The Things They Carried

Book Title: The Things they Carried Author: Tim O’Brien
Pages: 246 Publisher: Broadway Books

Why did you decide to read the book?
I decided to pick this novel because I have heard from multiple people that they love it. Also I really enjoy history and that since this book is all about men at war and what they had to go through together. The style with all of the stories inside of this one book kept it interesting.
Brief Summary :
In this book the narrator is telling the story to the audience. The way it is written is a nice way to read. Tim O'Brien, the narrator, tells individual stories throughout the entire book. So one section may have nothing good but the next could really have a lot of good things to read. These stories are all taking place in Vietnam. O'Brien is like the third person looking in on it all. You hear about all of these deaths and how it plays tricks with people. It puts guilt on many of the soldiers in the war. Many never get over what they saw. The death of O'Brien best friend, Kiowa is a big part of this book. All of the other stories do not involve O’Brien but this one hits home for him. once again he has one more thing to carry. The guilt of his best friend dying. This is what the title means. The soldiers from Vietnam carry guns, matches, and morphine but some things they carry are much heavier like the fear they have and the guilt that have. guilt plays a big role throughout the book. O'Brien almost leaves the army but he would feel guilty if he did so he stayed.
Audience:
People who are really interested in war, also if you don’t like books that get you thinking then I don’t think you would like this book. The age level I think would be from high school and up.
Writing Style:
O’Brien uses detail and he can almost make you feel what they do or get a good sense of what they thought.
Description -
He writes with of detail and imagery.
Passage -
“They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and carried shameful memories.”(O’Brien 21)
Vocabulary:
Dysentery-the disease of the lower intestine caused by infection with bacteria, protozoa, or parasites and marked by severe diarrhea, inflammation, and the passage of blood and mucus.
They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. (Page 36)
Trite- overused and consequently lacking in interest or originality
… it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. (page 83)
Passage #1:
“They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight." (pg 21 The Things They Carried)
This passage shows that the emotion may not be touchable but to them it is and weighs them down tremendously. This shows how emotional problems are an easy thing to have when fighting a war and seeing something’s that you wish you may have not seen but now are stuck in your brain forever.
Passage #2:
" By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others." (pg 158 The Things They Carried)
This passage shows that the things that go on are things unexplainable. You can put it down on paper or tell stories of it but it all may not be the truth. The troubling things that they carry have to be seen in a different light to make sense for others.
Theme:
Fear of death was the common bond between all the soldiers in the Vietnam War. The foot soldiers trudged forward through battles for fear of looking like cowards. Lt. Cross is unique in that it was not a fear of death that made him strive forward, but the fear of letting his men down when needed the most. Though every man dealt with their fear in different ways, they all felt they had to hide their fear from others. Tim O’Brien ran the main theme of fear throughout this story to truly capture the emotions of American soldiers in their time of nervousness.
Letter Grade:
This book I believe it disserves an A, after reading this book it became part of my favorite book club. O’Brien dose a great job on really pulling you into keeping interested. It feels like you part of the group as one of the solders.

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Book Title: The Things They Carried Author: Tim O’Brian
Pages: 246 Publishers: Broadway Books, New York
Why did you decide to read the book?
I decided to read this book because I enjoy military history and war stories. A teacher recommended this book when I asked what book I may find interesting.
Brief Summary of Book (6-8 sentences):
The Things They Carried is about a soldier in the Vietnam War. The U.S. public does not support the war for the most part and Tim O’Brian recounts his experiences with us in The Things They Carried. Strange things happen to soldiers in Vietnam: they get paranoid, and they lose their sense of morality and justice. They become hardened and angry, because no one back home understands what they are going through. Tim not only discuses the physical objects the soldiers carried but also focuses on the mental and emotional things the soldiers carried with them throughout the war and after returning home.
Audience: Soldiers, veterans, and people interested in the Vietnam War.
Writing Style: Very descriptive. The book is mostly medium to long sized sentences with fairly simple language.
Passage – “His jaw was in this throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of his ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of his skull, his forehead was slightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin on his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that killed him”. (124)
Description – This shows the extreme detail that O’Brian uses. He doesn’t censor any of this account of the war and even uses explicit language to convey his story.
Vocabulary:
Word: Hootch Definition: alcoholic a usually thatched hut
Sentence & page it came from “In the dark outside my hootch, even though I bent toward him, almost nose to nose, all I could see were the glossy whites of Azar’s eyes”. (211)
Passage #1: "By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost." (15)
Passage #2: "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." (179)
Theme: The theme of the things they carried is how stresses act unusually on humans in times of war and how they things they carried, both physically and mentally, act on the soldiers.
Letter Grade: B