Critical Review of The Things They Carried Essay

Critical Review for The Things They Carried

On October 1st 1946, author Tim OBrien was born. He would soon go on to right the intense, detailed, and slightly-gory novel titled The Things They Carried. In this memoir, OBrian tells a plethora of short stories about his time in Vietnam fighting for the United States Army. OBrian includes a dozen of his fellow privates of which were in the very same platoon as himself. Many of the short stories in this worldly novel take place somewhere within Vietnam Canada, and the small home towns of a couple other characters. Author Tim OBrien uses a plethora of short stories to compose the book "The Things They Carried"

If you look closely into this particular book, you can actually find more themes than one would normally expect. One theme you could look at is that in this novel, OBrian shows that "A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. (OBrian). In this quote you see that there would be no censorship or denying the truth in his stories or of course the text in The Things They Carried. Another theme that could be looked at is that "A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth."- (OBrian). Now this particular quote from the book shows that sometimes, in order to give the full effect or to really impact a reader/listener, you might have to make certain false comments. This could be applied public speeches, blogs and many more situations in life.

The authors purpose is seemingly to show that not all things in life are pretty or peaceful. To show that inhumane things such as fighting, killing etc. have to be done to get what you want. Or more specifically what we all want. Again, the author feeds in small fibs or white lies to intensify and put his stories into retrospect. "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth."- (OBrian). This quote also leans toward telling lies to make things make more sense and to magnify the truth. OBrians short story also gives you a very realistic amount of imagery, keeping you on the edge. To me, telling a number of short stories and putting them all into a novel is a little bit daring. The reason to me thinking this is because I feel that it is difficult to hold on to and to focus on a book that doesnt really have a climax. Its just story after story, which whether they are good or not still makes me get the feeling that I want to just move on to a different book. Although, Tim OBrian does a good job of keeping you hooked and interested.

The author Tim OBrian went along writing this book with a definite protagonist short story method. I think the major strengths in this novel are probably the graphic text and the gory sense of excitement, because although you fringe at them, they keep you interested and wanting to know more. With that said, I highly recommend you to get to your nearest library and check out a copy of The Things They Carried: By Tim OBrian. The reason I think this is because if it kept me hooked and interested, chances are, it will do the same for you.