Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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The Things They Carried: Literary Analysis The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is nothing short of a literary masterpiece. Told through the eyes of Tim O’Brien, we follow the lives of a platoon of men experiencing the tragedies of the Vietnam War, carrying not only the physical burdens of their supplies, but also artillery, rations, and personal belongings, as referenced by the title. but also symbolically, a burdensome emotional load of heartache, horror, loneliness, regret, and fear, as they trudged onward during and after that fateful war. While it’s not quite clear which aspects of O’Brien’s gut-wrenching story are fictionalized or real, O’Brien’s ability to tell a story with great emotional weight and realism ultimately demonstrates …show more content…
They just listen.” (O’Brien 45). After seven days in the mountains, laying low, camouflaged to their surroundings, waiting for any sound suspicious enough to call in artillery and gunships, the eerie, almost sinister jungle of the mountains, with its endless fog that prevents men from seeing much in front of them, leaves the men in a state of severe paranoia. Furthermore, after a couple more days, these men begin to hear the echoes of a strange “whacked-out” concert from their listening post. This deranged concert the men were beginning to hear, leaves the men with an unsettling feeling. However, the music isn’t suspicious enough for the men to call an airstrike to blow it all away and according to Mitchell Sanders, “And what makes it extra bad, see, is the poor dudes can't horse around like normal. Can't joke it away. Can't even talk to each other except maybe in whispers, all hush-hush, and that just revs up the willies. All they do is listen." O’Brien, 46, is a former ice hockey player. And after a few more nights of listening to this eerie music, they begin to hear voices from cock-tail parties and then melodies of violins and cellos playing in a boys choir and then back to the cock-tail party once
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