The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Reading Response
Summary: The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien at first seemed to be just another war story. As I started reading I thought I was not going to have any interest at all in the story however after I got into the story I found myself more interested than I thought I was going to be. This story is an excellent depiction of war itself. It is very realistic and easy to relate to even without any personal experience with war. The title itself paves the way for the entire story, it could not be any better for the story then it is. The entire story is about “the things they carried” and the author does choose to go into great detail about the things that they did carry. While I was reading the story one question that kept running through my mind was in regard to the depth of information about the physical weights of the soldiers' items. Why would O'Brien go into this much depth about how much every individual item weighs? One thought on this that came to mind was that perhaps it is not as much about the physical weight as much as it is about the overall psychological experience. War is very stressful and can very easily become more then one can handle. I think that Tim O'Brien does a very good job at throwing in all of that information about how much this weighs and who has to carry that to almost overwhelm the reader. When he overwhelms the reader he makes it much easier for the reader to see the story from the frame of mind that a soldier would see it. The author also breaks in to the detailed list disrupting the flow of the items by informing the reader of the deaths of soldiers. He talks about them in giving us personal information about the soldiers and then all of the sudden another one is dead. This also helps the reader get a clear representation of war because in war it is very dangerous and you never know what is going to come your way.
Another question did catch my attention. Are these items really all that the soldiers
Summary: The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien at first seemed to be just another war story. As I started reading I thought I was not going to have any interest at all in the story however after I got into the story I found myself more interested than I thought I was going to be. This story is an excellent depiction of war itself. It is very realistic and easy to relate to even without any personal experience with war. The title itself paves the way for the entire story, it could not be any better for the story then it is. The entire story is about “the things they carried” and the author does choose to go into great detail about the things that they did carry. While I was reading the story one question that kept running through my mind was in regard to the depth of information about the physical weights of the soldiers' items. Why would O'Brien go into this much depth about how much every individual item weighs? One thought on this that came to mind was that perhaps it is not as much about the physical weight as much as it is about the overall psychological experience. War is very stressful and can very easily become more then one can handle. I think that Tim O'Brien does a very good job at throwing in all of that information about how much this weighs and who has to carry that to almost overwhelm the reader. When he overwhelms the reader he makes it much easier for the reader to see the story from the frame of mind that a soldier would see it. The author also breaks in to the detailed list disrupting the flow of the items by informing the reader of the deaths of soldiers. He talks about them in giving us personal information about the soldiers and then all of the sudden another one is dead. This also helps the reader get a clear representation of war because in war it is very dangerous and you never know what is going to come your way.
Another question did catch my attention. Are these items really all that the soldiers