The Things They Carried: Tim O'Brien - Literature review Example

 The Things They Carried: Tim O'Brien The Things in O Brien’s, “The Things They Carried” are figurative and literal. The soldiers depicted carry very heavy physical and emotional loads, composed of terror, grief and love. The physical pattern of every man underscores the emotional burden. For instance, Henry Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose with them. Comfort and love longing is its symbol and the burden of each man. Jimmy Cross carries maps and compasses with them thus with the men’s responsibility for his charge. The emotions of hate, love, terror, mystery, adventure, discovery, courage, pity, holiness and despair compel the reader to consider the truth of the stories from the gut reaction (Tim, 75). One reader may consider it true, another- fiction. It is just as the coin flip and O’Brien is successful uniquely. Imagination The writer’s belief that illusion and imagination are used to capture the attention of the reader creates actuality of the story. Using clear reality concept and use of fictional devices has the ability by distinguishing fictional writing truth and the understanding of enabling other readers believe that fictional scenes existed. The creation of emotional attachment within a fictional writing establishes believability of the story’s truth (Patrick, 110). O Brien uses the concept of narration in creating emotional attachment between reader’s minds and his fictional tales. Story truth seems more real than happening truth. The use of the setting detail and emotional connection of characters to the war sight causes the reader believe the truth of the emotions felt at that moment. The use of past memories of characters of the war sight leaves the impression on the reader of the sight existence. The reader believes she could travel to the particular sight as the character and stand where the war was fought (Tim, 135). The dialogue used creates emotions of uncertainty with the idea of a fictional sight of fighting war thus leaving the reader with belief that uncertainity as an emotion is real. O Brien’s collection of stories help us carry Vietnam War burden as a collective past part. The personal experience of Obrien shows the role of fear shame in war motivation. O’ Brien flees into Canada due to dedication or patriotism to his country’s cause. This is the motivating factor for fighting in war (Patrick, 152). The misguided group expectations are important to a specific character and the character’s uncertainty in regard to an action course. Fear of shame motivates the reluctant men to venture into Vietnam and affects soldier relationships with each other. Social acceptance concerns seem unimportant pre-occupation under death necessity and group unity necessity during war, in leading the characters of O’ Brien in engaging in dangerous or absurd actions. War stress, Vietnam’s strangeness and the soldier’s youth in combining psychological dangers that intensify inherent fighting risks. He becomes an uncertain and confused that endangers his soldier’s lives (Patrick, 167). O’ Brien utilizes these characters in showing shame fears, is an unavoidable and misguided motivation in going to war. Story Telling and Myth making Through giving the narrator a name, and naming the characters he actually fought in the war of Vietnam, Brien blurs fact and fiction distinction. As a result, it’s hard to know whether any given event happened to O’Brien. This impossibility is intentionally heightened severally in contradiction with themselves in story collection rendering any statement’s truth suspect (Tim, 142). The aim of fiction and fact is getting the point of war truth objectivity, which has fewer relevancies than the tale of a story. O Brien attempts Vietnam’s war history through the stories but exploration of the ways of speaking about war in the establishment of bonds between the audience and the soldier. Those technical facts that surround an individual event are of less importance than overarching subjective truth off the meaning of the war to soldiers and how to change them. The different storytellers are Mitchell Sanders and Rat Kiley in addition to O’ Brien in working out the layout of the ugly war truths (Patrick, 170). A great amount of detail on storytelling is making the reader think about each story’s truth, for instance the sheer detail amount that engages truth sense. The author draws a clear line between the reader’s imagination and the story’s reality. By using war in discussion of truth illusion, O’Brien causes the reader to look deeply within themselves and the underlining truth’s belief of the fictional story. For a story to be accurately told, its reality should be seen (Tim, 155). The story should be believable to the readers. The idea he uses is that an accurate narration involves a real story and should be believable to the reader. By using the basis of real seemliness and separation of what really happened from that which seemed to happen creates creditability of a memory or a story. O’Brien relates storytelling art by creating believability in the reader that the story was once true through use of emotions such as love, pity and grief. Readers can then relate to these emotions making it easy for the development of emotional connection to Obrien’s experience (Tim, 163). Each emotion is felt throughout the struggles of life for instance war and a loved one’s loss, which establishes the readers, believes the story. Dialogue in the story causes believability of Obrien’s truth from lies. Moreover the use of sound emotions makes the Obrien’s character believable. Jimmy Cross as a human intercessor and allusion to Jesus Christ The character of Jimmy Cross represents profound effects that responsibility has for the immature in handling it. He does not care about war and has no desire to be a team leader. Thus when led into the battle, he is unsure of everything he does. His guilt crops up every time his men die (Patrick, 185). His innocent reverie undergoes interruption and the conclusion is that Cross loved Martha than the men with him in battle. The confession of O’ Brien years later shows his guilt about the death of his battle men. He is viewed as Christ figure. Certain individuals assume their group’s position or their savior’s inexplicable atrocity times. Such kinds of men suffer in that others won’t bear confusion and guilt. Cross is linked to Christ in that they share initials and both connected to the cross idea and also in his nature’s role. Cross suffers for the entire platoons’ sake. In “The Things They Carried”, Cross is the bearer of Lavender’s death for his troop members such as Kiowa, who are dumbfounded and can’t mourn (Tim, 174). In a similar story, Cross makes personal sacrifice by burning the letters from Martha such that her presence won’t cause further distraction. In every case, Cross makes a similar sacrifice as Christ so his fellow men can carry on with life less of grief and guilt. Innocence to Experience Under the heavy weight fear burden, the men carry their reputation’s weight. Every Alpha member of the company experiences occasional fear thus revealing vulnerability to cruel fellow soldiers and the enemy and thus their innocence to experience (Patrick, 253). After the war, the psychological burdens carried by the men continue their definition. For the survivors, they carry confusion, guilt and grief. Many stories in the collection are about the survivors attempts in coming to terms with experience. The stories of O Brien shows the jungle’s blurring of the boundaries between the right and wrong. The brutal killing of innocent persons on each side is unexplainable and creates disbelief. The men deal with pain feelings through pointing out irony. For instance, Mitchell Sanders points out continuously “there’s a moral here” stressing the morality of the particular situation, each time (Tim, 179). When Ted Lavender is fatally shot Sanders jokes that the moral learnt from tragic and accidental death is staying away from drugs. Conclusion In conclusion, generalization of this story describes war as hell, mystery and terror, courage and adventure, holiness and pity as well as despair, longing and love. War is nasty, fun, thrilling and drudgery. It makes you a dead man. In a war story, any moral present is as the thread that makes the cloth. You can’t tease the moral out. The meaning cannot be extracted without the unraveling of the deep meaning. In the end, there’s nothing much in saying a true war story. True war stories have no generalization without any indulgence in analysis or abstraction. The down gut instinct has it that once a true war story is told, the stomach should believe. This story depicts the effectiveness of imagination as an agent of perception. Works Cited O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried (TTTC). New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print. Smith, Patrick. Tim O'Brien: A Critical Companion to Popular Contemporary Writers. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005. Print. Read More