The Things They Carried Essay - 2450 Words

The Vietnam War was the critical conflict that altered our â€Å"post modern† societal view of what war is really about. Tim O’Brien shows the brutal reality of war to our â€Å"post modern† society without adding the propaganda and fluff that our society has come to accept. In our trying times today, Operation Iraqi freedom has supposedly come to an end. With the amounts of embedded reporting, our society has been able to see battles as they occur. The news ran non stop coverage on the war, where T.V. audiences were enthralled with scenes of battle. These broadcasts did not accurately depict the American casualties. The only live broadcasts were images of U.S. soldiers were taking out objectives with little resistance from Iraqi forces.†¦show more content†¦These are the stories that need to be told to the American public by the soldiers who experienced them first hand. Sadly these stories only come out in books and novels and are often deemed a s â€Å"true stories that never happened,† as seen in Tim O’Brien’s work. There is a clear reason for this. The military and U.S. government have the ultimate say in what is broadcasted. For Operation Iraqi Freedom, the military came up with new press rules that addressed previous criticisms that it did not allow journalists contact with fighting troops in combat situations. The Pentagon now allowed reporters to travel with U.S. military units as long as they followed a strict set of rules. These rules basically meant that the military could censor and monitor all outgoing broadcasts and reports from the war. If any of the rules were broken, the reporter would be immediately sent out of contact with the military. This makes it very hard to believe the broadcasts coming from the conflict, yet the American public accepted them as the truth which is exactly how the government had designed. The Department of Defense, according to CNN.com, stated the reasons behind this policy: We need to tell the factual story—good or bad—before others seed the media with disinformation and distortions, as they mostShow MoreRelatedThe Things They Carried in the Things They Carried1141 Words   |  5 PagesThe Things They Carried in â€Å"The Things They Carried,† by Tim O’Brien In â€Å"The Things They Carried,† by Tim O’Brien the theme of â€Å"carrying† both physical and emotional objects by the main characters can be found in the novel. While these men carry the same standard physical army gear, they differentiate with personal tangible and intangible items. From Lieutenant Cross’s responsibility of his men, to Henry Dobbin’s girlfriend’s pantyhose for its magic, each man faced the war with these things attachedRead MoreThe Things They Carried880 Words   |  4 PagesIn the novel The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien the author tells about his experiences in the Vietnam war by telling various war stories. The quote, It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look d isconnecting human and where except in your imaginationRead MoreThings They Carried1106 Words   |  5 PagesThe Things They Carried Report â€Å"The Things They Carried† was a story about soldiers caught in the confusion of the Vietnam War. There are a lot of apparent themes that are dealt with when writing a story about war, especially about death. I enjoyed reading this story; however there were some things about it that I was concerned about. I would like to discuss the author’s style of writing, his meaning of the title â€Å"The Things They Carried† and the way the author and his characters deal with deathRead More Things They Carried Essay: Strength in The Things They Carried980 Words   |  4 PagesStrength in The Things They Carried  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Everybody has to deal with adversity at some point in their lives. The adversity that they go through varies from person to person. For First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, he had to make it through the Vietnam War alive. In the short story, The Things They Carried, where Cross draws his strength from is somewhat unclear. He seems strong at the beginning of the story, but then again, he also seems to be gaining strength towards the end of the story. ThisRead MoreThe Things They Carried1417 Words   |  6 PagesSpring Book Review In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien tells the tale of not about war, but rather about war’s effect on one’s mentality. Ultimately, this novel is built on a foundation of the items that the soldiers of the Vietnam War carried. Whether it was the way Jimmy Cross uses the pebble to escape from his duties as a soldier or when Norman Bowker realizes that courage comes form within, not from receiving a Silver Star; O’Brien uses baggage as a symbol throughout the book to teachRead MoreThe Things They Carried2220 Words   |  9 Pagesand all you can do is whimper and wait.† (211) This passage has great meaning to how the soldiers felt toward one another. They did not have friends but they all knew how everyone felt because they were all simultaneously going through the same thing at the same time. The passage fits great in this novel because it gives great detail and imagery on how the characters Azar and Bobby Jorgenson felt toward one another. Strong relationships were developed and felt almost as if they were all one personRead MoreThings They Carried2289 Words   |  10 PagesTim OBrien does a fantastic job of blurring the lines of what is true and what is fiction in The Things They Carried. In fact, he often points out that he has made entire stories up, after the fact. He defends his decisions by proposing that what he has done is, in fact, not lie, but rather tell a story-truth. He argues that his reason for doing this is to bring the story to life more than it could live through the happening-truth. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to kno w why story-truthRead MoreEssay On The Things They Carried1624 Words   |  7 PagesFor the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in â€Å"The Things We Carried† by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now stillRead MoreEssay on The Things They Carried515 Words   |  3 PagesThe Things They Carried The Things They Carried, by Tim OBrien, is a generalization of his own experiences in Vietnam although the story itself is a work of fiction there is still much to be learned from it. Through the actions of soldiers in The Things They Carried we can begin to explore the effect war has on the human condition and the toll it plays on their minds. Some of the themes in the book, The Things They Carried, are bravery and what true bravery is, truth and how the manipulationRead MoreThe Things They Carried Essay1015 Words   |  5 PagesThe text, ‘The Things They Carried, is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening