Analytical Evaluation “the Things They Carried”

Analytical Evaluation “The Things They Carried”

Biography

William Timothy O’Brien (Tim) is an American novelist and short story writer who is best known for writing about Vietnam. He was born in Austin, Minnesota on 01 October, 1946. Tim O’Brien is a 1968 graduate of Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he earned B.A. in political science (summa cum laude); Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970-76. Tim O’Brien served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970. He is a recipient of the Purple Heart when wounded in Vietnam in 1970. Tim O’Brien served as a Reporter for the Washington Post from 1971-74. His awards include: National Book award, 1978; National Endowment for the Arts award; Bread Loaf Writers Conference award; Heartland Award, 1990; Melcher Book Award, 1991; L.H.D., Miami University (Ohio), 1990; Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award, 2012 (Miller, 2013). Tim O’Brien is currently a Writer in Residence at Southwest Texas State University, Creative Writing Program. San Marcos, Texas (Calpoly.edu, (2002).

Introduction

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is subtitled “A Work of Fiction,” but it masterfully meshes the factual with the fictional. These verisimilitude groups of stories are based from O’Brien’s personal experiences in Vietnam. This is a collection of interconnected short stories that, when pieced together, reads as a novel. As you read you will forget that this is a piece of fiction. The setting is Vietnam in the Quang Ngai Province and the cast are the men of Alpha Company. Through story telling O’Brien uses the objects that the men carry to reveal their personalities. The protagonist is Tim O’Brien a foot soldier or “grunt” who is describing the key emotional events that occurred during his Vietnam experience. Obrien begins by illustrating the inventory of things that the soldiers of Alpha Company brought on their missions. What a soldier carried was largely...