In Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried, supported by Calum Marsh’s Lone Survivor’s Takeaway: Every War Movie Is a Pro-War,” O’Brien advocates for the beauty of war through defining his characters from a three-dimensional standpoint and entrolling the audience with in-depth action during the war. We first see O’Brien glorifying war through his in-depth analysis of the American heroes we follow throughout the war. What’s able to make a story more impactful to viewers is an interesting set of characters we can root for. That way, when the story hits critical points, we feel more encapsulated and intrigued by the story, but also attached and connected to the characters once these things happen. Giving characters reason to root for them, personality traits to fall in love with, and ever more reason to support a character is what the audience wants.…show more content… This is further built upon by the Lone Survivor’s Takeaway article that tells us, for a war story to truly define war, “we need to believe, even subconsciously, that while the Americans are three dimensional characters who we can relate to, the seemingly endless drives of attackers who besiege them are merely The Enemy.” (Marsh) Throughout the entirety of The Things they Carried, O’Brien glorifies war through extensively defining his American characters, but seemingly allowing the Viet Cong to be an undefined manifestation of evil. This was noticed upon when he built upon American characters throughout the story such as Kiowa and Rat Kiley, but completely forgot to define the character on the opposing
