The Things They Carried Questions and Answers
The Things They Carried
What is Tim O'Brien's purpose in writing The Things They Carried?
Author Tim O’Brien’s purpose in writing his book The Things They Carried is to use the genre of fiction to explore the harsh realities of war and communicate them to a wider audience. O’Brien did...
The Things They Carried
Who were the greenies and what were they like?
The Greenies are an elite force of Army soldiers known as the Green Berets. They are a special forces group of men known for their abilities to engage the enemy in guerrilla warfare and to search...
The Things They Carried
On The Rainy River Quotes
I would want to start off by talking about the author's impression of the war from which he was fleeing. Although he was, by his own account, politically naive, at the same time, he had severe...
The Things They Carried
What kind of job did Tim have during the summer of 1968 in "On the Rainy River" in The Things They Carried?
Tim works in a meatpacking plant during the summer of 1968. He keeps his draft notice tucked away and does a great deal of soul-searching that summer in deciding whether to go to war or run away to...
The Things They Carried
In the last two sentences of "On the Rainy River," the narrator writes, "I was a coward. I went to war." What does he...
When most people think about the idea of going to war, it is something with which they associate courage and bravery; alternately, people who run from or refuse to go to war are perceived as...
The Things They Carried
Why did Lieutenant Jimmy Cross feel guilty about Ted Lavender's death?
The collection of linked short stories The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien tells of a platoon of soldiers during the Vietnam War. In the title short story, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien...
The Things They Carried
Why does Rat Kiley kill the baby water buffalo?
At the beginning of "How to Tell a True War Story," Rat Kiley writes to the sister of his friend, Curt Lemon, who has just been killed in Vietnam. Kiley writes at length about what a fantastic...
The Things They Carried
What does Martha represent to Cross in "The Things They Carried"?
In the linked series of fictionalized stories about his experiences during the Vietnam War The Things They Carried, author Tim O'Brien tells of Jim Cross's infatuation with Martha in the first...
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, how does Kiowa feel about Lavender's death?
Kiowa is undoubtedly sad at the death of Ted Lavender. But he expresses his emotions differently from that of the rest of the platoon. As well as sighing and shaking his head, he recounts the tale...
The Things They Carried
What does the soldier in chap. 3 mean by the statement, "All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt...
I believe this is a good quote to symbolize the tragedy of PTSD. The author deals with this a lot in The Things They Carried. But the symptom that most people know is that a person who has suffered...
The Things They Carried
In the chapter "On the Rainy River" in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," what does the pig plant symbolize?
In "On the Rainy River," Tim O'Brien tells of a young man just out of college who receives a draft notice to serve in the Army. Although the narrator has the name of "O'Brien," it's a fictional...
The Things They Carried
What spin is Tim O'Brien putting on the war in the chapter "Spin"?
Throughout "Spin," O'Brien attempts to portray the lighter side of war while simultaneously examining the inconsistent, violent nature of conflict. O'Brien begins the chapter by saying, "The war...
The Things They Carried
How is the war like a Ping-Pong ball? I was reading the third chapter ("Spin"), and I saw this quote: "On occasions...
I think he means that the war can be perceived in many different ways. The Things They Carried regularly shows various and even contradictory sides of the war, as well as the perspectives of...
The Things They Carried
Why did Azar kill the puppy?
Ted Lavender adopts an orphan puppy. He carries it around in his rucksack and feeds it with a plastic spoon. But the bond that develops between Ted and his puppy ends when Azar straps the poor...
The Things They Carried
In "The Things They Carried," what did the platoon do in the village of Than Khe?
According to the text, the platoon is scheduled to blow up an elaborate system of tunnels the Viet Cong utilizes in the Than Khe area. For the mission, each man in the platoon carries four blocks...
The Things They Carried
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, who is Elroy Berdhal, and how did O’Brien come to know him?
Elroy Berdhal appears in the fourth chapter of The Things They Carried, “On the Rainy River.” He plays an important, though very subtly expressed, role in helping Tim O’Brien decide what to do...
The Things They Carried
What does the title mean in "The Things They Carried"? Explain the meaning of the title.
In Tim O'Brien's story, the "things" are both concrete and abstract. All the men in the platoon serving in Vietnam carry numerous physical objects as well as bear various emotional burdens. Grief,...
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried, why does the lieutenant burn the letters he has been carrying?
After Ted Lavender is killed, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross burns the letters he carries from a girl named Martha back home. Jimmy Cross feels that the letters have made him less aware of what has been...
The Things They Carried
What does Sanders say about the thumb in The Things They Carried?
The taking of the Vietnamese soldier’s thumb as a souvenir of war shows how war changes young men into uncivilized human beings. When Sanders is making the statement, “There it is”, he is talking...
The Things They Carried
Why does Tim O'Brien, as the writer, "kill" Ted Lavender and not any other character in The Things They Carried? What...
The death of Ted Lavender serves a structural purpose in the story’s plot. Through relating the killing of one member of the company, author Tim O’Brien shows how all the unit’s other members...
The Things They Carried
What are the "M and Ms" the medic carries for pain--we are assuming the author does NOT mean the candy?
Glad to help.
The Things They Carried
Why is it so hard to "tell a true war story"? Examine O’Brien’s use of imagination and invention, and the...
It is hard to tell a true war story because it is impossible to accurately capture all of the things that war actually is. O'Brien says that a "true war story is never moral. It does not instruct...
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried, what were the soldiers more afraid of than dying?
O'Brien writes of the soldiers, "they were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it." The soldiers are afraid to appear weak or vulnerable in the face of gunfire and potential...
The Things They Carried
Why does O'Brien lie to his daughter?
In "The Man I Killed," Tim O'Brien, who portrays a fictionalized version of himself, describes the dead body of a Vietnamese soldier in great detail and writes about his own sensations after...
The Things They Carried
Why does Tim call himself a coward for choosing to go to war in The Things They Carried?
In the chapter "On the Rainy River," Tim describes how he decided to ultimately go to war in Vietnam. He was drafted, but it was a war he did not believe in (in fact, he wrote student newspaper...
The Things They Carried
What expressions do the men in The Things They Carried use instead of the word “death”? Why might they use these...
In The Things They Carried, the men disguise their fear of death by using slang to refer to it, saying that a fellow soldier has been offed, lit up, or zapped while zipping. O'Brien also recalls...
The Things They Carried
For "The Things They Carried," list the things the men carried as they moved through the Vietnamese country side.
Here is a list from the first chapter: mosquito repellent, marijuana, pocket knives, chewing gum, a girlfriend’s pantyhose, marijuana, tranquilizers, the New Testament, a compress in case of fatal...
The Things They Carried
Why does Rat Kiley carry M&Ms?
As with all kinds of candy, M&Ms does not have any medical properties but can have what is called a placebo effect. This means that they can make people feel better without in any way affecting...
The Things They Carried
What kind of motion did the younger monk perform in The Things They Carried?
The young monk in the chapter "Church" makes a mysterious washing motion with his hands. The soldiers encounter an abandoned pagoda where the monks live in a tar paper shack and tend to their...
The Things They Carried
In "The Things They Carried", the soldiers are all said to carry ghosts. What "ghosts" do you think they carried?
In a sense, when O'Brien says that each soldier carries "ghosts," he is not referring to any specific and identifiable thing or person. He's talking about the war itself, which has become a kind...
The Things They Carried
What are two quotations that are good examples of how Tim uses imagery in "On the Rainy River" from The Things They...
Imagery is comprised of descriptions of information that appeals to our senses; as such, it can be visual (sight), olfactory (smell), tactile (touch), gustatory (taste), and auditory (hearing). The...
The Things They Carried
What does Rat Kiley carry emotionally?
Bob "Rat" Kiley is the medic of Alpha Company, the platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War in Tim O'Brien's 1990 short story collection, The Things They Carried. The narrator—a fictional...
The Things They Carried
In "The Things They Carried", why does O'Brien relate his experience as a pig declotter?
In part, his inclusion of this experience is in keeping with the nature of the book as part memoir. Yes, it reveals some private aspects of his character to help us understand him better, but even...
The Things They Carried
In "On the Rainy River," from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, what is the narrator's conflict?
In Tim O'Brien's short story "On the Rainy River," the narrator, also named Tim O'Brien, receives a draft notice to serve in Vietnam during the summer of 1968. He has been moderately opposed to the...
The Things They Carried
What was the symbolism of the field where Kiowa died in The Things They Carried?
In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, there is no shortage of symbols: the talismans that many troops carry symbolize the hope for survival and luck; the enemy is a collective emblem of death;...
The Things They Carried
Irony In The Things They Carried
The narrator of The Things They Carried, author Tim O'Brien, does not really feel much sorrow about Curt Lemon's death, so he tells a story about him instead. Curt Lemon was not afraid at all of...
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried, why does Norman Bowker carry a thumb and what does it symbolize?
The opening chapter of Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried is an exhaustive list of the items carried by a small group of American soldiers in Vietnam. Amidst a litany of weapons and...
The Things They Carried
How does shame fit into O'Brien's portrayal of the war experience in The Things They Carried?
Shame is a central force that both arises from war and drives it. In listing the things that the soldiers carried, Tim O'Brien writes that the "soldier's greatest fear" is the fear of...
The Things They Carried
In the novel "The Things They Carried," what does Martha stand for or symbolize?
As we ponder Lieutenant Cross's personal war experience, we are led to question his obsession with Martha. Even though Cross suspects that Martha's affection for him may well be illusory, he...
The Things They Carried
Henry Dobbins
Henry Dobbins carries the M60 machine gun, extra ammunition, canned peaches (which he's very fond of) and his girlfriend's pantyhose. The simplicity of his load, compared to the other men, is...
The Things They Carried
What are some instances of dramatic irony, allusion, paradox and ambiguity in "The Things They Carried"?
Examples of these techniques are ubiquitous in The Things They Carried. What might help would be to narrow down to a particular story. For example, "On the Rainy River" is a particularly strong...
The Things They Carried
In Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," what did Kiowa carry in his rucksack?
Tim O’Brien’s autobiographical novel The Things They Carried has a Native American character named Kiowa. O’Brien doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what Kiowa carries with him in the war, but what...
The Things They Carried
In the story "On the Rainy River" from The Things They Carried what do Canada, the Rainy River, and war symbolize?
"On the Rainy River" is a chapter in The Things They Carried in which Tim O'Brien explores his military draft and subsequent decision to fight in Vietnam as opposed to fleeing to Canada. As so many...
The Things They Carried
What is the theme of "The Lives of the Dead" in The Things They Carried?
The primary themes of “The Lives of the Dead” are humor, resurrection, and storytelling. When O’Brien encounters the old man, dead in a pigpen, he “hadn’t yet developed a sense of humor” about the...
The Things They Carried
How would you explain how "proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life" in Chapter 7?
In this chapter, the men on patrol in Vietnam have just witnessed the death of Curt Lemon, who steps on a round of live ammunition. In an act of symbolic retribution, Rat Kiley kills a baby water...
The Things They Carried
What is the definition of a "truth goose" as used in the novel 'The Things They Carried'. Being aUK student, I don't...
"Truth goose" is a created phrase by Tim O'Brien that is partly American slang. It was used by the author of The Things They Carried, a work of fiction that is a collection of tales about his...
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried, what was the young dead VC boy carrying?
In the emotional story of “The Man I Killed” in The Things They Carried, O’Brien describes the first man he kills in the war. It is a terrifying time for O’Brien as he watches the dead body of the...
The Things They Carried
Why is the baby water buffalo scene more disturbing than the death of one of O’Brien’s platoon mates, Curt Lemon?
In "The Things They Carried", the baby water buffalo undergoes a significantly more traumatic experience than Curt Lemon. One of the unspoken points of the text is that Curt Lemon signed up to...
The Things They Carried
According to O'Brien, in The Things They Carried, why are stories important? What do we, as people, need from...
O'Brien's The Things They Carried addresses the purposes of storytelling and fiction to convey multiple, seemingly conflicting truths. The Vietnam war was the first war ever reported on using...
The Things They Carried
What are some rhetorical strategies or literary techniques that Tim O'Brien uses in paragraph 64 of the "On the Rainy...
In the chapter titled “On the Rainy River” from his book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien composes an extremely long paragraph. This paragraph begins with the sentence “At the rear of the boat...
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