Introduction
We all enjoy reading about stories of war, strong soldiers sacrificing their lives to save millions of their countrymen and people running away from duty but we never imagine of ourselves taking part in the struggle. When duty calls, it’s obvious that most of us will turn up to the duty because it’s just duty and because that’s what we are paid for but do we carry our hearts with us? Do we do our duties willingly? Tim Obrien gives us the experience he went through with his fellow soldiers in a war in Vietnam. This paper addresses the acts of Obrien and how he failed to turn up to his duties when his country and fellow soldiers needed him most.
Review of the literature
This is a story written by Tim Obrien. Through the story, he talks of an experie
...nce of the American soldiers in the Vietnam War (O'brien, 2009). The war is a big deal to him because it is the third book that he has written about it. Tim Obrien presents his own ignorance in the war which he states drove him into writing about it and has continuously influenced him to write about the war (Wesley , 2002).
Body
This book has been considered by many people to be challenging and is based on a complex and wide variety of literary traditions. This story is interpreted differently by different readers because in its content, it gives a serious remembrance of the Vietnam War which Obrien claims that they are true (O'brien, 2009). The same story contains too much humor and exciting stories and experiences which the soldiers go through. At the beginning of the story
Obrien gives a description of the various things that the soldiers carry: grenades, canteens and lice to the emotions of love and fear that they carry to the war field.
Obrien is viewed as the main protagonist in the story and presents his own name in the story which in some way gives a vivid view to the understanding of the story. Obrien is described as a coward soldier who had even eloped to Canada to avoid the draft of the war (O'brien, 2009). He is later convinced to turn up to the duty of serving his nation but he still feels that he was failure in the war because he turned up for a war that he did not believe in.
Obrien reveals the main reason why he is always confident in writing his stories. He reveals that different stories are written for different purposes and most of them carry an element of truth. He explains the death of curt lemon and gives a further analysis of why it is an element of truth. The stories he gives tend to end up as a doubt to many soldiers but are still drawn to the factual accuracy of the story and the emotions that are brought about by the story (O'brien, 2009). Obrien uses the story to reveal his love and life of his fellow soldiers who died in war like Kiowa and how some soldiers found it hard adapting to the community after war. He explains through a story on how his fellow soldier Bowker finds it hard to adapt to civilian life after ending his duty in Vietnam.
Conclusion
Obrien presents his own experience in Vietnam and
how he was a failure in the line of duty. This is not only important to the knowledge of the reader but also to Obrien`s life. Obrien discloses that the memories of the war and the experience of the death of a little boy he met from childhood save his own life when he remembers them through writing. The story given by Obrien is both a work of literature and at the same time a reflection through history of American war against Vietnam (Bloom & Harold, 2009).
Work cited
- Bloom, Harold, ed. The Things They Carried. Infobase Publishing, 2009.
- Davis, Mark H. "The Vietnam War." Teaching History: A Journal of Methods26.1 (2001): 44- 44.
- O'brien, Tim. The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
- Wesley, Marilyn. "Truth and Fiction in Tim O'Brien's" If I Die in a Combat Zone" and" The Things They Carried"." College Literature 29.2 (2002): 1-18.
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