Reflections On The Things They Essay examples -- essays research paper

Reflections on "The Things They Carried" Analyzing the story’s craftsmanship Tim O’Brien wrote a story that is known as "The Things They Carried." It is a carefully crafted, detailed account of a Lieutenant and his men, the time period being right in the middle of the Vietnam war. In most war stories the author spends most of his or her time describing actions and events to the reader, trying to really put the reader "right there" in the middle of everything that is happening. However, O’Brien drifts away from that trend here, hardly describing any events of importance to any one but me sign. Rather, he focuses on the thoughts of the soldiers, the inner feelings, small personal day dreams and strange things that really describe the men. Being out in the wilderness, far from home or anything they recognize, these men must deal with the mental and physical stresses of war, when they jion the army I see it as signing away there souls they are then asked to murder people over st upid issues. Here is where O’Brien starts up his literary art form. One thing that was interesting to mention is that I noticed when reading the story is the fact that the story is written in third person. The narrator is not actually in the story, merely telling us of the events, and yet we still get to see inside Lt. Cross’s mind to more accurately picture his feelings. The narrator also, although letting us see the innermo...