The Things They Carried

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...

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 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...

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...

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 is a Vietnam War book by Tim O'Brien, based on his own experiences as a soldier. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the main character of the title story. Cross is a young soldier,...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

Glad to help.

Imagery is description that uses the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. One example of imagery is the following, in which learn some of what the men carried: were P-38 can...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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;...

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...

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...

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...

Very welcome!

Narrative point of view refers to how the narrator (or person telling the story) is positioned in relation to the actual story itself. Narrative point of view is interesting to consider in The...

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 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 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...

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...

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...

Well, you certainly have quite a list there in your key word tags! You need to remember that enotes specifies that you can only ask one question, and so obviously I am unable to respond to every...

The way O'Brien writes doesn't really allow the reader to gauge any real truth about what happened. Or perhaps "truth" isn't the right word: it doesn't provide his readers with many facts. The...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

While The Things They Carried is usually called a novel, the book can also be considered to be a collection of 25 distinct stories. The first of these, with the same title, was originally published...

The chapter does not state why the girl is dancing. The soldiers do not know, but offer their own theories; Azar says, "probably some weird ritual", and Henry Dobbins says "no, the...

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried explores the physical, mental, and spiritual burdens of young American soldiers thrown together into the Vietnam War, a brutal conflict that none are prepared...

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...

One striking thing about the men of Alpha Company is the way they handle the deaths of their comrades. For the most part, they try to make light of the situation. They do this not because they're...

Yet even if it did happen ... a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A ... thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four...