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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay on the short story, "The Things They Carried," in which author Tim O'Brien offers a complex psychological portrayal of the combat experience. O'Brien's writing style is not chronologically oriented, that is, one episode does not lead directly into the next. The abrupt starts and stops in the narrative mirror the disjointed and fractured thinking processes of the narrator rather than the reality of the situation. However, the narration is linked by several themes, and it is from one of these themes that O'Brien draws his title. This title, "The Thing They Carried," indicates the manner in which identity is formulated and how reality, for each soldier, is defined. In presenting this theme, O'Brien focuses on how the things they carried is connected to sense of self and how destroying what he carried symbolized lost innocence in the eyes of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khcarino.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
not chronologically oriented, that is, one episode does not lead directly into the next. The abrupt starts and stops in the narrative mirror the disjointed and fractured thinking processes of
the narrator rather than the reality of the situation. However, the narration is linked by several themes, and it is from one of these themes that OBrien draws his title.
This title, "The Thing They Carried," indicates the manner in which identity is formulated and how reality, for each soldier, is defined. In presenting this theme, OBrien focuses on how
the things they carried is connected to a sense of self and how destroying what he carried symbolized lost innocence in the eyes of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. This
theme provides a framework that OBrien uses to tell several simultaneous stories, which briefly, but poignantly capture the essence and identity of each soldier. He begins with the storys principal
character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who carried "letters from a girl named Martha" (OBrien 637). As soldiers are required to carry a heavy backpack and wear heavy fatigue jackets, helmets
and boots, which collectively weight "between 15 and 20 pounds," anything else that they choose to carry speaks eloquently of that mans systems of values and worldview,
of whom he believes himself to be, as well as his psychological coping mechanisms in surviving the war. Cross, by choosing to carrying letters and a few pictures of
a girl, creates a means for escaping his circumstances into a fantasy world that revolves how he imagines her life and what a romantic relationship with Martha might be like.
Henry Dobbins carried extra rations. Dave Jensen carried a "toothbrush, dental floss and several hotel-sized bars of soap" (OBrien 638). Obviously, Jensen, in order to preserve his sense of identity
...