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- Sprache: Englisch
Unlock the more straightforward side of The Things They Carried with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!
This engaging summary presents an analysis of
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a series of interconnected short stories set during the Vietnam War. O’Brien was drafted to fight in Vietnam when he was in his early 20s, and he has written extensively about the conflict in both fiction and nonfiction pieces. In
The Things They Carried, he tries to make sense of his and his comrades’ experiences during the war, which have an enduring effect on them and are never fully understood by those at home. As well as
The Things They Carried, O’Brien is known for his novel
Going After Cacciato and the autobiographical account
If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home.
Find out everything you need to know about
The Things They Carried in a fraction of the time!
This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection
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Seitenzahl: 29
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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TIM O’BRIEN
AMERICAN NOVELIST AND SHORT STORY WRITER
Born in Austin, Minnesota in 1946.Notable works:If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973), autobiographical accountGoing After Cacciato (1978), novelIn the Lake of the Woods (1994), novelInfluenced by his own personal experiences in the Vietnam War (1955-1975), where he served as an infantryman from 1969 to 1970, Tim O’Brien has written extensively on Vietnam both in fiction and in nonfiction. His reflections on the war – from how it impacted the American social fabric to how it has affected his own psyche even decades after the fact – have received widespread acclaim for their nuance, and for their examinations of what makes a story ‘true’.
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED
A SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SERIES OF SHORT STORIES SET DURING THE VIETNAM WAR
Genre: short story collectionReference edition: O’Brien, T. (1991) The Things They Carried. New York: Penguin.1stedition: 1990Themes: Vietnam War, ‘truth’ vs ‘fact’, suicide, PTSD, memories, camaraderie, lossThe Things They Carried is a collection of interconnected short stories that span multiple decades and settings, but have a centring force in O’Brien’s personal connections to Vietnam. While grounded in the factual realities of the war and O’Brien’s experiences, the stories are also partly fictionalised: an important distinction throughout the collection is between ‘story-truth’ and ‘happening-truth’. Happening-truth comprises objective chronological events, while story-truth focuses more on the psychological reality of those events for O’Brien and others involved in the Vietnam War.
SUMMARY
THE THINGS THEY CARRIED
First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his platoon march endlessly across Vietnam. As the title of the story suggests, the focus is on what all the soldiers carry: not only their physical gear, but also their emotional and psychological burdens.
The episode centres primarily on Jimmy Cross, who finds himself trapped in an unrequited love with a girl named Martha. His thoughts are frequently preoccupied with her – he carries thoughts of her as a burden – to the point where it affects his ability to lead his platoon. We are repeatedly told of Ted Lavender when the platoon is described, and are constantly reminded that he is to be killed in a later part of the story. When this does finally occur, Jimmy Cross comes to a certain understanding within himself. He thinks it his fault that Ted Lavender was shot, since he was thinking not of his men but of Martha. After a night of crying, he decides the following morning that he in fact loves and hates Martha, and burns a photograph he had of her. From then on, he decides to be a stricter Lieutenant, and to bring his platoon in line.
NOTES
The narrator, Tim O’Brien, details his time spent talking with Jimmy Cross several years after the war. After some drinks, Jimmy Cross talks about how he met Martha again at a high school reunion, and while he still loved her, she rejected him. However, she gave him a replacement photograph for the one he burned.
SPIN
Tim O’Brien reflects on how memories of the war replay constantly in his head. Most significant is the “bad stuff [that] never stops happening […] replaying itself over and over” (p. 36), but what is often more frequent are the “odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end” (p. 39).
