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  1. The Things They Carried

    The Things They Carried. The Things They Carried The story "The Things They Carried"
    is about war and the things that soldiers carry with them in the war. ...

  2. The Things They Carried

    The Things They Carried. Nick Grainger Eng 112 March 16, 2004 The Things They
    Carried Tim O'Brien was an infantryman in during Vietnam War. ...

  3. The Things They Carried...What Weighs More?

    The Things They Carried...What Weighs More? ... The soldiers in "The Things They Carried"
    carried many things with them on their march through the Vietnam forests. ...

  4. The Things They Carried

    the things they carried. The Things They Carried In his story, "The Things They
    Carried," Tim O'Brien describes a group of soldiers marching through Vietnam. ...

  5. The Things They Carried: Necessities

    The Things They Carried: Necessities. The Things They Carried: Necessities
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The Things They Carried

Submitted by bluestorm1 on July 26, 2007

Category: Social Issues
Words: 899 | Pages: 4
Views: 373
Popularity Rank: 28,325
Average Member Grade: N/A (Add a Comment / Grade this Paper)

July 13, 2007

The Burdens They Carried

In Tim O' Brian's, The Things They Carried, he talks about the Vietnam War and its effects on the country. Tim O' Brian uses the psychological approach to tell the sorrows of war. The things that they carried had all represented a part of each soldier. The story is better understood because the reader can discover the background of the story and each of the characters personality. The thought of having two approaches to the story is just unacceptable and definitely not normal, but the two methods of interpreting a story like this; fused together brings about a great understanding of the characters and the events that take place within the story. The deceitful interpretations presented, the things they carried, and a transformation of a dainty girl that turns into a survivor are examples of each method presented.

The deceitful interpretation presented in the essay "How to tell a true war story" (O' Brian, 1990), is an example of Historicism. Today, people hear about the Vietnam War through family members, friends and veterans. When people tell war stories they try to make themselves seem victorious. It makes the person listening feel as if it was all in the good of the people by killing other people. Tim O'Brian somehow justifies a point in his book by stating, "A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encouraged virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done." (63) In actual reality more harm was done than good. People were forced off of their lands to hide and seek refuge and the economic consequence was fatal. To derive to the point, O' Brian is saying there is no real war story if the audience feels that killing people had made a big and better consequence. To look back upon the Vietnam War it brought Vietnam to its knees. The Americans assisted someone who asked them not to...

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