`The Things They Carried ` by Tim Obrien

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The Things They Carried

In life , we all wage war in either the large or small scale . The term war here does not necessarily refer to the typical contention by force or the destruction of the forces of an enemy . War could also refer to disagreements between family , friends , classmates , co-workers , and even our own selves . We all struggle to conform , to uphold our principles and to stay alive . For in real life , while we may want to live in peace

br and harmony , we ought to take our share of conflict

In every clash we endure , we carry physical and emotional burdens along the way . While some will soon be gone as the war nears its end , other burdens remain , and in some occasions are there to stay . This is the ugly truth about life . theless , this is the common battle we all must wage in our lifetime

The Things They Carried written by Tim O 'Brien is a collection of interconnected short stories narrated by him where he shifts between passages and simple depictions of the things that his comrades carry with them in the war . The segmentation draws concentration on the tangible and intangible items the soldiers bring without downplaying the narration . In the illustrative segments of the tale , the author is quite precise in his s and appears to be simply sorting the item a soldier carries . He only delivers basic s without any emotion or sentiment involved just yet . In his s of the intangible things , though , he is much more in tune with the sentiments of the characters while carrying such burdens . His narration employs more sentimentality in these parts of the story and inserts a huge amount of emotional weight to his audience . Such distinction in the narrative style the author utilizes is essential in highlighting the intangible items the soldiers carry with them

In the middle of the war in Vietnam , Tim O 'Brien illustrates , in great detail , the things his companions carried with them to their tour of duty . The soldiers who participated in the war may have brought with them guns and ammunitions , yet even after the war ended , they still had to carry heavy emotional loads until their lives came to an end

Symbolism is used extensively throughout the course of the story even though colors and items are employed in conjunction with the illustration of particular characters . The symbolic representations are the author 's means in conveying the profound themes of the story . Such themes include the physical as well as emotional burdens that the characters bear , the psychological effects the war has caused them , and even the discovery of the manner in which history is bent through the flow of oral chronicles by means of narration

Each physical burden that a soldier carries give emphasis to the emotional burden he bears at the same time (O 'Brien 21 . Like Henry Dobbins , at some point in our lives , we long...