Things They Carried
Essays

The Soldier's Psychological and Physical Scars from the Vietnam War

Tim O'Brien uses repetition to illustrate the theme of carrying things in his short story. By constantly repeating phrases and subject matter, the author reinforces the notion that it was severely straining to engage in the Vietnam War. The relationship between a lieutenant and one of his fallen soldiers exemplifies this concept.

¶ … Things They Carried: In search of a 'true' war story through fiction

¶ … psychological consequences of war, of fighting in a war, of eating and sleeping in a "war zone," are not merely limited to the implications of witnessing and partaking in death; war deeply influences the mental…

The most shocking aspects of the novel, The Things They Carried, are the graphic descriptions and the striking honesty with which Tim O'Brien employs to describe the devastating effects of war.

¶ … Things They Carried: Symbolism and Comparative Analysis

This essay reviews two Chapters from the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried," and "In the Field." The paper explores the lives and feelings of the characters in the story as they are shaped by war. Guilt and blame are examined in the context of the Vietnam War and connected with modern events in the Middle East.

¶ … Things They Carried is known as the novel and also as a book containing stories which are interrelated to each other. Written by Tim O'Brien, the book is considered to be a book representing complex ideas and…

Tim O'Brian's novel "The Things They Carried" presents readers with a first-person account involving incidents from the Vietnam War. The book can to a certain extent considered to be autobiographical, in spite of the…

Tim O'Brien's the Things They Carried, while presented as such, is not a true war story but a post-war story. The narrator intimates this himself, in a moment of suspicious candor, when he relates that the chapter…