Paper Topic:

Write interpretation of the story written by Tim O`Brien `The things they carried` support and justify that interpretation with analysis and discussion.

Tim O 'Brien 's The Things They Carried

An Examination of Truth in Storytelling

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The Things They Carried by Tim O 'Brien is a hybrid text of the personal experiences and the intense imagination of the author . The title is a direct reference to the the stealthy travel of the Vietnamese soldiers which carried a rifle and rice during the Vietnam War . This contrasts strikingly with the tools , weapons , and personal objects that were carried by American soldiers . The book is actually

several smaller stories which covers the beginning of the Vietnam War , the process of war , and the re-adjustment of soldiers back into American society . O 'Brien aggressively applies his belief that authors often must employ lies ' and half truths ' to convey the real truth to their audience . Through the use of literary distortion O 'Brien accurately portrays the Vietnam War , and the problems which faced Americans during this time while consciously excluding many of the political issues which breathed life into Vietnam crisis

O 'Brien uses an interesting and unique approach in writing this novel The Things They Carried is essentially a collection of stories which function to together as a novel . O 'Brien actively work against the literary belief that truth can only be communicated through realism While literary realists strive to document events as they actually happen , O 'Brien wished to document the emotion experienced by the storyteller . O 'Brien as well as a number of postmodern believe that realism is actually unable to convey truthful emotion and the size ' of an experience to the reader . It is only through the distortion of the events that the real experience can be conveyed . A key component in O 'Brien being able to portray the the events and emotion of the Vietnam War is his intentional blurring of truth and fiction . The Thing They Carried ' is subtitled as a work of fiction ' and offers the following disclaimer all the incidents names , and characters are imaginary ' However , the stories are written in first person and reads like a personal memoir . The main character is named Tim O 'Brien . Tim O 'Brien , the real author , is veteran of the Vietnam war . The intentional blurring of reality with fiction is used by O 'Brien to reconstruct the fragmented and unreal experiences of the Vietnam War . The use of distortion can be found in the story The Man I Killed . O 'Brien , the character , tells the story of how he killed an enemy solider with a grenade . He goes on to describe the consuming and ever present guilt over the incident . Chapters later , O 'Brien states that I did not kill him . But I was present , you see , and my presence was guilt enough ' The reader feels lied too and wonders what is truth and what is fiction . The emotional manipulation creates an enormous amount of confusion in the reader and mistrust of the author . This mirrors the emotion and betrayal felt by the...

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