Reflection - Book Report/Review Example

Affiliation: Book Review: The Things They Carried Part The things that the soldiers carried were to determine basing on the necessity. These things were both tangible and intangible ones. The tangible things that they carried were 14 pounds of ammunition, radios, the machine guns, the assault rifles and the grenades. They also carried P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, the wristwatches, the dog tags, mosquito repellants, some chewing gum, candy, and cigarettes. The soldiers also carried with them salt tablets, packets of the Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, the sewing kits, the Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and finally two to three canteen of water (OBrien 11).

Others things include toothbrushes, dental floss, bars of soap, steel helmets, camouflage cover, fatigue jackets and trousers, underwear, jungle boots, condoms, comic books, compress bandage, green plastic poncho, letters, pictures of families and their loved ones. Altogether, these things were weighing about 15 to 20 pounds of supplies, which depended entirely on the soldier’s habits or depending on the rate of metabolism. The soldiers also carried a list of intangible things. These may include the love they had for their loved ones back home, the spirit and mentality of winning their battles, hope that they would defeat their enemies, memories of war, and all time faith.

Part 2Answer to Question 1: The Things They Carried was work of fiction whereby the O’Brien sets forth the main theme of the novel as being memories and imagination, together with the opportunity for mental escape of which these powers were offering. In order to muddy the water between fiction and nonfiction, the author wrote the narrative that moved in circles. He did this by recalling and retelling again and again, thus giving the reader a deep sense encompassing the fluidity of truth and the memory dance.

Answer to question 3: Through his writing, O’Brian was slipping back and forth between the different points of view using the ‘I’, ‘You’ and “He, She, They” as a means of juggling the reader into understanding different points of view through narration. The author was using this writing technique as a means of taking the reader through all those kind of experiences, where one could experience the narrative in first person, second person, and in the third person. The intention was to create emphasis on the experience that soldiers go through while in their missions of fighting for their nations, hence making the reader to experience what they go through their entire life cycles, thus justifying the use of back and forth in giving different points of view.

The type of this writing style affected my reading style in a positive manner in that I obtained the knowledge of putting myself in different positions in the narrative in order to understand all kinds of experiences involved. In the end, I was able to get an understanding of all people involved in the soldiers’ lives, starting from their loved ones, the normal citizens, their individual experiences, and those of their employers.Answer to question 6: I strongly support the quote through its intent and truth.

I believe that a true war story needs to be free of any dialect and lies. Telling a situation as it is brings out the true reflection of what is on ground. It is entirely true that the military life and experiences has less morals involved, implying that a story depicting their lives to be full of moral will only be a package of lies and deceit to the reader. When lies are written all over, the reader will not get the joy and uplifting of reading a story, hence loosing the entire meaning of storytelling.

The poetry of Scott and Own holds the same sentiment of telling a true war story through their poem on “The True Experience of War” when describing the cruelty and reality that soldiers experienced in the Iraq war. Works Cited OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Print.