The Critical Analysis of Tim O’Brien War never changes, but war changes people. The soldier pays the ultimate price for freedom and peace. The war always stays with the soldier even long after the battles are over. Tim O’Brien is one of those soldiers who payed the price and survived the war, but internally never leaving the Vietnam War. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien uses his life experiences from the Vietnam War and his childhood, the protest during the war, and his ideologies from the war to write his novel. The life of Tim O’Brien helps the reader better determine the understanding of his novel. O’Brien was born in a small town of Worthington in Austin, Minnesota on October 1, 1946 (“Tim” Famous). Later on in his life he was drafted
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The stories that O’Brien wrote in his novel attempt for him to come to terms with his Vietnam experience (“Tim Biography”). O’Brien has been carrying the war with him long after it ended and wants to come to terms with the things he has done and saw. In the novel, the narrator plays with the “notion of truth [that gives the reader] a sense of the awful truth that was Vietnam” (“Tim Biography”). Not only is the narrator trying to explain what happened in Vietnam; he is also trying to take the reader there. So that the reader can experience through reading what the narrator has been through. Also the “truth and reality [of the stories] are even fuzzier in Vietnam than everywhere, and examining how experience is converted into meaning matters more than trying to figure out what is real” (“Tim Biography”). While O’Brien is telling his own personal experience, he is also telling many other false events to form the story together. In the story, each man in the small squad had a different way of escaping the realities of war (McManus). With this, each man in the squad carries his own burdens that they have accumulated from the war (McManus). These things help carry the story along and personalize each character. With the writing of The Things They Carried, O’Brien helps himself come to terms in his mind of what he experienced in the
The stories that O’Brien wrote in his novel attempt for him to come to terms with his Vietnam experience (“Tim Biography”). O’Brien has been carrying the war with him long after it ended and wants to come to terms with the things he has done and saw. In the novel, the narrator plays with the “notion of truth [that gives the reader] a sense of the awful truth that was Vietnam” (“Tim Biography”). Not only is the narrator trying to explain what happened in Vietnam; he is also trying to take the reader there. So that the reader can experience through reading what the narrator has been through. Also the “truth and reality [of the stories] are even fuzzier in Vietnam than everywhere, and examining how experience is converted into meaning matters more than trying to figure out what is real” (“Tim Biography”). While O’Brien is telling his own personal experience, he is also telling many other false events to form the story together. In the story, each man in the small squad had a different way of escaping the realities of war (McManus). With this, each man in the squad carries his own burdens that they have accumulated from the war (McManus). These things help carry the story along and personalize each character. With the writing of The Things They Carried, O’Brien helps himself come to terms in his mind of what he experienced in the