The Things They Carried - Assignment Example

Most of the elements of the story are common but Tim O’Brien manages to make the narration interesting by writing close to reality. The characterization, language and symbols are very simple. O’brien gets rid of flowery words that could conjure readers to emotionality, thus achieving a realistic portrayal of war. Tim O’Brien is an American writer born in 1946 in Austin Minnesota. He graduated summa cum laude from Macalester College and was sent right away to the war in Vietnam (Kirszner & Mandell, 1994).

In the war, he gathered experiences which he later expounded in his novels. “The Things They Carried” won him a Pulitzer Prize and the respect of critiques and contemporaries. Tim O’Brien wrote with accuracy and simplicity. His characterization is well controlled; he makes the characters appear real, as if they really existed. Each person is described in full but without exaggerations. He has a mixture of flat and round characters, developing and static. Tim O’Brien, the narrator, is a combination of a round and developing character, although sometimes he could also be considered static because he still writes about the war even after more than two decades.

From being afraid of going to the war to valuing valor and truth in the end, O’Brien reflects a development towards maturity. . Grief, terror, love, longing… shameful memories (p.23). The shift in perspective thus suggests the roundness and development of the main character. The language of the novel is simple and easy to comprehend, making the story achieve authenticity. O’Brien details the things that the characters carry, giving a notion that he has actually seen all of them. For instance, he notes that Ted Lavander carries tranquilizers, Jimmy Cross carries letters from Martha, and Kiowa carries a Bible.

As the story progresses, he goes deeper into the details, saying that “In his wallet, Lieutenant Cross carried two photographs of Martha. The first was a Kodacolor snapshot signed Love…The second photograph had been clipped from the 1968 Mount Sebastian yearbook. It was an action shot—women's volleyball—and Martha was bent horizontal to the floor…the expression frank and competitive” (p.12). The tales behind the things carried add interest to the story because they provide deeper insights about the characters, suggesting familiarity of the narrator with the subject.

Despite the details, the stories do not sound stilted because of the use of direct language and colloquial terms such as a poncho, grunts, and humping. Moreover, in spite of the drama, O’Brien does not exaggerate in describing the events. Therefore, when Ted Lavender dies, he simply says, “He was dead weight. There was no twitching or flopping. Kiowa, who saw it happen, said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag or something—just boom, then down—not like the movies…” (p.14). O’Brien avoids retelling scenes just like how it is in the movies.

He avoids the drama and makes the story more