues to engulf in the lives of the soldiers long after the end of the war.
• The Setting in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien In the beginning, Jimmy is painted as an indecisive person who has to deal with the pressure of war in Vietnam and nonreciprocating love from Martha.
• Vietnam War in the Book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien The Irony of being at war is that Peace and conflict are both inevitable; it is the way we handle either of the two that determines our opinion of life in general both in the […]
• “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien: A War Memoir This paper will focus on the title of the story “The Things They Carried” and how it acts as a guide to the meaning of the story.
• Truth and Troop Hardships in a Chapter of “The Things They Carried”
• The Emotional and Psychological Burdens in “The Things They Carried”
• The Metaphors of the Soldiers’ Burden in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• True War Story in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Portrayal of Vietnam in “The Things They Carried” and “Good Morning Vietnam”
• Trauma for Soldiers in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Significance of Legacies in “The Things They Carried”
• Women and Their Role in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Things Carried by Soldiers During the Vietnam War in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Symbolism of Weight in “The Things They Carried”
• The Masculinity of the Vietnam Veterans in “The Things They Carried”
• Tim O’Brien Rhetorical Strategies in “The Things They Carried”
• The Patchwork of Reality and Fiction in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”
• Tim O’Brien’s Captivating and Life-Changing Story “The Things They Carried”
• “The Things They Carried”: What Makes a War Story True?
• Comparison of “The Things They Carried” and “The Cask of Amontillado”
• The Vietnam War as Described in O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”
• The Story of Burden, Love, and Sacrifice in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• Theme of Fantasy Versus Reality in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Impact of Physical and Emotional Challenges in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”
• Moral Ambiguity in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Themes of Loss, Coping With War, and Death in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
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• War Experiences and Observations in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• Post Modern Critical Theory in “The Tortilla Curtain” and “The Things They Carried”
• Tim O’Brien’s Use of Figurative Language to Portray the Theme of Death in “The Things They Carried”
• The Motif of Love During the Vietman War in “The Things They Carried”
• Three Characters’ Loss of Innocence in “The Things They Carried”
• The Use of Storytelling to Keep the Good Memories Alive in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The War at Home and Abroad in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”
• The Importance of Metafiction as a Literary Device in “The Things They Carried”
• Themes and Motifs in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”
• The Internal and External Conflicts in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
• The Story Truth and the Happening Truth in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
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Essays on The Things They Carried

The things they carried essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: truth and fiction in "the things they carried".

Thesis Statement: Tim O'Brien blurs the lines between truth and fiction in "The Things They Carried" to convey the emotional and psychological truths of war experiences, demonstrating the power of storytelling as a coping mechanism.

• Introduction
• The Nature of Truth in Storytelling
• Examples of Fictional Elements in the Book
• The Emotional and Psychological Impact on Characters
• How Storytelling Helps Characters Cope

Essay Title 2: The Weight of Emotional Baggage in "The Things They Carried"

Thesis Statement: "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien explores the heavy burden of emotional baggage carried by soldiers during the Vietnam War, emphasizing that these intangible loads can be just as impactful as physical ones.

• The Literal and Symbolic Items Carried by Soldiers
• Depictions of Emotional Baggage in the Stories
• The Interplay Between Physical and Emotional Loads
• The Long-Term Effects on Soldiers' Lives

Essay Title 3: Morality and Ethical Dilemmas in "The Things They Carried"

Thesis Statement: Tim O'Brien raises questions about morality and ethical dilemmas faced by soldiers in "The Things They Carried," illustrating the complex choices and consequences that war imposes on individuals.

• Situations of Moral Complexity in the Stories
• Character Reactions to Ethical Dilemmas
• Exploring the Themes of Guilt and Responsibility
• The Broader Commentary on the Vietnam War

Ted Lavender Character Analysis

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The Things They Carried Story Truth

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Tim O’brien's Use of Figurative Language to Portray The Theme of Death in The Things They Carried

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An Insight into The Emotions of War in The Things They Carried

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March 28, 1990, Tim O'Brien

Collection of interconnected short stories

Historical Fiction

Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Henry Dobbins, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Tim O'Brien

The narrative unfolds through series of interconnected short stories that depict a platoon of American soldiers' experiences during the Vietnam War, memories, and the items they carry with them. The protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, grapples with his responsibilities as a leader and his longing for a girl back home. He carries letters and photographs from her, as well as guilt and regret for his preoccupation with her rather than the safety of his men. Other soldiers in the platoon carry personal belongings that hold sentimental value or serve as a form of escapism from the harsh reality of war. Each item carries its own significance, reflecting the unique stories and personalities of the soldiers. The novel explores the psychological impact of war on the soldiers, delving into themes of fear, trauma, loss, and the blurred boundaries between truth and fiction. O'Brien masterfully blurs the line between fact and fiction, emphasizing the power of storytelling and memory as a means of understanding and coping with the horrors of war. The novel serves as a powerful testament to the resilience, camaraderie, and sacrifice of those who have served in armed conflicts, inviting readers to reflect on the enduring impact of war on individuals and society as a whole.

The setting of "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is primarily during the Vietnam War, specifically focusing on the experiences of American soldiers deployed in Vietnam. The novel takes readers into the harsh and unforgiving environment of the war, transporting them to the jungles, rice paddies, and villages of Vietnam. The story unfolds in various locations, including the dense forests of Quang Ngai Province, the mountains near the border with Laos, and the riverside villages where the soldiers engage in combat and interact with the local Vietnamese population. O'Brien vividly describes the physical landscape, capturing the oppressive heat, the dense vegetation, and the constant sense of danger that permeates the air. In addition to the physical setting, the novel also explores the soldiers' mental and emotional landscapes. O'Brien delves into the interior worlds of the characters, portraying the weight of their experiences, the moral dilemmas they face, and the emotional burdens they carry. The setting becomes a reflection of the soldiers' internal struggles and serves as a backdrop for their personal transformations and battles with their own fears and demons. The temporal setting of the novel spans several years, from the early stages of the war to its aftermath. The narrative shifts back and forth in time, capturing the soldiers' memories, reflections, and the lasting impact of the war on their lives. O'Brien seamlessly weaves together past and present, blurring the boundaries of time and highlighting the enduring psychological and emotional effects of war.

The themes in "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien serve as a lens through which the characters' stories are told, offering insights into the complexities of war, memory, storytelling, and the weight of personal burdens. One of the central themes of the novel is the concept of storytelling and its power to shape and give meaning to our lives. O'Brien delves into the nature of truth and fiction, blurring the boundaries between fact and imagination. The characters use storytelling as a way to cope with the horrors of war, to remember their fallen comrades, and to make sense of their own experiences. This theme highlights the role of narrative in shaping our understanding of the world and the ways in which stories can serve as a form of catharsis and healing. Another significant theme explored in the book is the weight of personal burdens and the psychological toll of war. The characters in "The Things They Carried" carry physical objects that symbolize their emotional and psychological burdens, such as letters, photographs, and personal mementos. These tangible items serve as a metaphor for the intangible burdens they carry, including guilt, fear, and trauma. O'Brien explores the ways in which these burdens shape the characters' identities and influence their actions, highlighting the heavy price they pay for their service. Memory and its unreliability is another prominent theme in the novel. O'Brien examines how memories of war can be fragmented, distorted, and selectively recalled, blurring the line between reality and perception. The characters grapple with the weight of their memories, often haunted by the past and struggling to reconcile their experiences with their present lives. This theme underscores the enduring impact of war on the human psyche and the challenges of preserving and making sense of personal histories. Additionally, "The Things They Carried" delves into the themes of camaraderie, sacrifice, and the moral complexities of war. The bonds formed among the soldiers become a source of strength and support amidst the chaos and brutality of combat. The novel explores the sacrifices made by individuals for the collective good, as well as the ethical dilemmas they face in navigating the blurred lines between right and wrong in the midst of war.

Symbolism plays a significant role in the novel, allowing O'Brien to convey complex ideas and emotions through objects and events. For example, the weighty physical objects that the soldiers carry, such as Lieutenant Cross's letters from Martha, symbolize the burden of their emotional and psychological baggage. The pebble that Lieutenant Cross carries represents his longing for love and connection amidst the harsh reality of war. These symbols enrich the story , highlighting the themes of burdens, longing, and the conflict between love and duty. Imagery is skillfully employed throughout the book, creating vivid and sensory experiences for the reader. O'Brien's descriptions of the Vietnam War landscape, the soldiers' surroundings, and the visceral details of combat immerse the reader in the characters' experiences. Through powerful imagery, the author captures the sights, sounds, and smells of war, enhancing the emotional impact of the narrative. Irony is used to illuminate the contradictions and complexities of war. O'Brien employs situational irony to underscore the absurdities of war, such as the ironic death of Ted Lavender, who carries tranquilizers but is killed in a moment of vulnerability. Verbal irony is also present in the soldiers' dark humor and sarcastic remarks, revealing their coping mechanisms in the face of unimaginable circumstances. Metafiction, a prominent literary device in the novel, blurs the line between fiction and reality. O'Brien acknowledges the act of storytelling and explores the nature of truth, memory, and the power of narrative. For instance, O'Brien admits to fictionalizing certain elements of the story, blurring the boundaries between fact and imagination. This metafictional aspect challenges the reader's perception of truth and invites contemplation on the nature of storytelling and the role of fiction in representing the complexities of war. Other literary devices employed in the novel include repetition, foreshadowing, and paradox. Repetition is used to emphasize certain ideas and motifs, such as the repetition of the phrase "They carried" to highlight the soldiers' burdens. Foreshadowing hints at the characters' fates and adds tension to the narrative, while paradox presents the contradictions and ambiguities of war, such as the notion of killing for the sake of preserving life.

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien has been adapted and represented in various forms of media, including film, theater, and music. These adaptations aim to capture the essence of the novel and bring its powerful themes and stories to a wider audience. One notable adaptation is the theatrical production of "The Things They Carried," which premiered in 2018. Adapted by Jim Stowell and directed by Sarah Diener, the play incorporates elements of storytelling, music, and multimedia to recreate the experiences of the soldiers in Vietnam. It utilizes the power of live performance to evoke the emotional intensity and psychological impact of war, engaging audiences in a visceral and immersive manner. Another notable representation of "The Things They Carried" is the 1990 short film adaptation directed by Peter Werner. This film, also titled "The Things They Carried," offers a visual interpretation of select stories from the book, bringing the characters and events to life on screen. Through the medium of film, the adaptation captures the visual imagery and the emotional depth of O'Brien's writing, allowing viewers to witness the harrowing realities of war. In addition to these direct adaptations, the influence of "The Things They Carried" can be seen in various songs, music videos, and other artistic expressions. Artists have drawn inspiration from the themes and stories of the novel to create their own works that reflect the experiences of soldiers in war. For example, Bruce Springsteen's song "The Wall" and Pearl Jam's song "I Am Mine" touch upon similar themes of memory, loss, and the weight of war that resonate with O'Brien's novel.

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien has had a significant influence on literature, academia, and the public's understanding of war and its impact on soldiers. This powerful collection of interconnected short stories has left an indelible mark on readers and has contributed to important conversations about memory, truth, storytelling, and the human experience in times of conflict. One notable influence of "The Things They Carried" is its contribution to the genre of war literature. O'Brien's innovative blend of fact and fiction, his exploration of the subjective nature of truth, and his vivid portrayal of the psychological and emotional burdens carried by soldiers have inspired subsequent authors to tackle similar themes. The book's honest depiction of war's complexities and its emphasis on the human cost of conflict have shaped and influenced subsequent works of literature exploring the realities of war. Moreover, "The Things They Carried" has had a profound impact on the field of literary criticism and academia. Scholars and researchers have extensively studied O'Brien's storytelling techniques, narrative structure, and thematic depth. The book's exploration of memory, trauma, and the power of storytelling has provided rich material for analysis and has influenced the field of narrative theory. Beyond the literary sphere, "The Things They Carried" has resonated with a wide range of readers, including veterans, students, and the general public. Its poignant portrayal of the complexities of war and its lasting effects on individuals has prompted discussions on topics such as moral ambiguity, the dehumanizing nature of conflict, and the importance of empathy and understanding. The influence of "The Things They Carried" extends beyond literature and academia into popular culture. The book has been referenced in songs, films, and other forms of media, further cementing its status as a cultural touchstone. Its enduring relevance and impact demonstrate the power of storytelling to illuminate the human condition and provoke meaningful reflection on the consequences of war.

1. "The Things They Carried" has received widespread critical acclaim since its publication. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1991 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in the same year. 2. Over the years, "The Things They Carried" has remained a staple in literature courses and reading lists across the United States. It is frequently taught in high schools and universities, and its impact on readers has endured. The book's exploration of war, memory, and the power of storytelling continues to resonate with new generations, ensuring its place as a significant work of American literature. 3. In 2018, "The Things They Carried" was adapted into a feature film directed by Rupert Sanders. The movie, starring Tom Hardy and Tye Sheridan, aimed to bring O'Brien's powerful storytelling to the big screen. While the adaptation faced some challenges and has not been widely released, it is a testament to the enduring appeal and cinematic potential of the book's themes and narratives.

"The Things They Carried" is an essential work to write an essay about due to its profound exploration of the human experience in times of war. Through its vivid storytelling and introspective narratives, the book delves into the complexities of the Vietnam War, the weight of personal burdens, the power of memory, and the impact of storytelling itself. By examining the novel, students can gain a deeper understanding of the psychological and emotional toll of war on soldiers, the ethical dilemmas they face, and the enduring effects on their lives. The book raises thought-provoking questions about the nature of truth, the unreliability of memory, and the ways in which storytelling can shape our perceptions and heal our wounds. Moreover, "The Things They Carried" serves as a powerful example of how literature can humanize and give voice to the experiences of those who have served in conflict zones. It provides a platform for discussion on war literature, trauma, empathy, and the power of narrative. Ultimately, studying and analyzing this work allows students to engage with important social, historical, and psychological themes, fostering critical thinking and empathy towards those impacted by war.

"They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment." "He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole." "But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world" "I survived, but it's not a happy ending."

1. Climo, J. (2005). Truth and fiction in Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home and The Things They Carried. Modern Fiction Studies, 51(1), 186-208. 2. Friedman, L. (2013). ‘Dancing the Soul Back Home’: Trauma, storytelling, and truth in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, 25(1/2), 273-296. 3. Heberle, R. (2017). War, memory, and the inescapability of fiction in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. College Literature, 44(2), 225-245. 4. Herzog, T. (2002). Memory, history, and trauma in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 43(3), 259-277. 5. Kaplan, S. (2016). Postmodernism, metafiction, and Tim O'Brien's Vietnam War stories. In The Philosophy of War Films (pp. 135-154). University Press of Kentucky. 6. Kaplan, S. (2017). The Things They Carried: Tim O'Brien's personal debt to Hemingway. The Hemingway Review, 36(1), 71-85. 7. McWilliams, J. (2015). Intimations of mortality: Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods. In The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Vietnam War (pp. 145-160). Cambridge University Press. 8. O’Brien, T. (1990). The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 9. Stenberg, P. (2009). Lyric narrative and the war text: Tim O'Brien's "Speaking of Courage" and "In the Field" as poetic rewritings of The Things They Carried. Contemporary Literature, 50(3), 497-527. 10. Wood, M. (2000). Refiguring the Vietnam veteran: (Dis) locating subjectivity in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 41(2), 107-121.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

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

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 26, 2021

In the short story cycle The Things They Carried (1990), Tim O’Brien cemented his reputation as one of the most powerful chroniclers of the Vietnam War, joining the conversation alongside Philip Caputo ( A Rumor of War ), Michael Herr ( Dispatches ), David Halberstam ( The Best and the Brightest ), and the poet Bruce Weigl ( Song of Napalm ), among others. Comprising 22 pieces—some little more than vignettes, others more “traditional” stories—the collection details the experiences of the soldier Tim O’Brien, who returns to his native Minnesota after a tour of duty in Vietnam. In his subsequent role as author, O’Brien records his recollections in a false memoir of sorts as a way of reconstructing the war’s elusive “truth.” O’Brien’s goal in The Things They Carried, he tells Michael Coffey, “was to write something utterly convincing but without any rules as to what’s real and what’s made up. I forced myself to try to invent a new form. I had never invented form before” (60).

“In the Field” follows Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his platoon of 17 remaining men as they search a Vietnamese muck field for Kiowa, a lost comrade. Cross, who figures prominently in several of the book’s pieces—including the eponymous “The Things They Carried,” the collection’s most anthologized story—feels tremendous guilt over Kiowa’s death, not the least because the previous evening, just before an ambush, Cross refused to disobey orders and to move his men to higher, and therefore safer, ground. Kiowa, buried when a fellow soldier inadvertently gave away the platoon’s position to the enemy, was a popular soldier. Out of respect for their fallen comrade, the men dutifully wade through waist-deep sewage searching for his remains; they sustain themselves with a morbid sense of humor, making light of the situation in order to quell their fear of random, sudden death at the hands of a faceless enemy. Cross quickly realizes that he is ill suited for the military, having been shipped to Vietnam after joining the officer training corps in college only to be with friends and to collect a few college credits. “[Cross] did not care one way or the other about the war,” O’Brien intones, “and he had no desire to command, and even after all these months in the bush, all the days and nights, even then he did not know enough to keep his men out of a shit field” (168).

Tim O’Brien/The Austin Chronicle

War is a great leveler in O’Brien’s fiction. In the field where Cross and his men search for Kiowa, “The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier, which was exactly how Jimmy Cross had been trained to treat them, as interchangeable units of command” (163). The young lieutenant, however, suspends his humanity only with great difficulty. Ruminating on Kiowa’s death, he imagines writing a letter to the soldier’s father before deciding that “no apologies were necessary, because in fact it was one of those freak things, and the war was full of freaks, and nothing could ever change it anyway” (176). Cross’s rationalization may absolve him (at least in part) of his guilt over Kiowa’s death, though it is also a tacit admission of his lack of control over the war’s daily life-and-death struggles. Cross’s desire to organize the details of Kiowa’s death in his own mind is an extension of O’Brien’s attempt in The Things They Carried to construct a coherent narrative that finds the essential truth of war (a notion that the author confirms in the ironically titled “How to Tell a True War Story” which acts as an interpretive key to his recollections).

Upon the discovery of Kiowa’s body, the men properly mourn the loss of their fellow soldier, though “they also felt a kind of giddiness, a secret joy, because they were alive, and because even the rain was preferable to being sucked under a shit field, and because it was all a matter of luck and happenstance” (175). Cross, yearning for war’s end, imagines himself on a golf course in his New Jersey hometown, free of the burden of leading men to their deaths. O’Brien examines the onus of responsibility often, and in the related story “Field Trip,” which details the author’s return to Vietnam two decades later to the field where Kiowa died, O’Brien finds a world barely recognizable as the one he left behind. “The field remains, but in a form much different from what O’Brien remembers, smaller now, and full of light,” Patrick A. Smith writes of O’Brien’s visit. “The air is soundless, the ghosts are missing, and the farmers who now tend the field go back to work after stealing a curious glance in his direction. The war is absent, except in O’Brien’s memory” (107). But it is memory, O’Brien makes clear, that supersedes experience and haunts soldiers long after the shooting has stopped.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Coffey, Michael. “Tim O’Brien: Inventing a New Form Helps the Author Talk about War, Memory, and Storytelling.” Publishers Weekly, 16 February 1990, pp. 60–61. O’Brien, Tim. “In the Field.” In The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Smith, Patrick A. Tim O’Brien: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005.

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• The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

• Literature Notes
• Book Summary
• About The Things They Carried
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• On the Rainy River
• Enemies and Friends
• How to Tell a True War Story
• The Dentist
• Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
• The Man I Killed and Ambush
• Speaking of Courage
• In the Field
• The Ghost Soldiers
• The Lives of the Dead
• Character Analysis
• Tim O'Brien
• Lt. Jimmy Cross
• Norman Bowker
• Mary Anne Bell
• Henry Dobbins
• Tim O'Brien Biography
• Critical Essays
• The Things They Carried in a Historical Context
• Narrative Structure in The Things They Carried
• Style and Storytelling in The Things They Carried
• The Things They Carried and Loss of Innocence
• The Things They Carried and Questions of Genre
• Full Glossary for The Things They Carried
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis The Things They Carried

An unnamed narrator describes in third person the thoughts and actions of Jimmy Cross, the lieutenant of an Army unit on active combat duty in the Vietnam War. Lt. Cross is preoccupied by thoughts of Martha, a young woman he dated before he joined the Army. He thinks about letters she wrote him; he thinks about whether or not she is a virgin; he thinks about how much he loves her and wants her to love him. Her letters do not indicate that she feels the same way.

The narrator lists things that the soldiers carry with them, both tangible and intangible, such as Lt. Cross's picture of and feelings for Martha. Other members of the unit are introduced through descriptions of the things they carry, such as Henry Dobbins who carries extra food, Ted Lavender who carries tranquilizer pills, and Kiowa who carries a hunting hatchet. O'Brien introduces readers to the novel's primary characters by describing the articles that the soldiers carry. The level of detail O'Brien offers about the characters is expanded upon and illuminated in the chapters that follow, though O'Brien distills the essence of each characters' personality through the symbolic items each carries. Henry Dobbins carries a machine gun and his girlfriend's pantyhose. Dave Jensen carries soap, dental floss, foot powder, and vitamins. Mitchell Sanders carries condoms, brass knuckles, and the unit's radio. Norman Bowker carries a diary. Kiowa carries a volume of the New Testament and moccasins. Rat Kiley carries his medical kit, brandy, comic books, and M&M's candy. The narrator offers additional detail about selected items; for example, the poncho Ted Lavender carries will later be used by his fellow soldiers to carry his dead body.

This device is an example of the author and narrator embedding small details in the text that will be further explained later in the book. It is important to note, too, how the details are selective; they are recalled by a character, the unnamed narrator of the chapter. The details of what each man carries are funneled through the memory of this narrator.

O'Brien details at great length what all the men carry: standard gear, weapons, tear gas, explosives, ammunitions, entrenching tools, starlight scopes, grenades, flak jackets, boots, rations, and the Army newsletter. They also carry their grief, terror, love, and longing, with poise and dignity. O'Brien's extended catalog of items creates a picture in the reader's mind that grows incrementally. O'Brien's technique also allows each character to be introduced with a history and a unique place within the group of men.

Lt. Cross is singled out from the group, and O'Brien offers the most detail about his interior feelings and thoughts. Many of these soldiers "hump," or carry, photographs, and Lieutenant Cross has an action shot of Martha playing volleyball. He also carries memories of their date and regrets that he did not try to satisfy his desire to become intimate with her by tying her up and touching her knee. O'Brien stresses that Lt. Cross carries all these things, but in addition carries the lives of his men.

Even as O'Brien opens The Things They Carried, he sets forth the novel's primary themes of memory and imagination and the opportunity for mental escape that these powers offer. For example, as Lt. Cross moves through the rigorous daily motions of combat duty, his mind dwells on Martha. Importantly, as he thinks about Martha, he does not merely recall memories of her; instead he imagines what might be, such as "romantic camping trips" into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. O'Brien describes these longings of Lt. Cross as "pretending." Pretending is a form of storytelling, that is, telling stories to oneself. O'Brien underscores the importance of Lt. Cross's actions by emphasizing the artifacts — Martha's letters and photograph — and characterizes Lt. Cross as the carrier of these possessions as well as of his love for Martha.

O'Brien moves from employing the literary technique of describing the soldiers' physical artifacts to introducing the novel's primary characters. The minute details he provides about objects that individuals carry is telling, and particular attention should be paid to these details because they foreshadow the core narratives that comprise the novel. This technique of cataloging the things the soldiers carry also functions to create fuller composites of the characters, and by extension make the characters seem more real to readers.

This aesthetic of helping readers connect with his characters is O'Brien's primary objective in the novel, to make readers feel the story he presents as much as is physically and emotionally possible, as if it were real. Though the minutiae that O'Brien includes — for example the weight of a weapon, the weight of a radio, the weight of a grenade in ounces — seems superfluous, it is supposed to be accretive in his readers' imaginations so that they can begin to feel the physical weight of the burdens of war, as well as, eventually, the psychological and emotional burdens (so much as it is possible for a non-witness to war to perceive). O'Brien's attention to sensory detail also supports this primary objective of evoking a real response in the reader.

With Lavender's death, O'Brien creates a tension between the "actuality" of Lt. Cross's participation in battle and his interior, imagined fantasies that give him refuge. In burning Martha's letters and accepting blame for Lavender's death, Cross's conflicting trains of thought signal the reader to be cautious when deciding what is truth or fantasy and when assigning meaning to these stories. While he destroyed the physical accoutrements, the mementos of Martha, Lt. Cross continues to carry the memory of her with him. To that memory is also added the burden of grief and guilt. Despite this emotional burden, O'Brien, as he continues in the following chapter, begins to highlight the central question of the novel: Why people carry the things they do?

rucksack A kind of knapsack strapped over the shoulders.

foxhole A hole dug in the ground as a temporary protection for one or two soldiers against enemy gunfire or tanks.

perimeter A boundary strip where defenses are set up.

heat tabs Fuel pellets used for heating C rations.

C rations A canned ration used in the field in World War II.

R & R Rest and recuperation, leave.

Than Khe (also Khe Sahn) A major battle in the Tet Offensive, the siege lasted well over a month in the beginning of 1968. Khe Sahn was thought of as an important strategic location for both the Americans and the North Vietnamese. American forces were forced to withdraw from Khe Sahn.

SOP Abbreviation for standard operating procedure.

RTO Radio telephone operator who carried a lightweight infantry field radio.

grunt A U.S. infantryman.

hump To travel on foot, especially when carrying and transporting necessary supplies for field combat.

platoon A military unit composed of two or more squads or sections, normally under the command of a lieutenant: it is a subdivision of a company, troop, and so on.

medic A medical noncommissioned officer who gives first aid in combat; aidman; corpsman.

M-60 American-made machine gun.

PFC Abbreviation for Private First Class.

Spec 4 Specialist Rank, having no command function; soldier who carries out orders.

M-16 The standard American rifle used in Vietnam after 1966.

flak jacket A vestlike, bulletproof jacket worn by soldiers.

KIA Abbreviation for killed in action, to be killed in the line of duty.

chopper A helicopter.

dustoff Medical evacuation by helicopter.

Claymore antipersonnel mine An antipersonnel mine that scatters shrapnel in a particular, often fan-shaped, area when it explodes.

Starlight scope A night-vision telescope that enables a user to see in the dark.

tunnel complexes The use of tunnels by the Viet Cong as hiding places, caches for food and weapons, headquarter complexes and protection against air strikes and artillery fire was a characteristic of the Vietnam war.

The Stars and Stripes A newsletter-style publication produced for servicemen by the U.S. Army.

Bronze Star A U.S. military decoration awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service in combat not involving aerial flight.

Purple Heart A U.S. military decoration awarded to members of the armed forces wounded or killed in action by or against an enemy: established in 1782 and re-established in 1932.

entrenching tool A shovel-like tool, among its other uses, used to dig temporary fortifications such as foxholes.

zapped Killed.

freedom bird Any aircraft which returned servicemen to the U.S.

sin loi From Vietnamese, literally meaning excuse me, though servicemen came to understand the term as meaning too bad or tough luck.

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Ransom Center Magazine

The textual “truth” behind Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

June 20, 2017 - John Young

Tim O’Brien’s  The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The book depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer. The Harry Ransom Center holds the author’s archive .

Two of the most poignant stories in The Things They Carried are “On the Rainy River” and “Field Trip.” “Rainy River” portrays a young O’Brien, weeks removed from his college graduation, leaving his home in Worthington, Minnesota, for a fishing outpost on the Canadian border, agonizing over whether to report for Army induction or to live as a draft dodger. In “Field Trip,” O’Brien returns to Vietnam many years after his tour of duty as a foot soldier and radio operator, now with his ten-year-old daughter, Kathleen, as he seeks some measure of peace from the traumatic memories of a close comrade’s death. Because these stories are removed from the daily realities of the war, they tend to be more accessible to O’Brien’s audience. But in the original version of Things , readers would have turned the page to discover that neither of these stories is “true.”

Throughout The Things They Carried , O’Brien famously distinguishes between “happening-truth,” or an accurate and verifiable account of historical events, and “story truth,” or readers’ genuine experience of the story, even if the details are invented. The book blurs the lines between fiction and truth even further in its dedication to a group of soldiers who turn out to be fictional characters throughout the rest of the book, and in the appearance of “Tim O’Brien” in several stories, a figure who seems very similar to, but not quite identical with, the author. Many readers, and most of my students over many years of teaching the book, take the circumstances of “Rainy River” and “Field Trip” to be at least more or less true (in the conventional sense): they assume that O’Brien made some sort of trip away from his family while deciding whether to honor his draft notice, even if not precisely the one portrayed here, and that O’Brien and his daughter went back to Vietnam years after the war, even if, again, the “real” version of that event differs from its fictional representation. (That is, they take these stories to be relatively conventional instances of fiction based on episodes from the author’s life, even if contained within a much more complex metafictional narrative.)

In fact, while O’Brien did agonize about serving in a war he vehemently opposed, he never made any trip like the one in “Rainy River;” his worries played out entirely in Worthington. And, while O’Brien did return to Vietnam in 1994, accompanied by his then girlfriend—this trip is the subject of his well-known piece for The New York Times Magazine , “The Vietnam in Me”—his daughter did not go with him, because he had no children. In the typescript for the book that O’Brien sent to Houghton Mifflin, the chapter titled “Good Form,” which discusses O’Brien’s interactions with the (ostensibly real) veteran Norman Bowker, also included a long passage disavowing any happening-truth in “Rainy River” or “Field Trip,” or in various other events in the book, such as O’Brien’s empathetic imagination of the Vietnamese life he has ended by shooting an enemy soldier on patrol, or a postwar visit from his former company commander, Jimmy Cross. Here is a portion of that early version (I have retained the cross-throughs as they appear in the copy at the Harry Ransom Center):

I don’t have a daughter named Kathleen. I don’t have a daughter. I don’t have children. To my knowledge, at least, I never killed anyone. Jimmy Cross never visited me at my house in Massachusetts, because of course Jimmy Cross does not exist in the world of objects, and never did. He’s purely invented, like Martha, and like Kiowa or Mitchell Sanders and all the others. I never ran way to the Rainy River. I wanted to—badly—but I didn’t .

I came across this typescript during a month-long fellowship at the Ransom Center, poring through as many of O’Brien’s papers as I could, and have written about it more extensively in How to Revise a True War Story: Tim O’Brien’s Process of Textual Production (University of Iowa Press, 2017). Ever since my first encounter with this aspect of O’Brien’s papers, I have been fascinated by the question of how readers would interact differently with the book if passages like this one (and another deleted chapter, “The Real Mary Anne,” which takes the opposite tack of insisting that the heroine of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” was, against the odds, an actual person) had been retained. Or, to put that counterfactual question another way: how might O’Brien’s real readers have responded to the version(s) of The Things They Carried that could have been published, but weren’t? We can start to think through those questions by looking back further than the typescript, to the magazine versions of several chapters that appeared before the book.

O’Brien’s Magazine Readers

While the relationship between fiction and truth is questioned elsewhere in The Things They Carried for readers to at least reasonably doubt the veracity of stories like “Rainy River” and “Field Trip,” some of O’Brien’s original readers would have had no such contextual cues, as they found these stories in magazines. “Rainy River” appeared first in two periodicals: Macalester Today , O’Brien’s college alumni magazine, and Playboy , which paid $5,000, the largest magazine check of O’Brien’s career to that point. Macalester Today heightens the sense of autobiographical reality with its subheading, “A writer remembers the summer of 1968, when he found himself in desperate trouble. A month after graduating from Macalester, he was drafted to serve in Vietnam.” But O’Brien’s own introduction to the story immediately undercuts this impression, as he explains his choice to use a character who shares his name but is otherwise “almost entirely invented”: “Personally, I can’t see that it matters in the least—what counts is the artifact, the work itself—but nonetheless, with this book in particular, people seem interested in knowing what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t. As with all fiction, the answer is simple: if you believe it, it’s real; if you don’t, it isn’t.” O’Brien here deftly sidesteps the question of what’s “real,” at least as most of his readers would understand it, or why they might be especially concerned about such issues with this book, for an answer that bleeds into his more developed sense of “story truth” in the book. But given the context of an alumni magazine, we might easily assume readers who are at least relatively predisposed to take the events in “Rainy River” as closer to “real” than they are, based not only on the question of whether they “believe it,” but also on the types of stories one expects to find in this venue.

“Field Trip” appeared in the August 1990 issue of McCall’s , part of the magazine’s “Summer Fiction Special,” with a readership presumably attuned to the father-daughter relationship as much as the memories of wartime trauma. Indeed, the pull quote on the story’s first page highlights O’Brien’s supposed daughter as if she were the story’s central consciousness: “Kathleen was only ten, but her father wanted her to understand Vietnam, the place where he’d lost so much, and to witness what it was he’d find there.” McCall’s readers, had they encountered a version of the book with the passage above from “Good Form” intact, might have been especially surprised, even dismayed, to discover Kathleen’s fictionality. Of course, that’s often the point in The Things They Carried , as in the famous ending of “How to Tell a True War Story,” when the reader learns that the savage killing of a baby water buffalo was an overtly fictional episode. Identifying with O’Brien as a father, and/or with his young daughter’s attempt to make sense of a war she doesn’t understand, only to have the fictional rug pulled out, seems on its surface like the same kind of effect that the book goes to considerable lengths to create in its other chapters.

So, why did O’Brien remove these elements of The Things They Carried ? That is, why did he render the narrative less overtly metafictional, and how does this revision impact readers of the editions actually published? Part of the answer is that O’Brien’s editor at Houghton Mifflin, Camille Hykes, felt the collection would be stronger without its tricks exposed quite so much. “Why should the magician pull up his sleeve & tell us—Look, this is where the birds come from—when really, deep down, we knew it anyway?” she wrote to O’Brien. And O’Brien himself clearly decided this version of the book would more subtly, and more effectively, generate its metafictional effects.

But I’m not so sure. Much of the real power of The Things They Carried , for me, comes precisely from the process of building emotional investments in its characters, and then rebuilding those relationships on different terms once we have been told, in no uncertain terms, that the “people” we have come to care about don’t “exist in the world of objects.” We probably knew it all along, as Hykes suggests, but the best magic tricks, after all, are the ones where you know it’s an illusion but still can’t quite figure out what’s really “true.”

John K. Young is a professor of English at Marshall University and author of Black Writers, White Publishers (2006); Publishing Blackness , co-edited with George Hutchinson (2013), and How to Revise a True War Story (2017). His fellowship at the Ransom Center was supported by the Norman Mailer Endowed Fund.

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The Things They Carried - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” delves into the multifaceted experiences of soldiers during the Vietnam War, blurring the line between fiction and reality. Essays could explore the narrative structure of the collection, its metafictional elements, and the exploration of truth, memory, and storytelling. The discussions might extend to the examination of the physical and emotional burdens carried by the soldiers, and how these tangible and intangible weights reflect the broader societal and moral dilemmas of war. Additionally, essays could delve into the character dynamics, the portrayal of camaraderie, fear, and the coping mechanisms employed by the soldiers in the face of trauma and death. The discourse might also touch upon the broader themes of war, loss, and the human capacity for resilience and redemption as explored through the narrative. Furthermore, discussions might extend to the impact of “The Things They Carried” on the war literature genre, its contribution to the discourse on the Vietnam War, and its enduring relevance in understanding the complexities of war, memory, and the human experience. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about The Things They Carried you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Essay About The Things They Carried Contradictions are a natural part of everyday life, simple ones, and complicated contradictions, and it is normal to find them in our lives, and in novels. The author in the story, The Things They Carried, uses contradictions to explain how he is feeling throughout the war without directly saying it. These contradictions show the hidden messages that Tim O’Brien is trying to get across to the reader. These hidden messages are what help to create his story and give it a deeper meaning. Each one of these messages contributes greatly and helps to emphasize the overall theme of the story, which is that each person carries something with the whether we can see it or not. Some of these things that we carry with us are what can drag us down without anyone even knowing it. In the story “The Things They Carried” the author, Tim O’Brien sends his secret messages through the contradictions that he shares inside of each of his war stories. One of the contradictions that O’Brien uses in the story is how people like to believe that the reason behind a war is because people are fighting for what they believe in, but in reality, there is not much reason, and people do not even volunteer to do it. This is shown through all of the things that the soldiers carry throughout the war. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (O’Brien, 23). This quote explains the trauma, stress, and guilt that the soldiers go through within the war. Each tangible and intangible item adds weight to the soldiers and makes the war even harder for them to get through. The reason for fighting in the war is lost as they can’t even remember what they believe in once they hear the first gunshot. O’Brien uses a contradiction, to show how “strong” many people may think that the soldiers in the war are, and how strong the war will make them. O’Brien tries to show how people think of how strong they are, and how no one is thinking of the simple fact that they are human. It is human instinct to talk about their problems instead of bottling them up inside. O’Brien shows how soldiers, like any normal human, need to express their feelings, or it can end up badly, and he shows this contradiction through Norman Bowker. In the story, Speaking of Courage, it states, “And then he would have talked about the medal he did not win and why he did not win it.” (O’Brien 135). Norman Bowker was begging anyone to talk to him, to listen to every problem that he had inside of him, and to tell how he lost his very best friend as he was actually trying to save him, but unfortunately, he could not find someone soon enough. This also shows how the war did not make Norman Bowker stronger, like some may think it would, but in fact, it broke him down completely, and that in itself is a contradiction. Another contradiction that he uses is how he tries to create the theme of a true war story all while making up each of the war stories. One of the stories he wrote titled “The Man I Killed” shows this as it talks about a man who has felt guilty for killing a man during the war. The story states, “Listen to me,' Kiowa said. 'You feel terrible, I know that.' Then he said, 'Okay, maybe I don't know.' (O’Brien 121). As shown in this quote and in this particular story, it seems as if O’Brien is trying to make the reader feel what the character is feeling. This is a contradiction because Tim O’Brien is using this made-up character to express his own true feelings through a story, about a fake character. He portrays this story as if he wants the readers to believe that the stories are actually true. O’Brien did not actually kill anyone, but yet he still felt guilty for all of the other people who died and for the families that were losing someone that they loved. For these reasons, he tried to make the readers feel what he was feeling, which perhaps is why although the story is not true, it truly is a true war story, because the feeling, to him, was all too real. Overall, in The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses different forms of contradictions, in order to make the reader feel exactly how he felt during the war, to let them temporarily put the weight that was on him onto the person reading his novel. Through the made-up/fictional characters and stories, he gave the reader the feeling of how war really is, and not how it is portrayed in movies and other novels, he gave the readers a one time experience of a true war story and helped the readers to understand that not all things are as they seem. 

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