Composition of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

 Composition of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

Tim O’Brien’s short story The Things They Carried is the first of twenty-two stories in the book of the same name. This book tells about various episodes from the life of a company of soldiers serving in Vietnam. All narratives are connected, but each can be considered separately. The plots are based on the writer’s actual experience but combine both his memories and fiction, uniquely representing the historical fiction genre. In The Things, They Carried story, one of the soldiers, Ted Lavender, dies during an operation under the command of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross.

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The lieutenant blames himself because his thoughts are occupied by the girl whose letters and photographs he carries. Although soldiers in wars look similar because of their uniforms and even move similarly following military rules, the things they carry, talismans, letters, and emotions, differ, highlighting their individuality and maintaining a connection with the home.

O’Brien’s book contains military stories that uniquely combine elements of memoirs and artistic fiction. During his studies in college, the writer was drafted into the American army. He was against the war but was still forced to go to Vietnam, where he served for two years (Tim O’Brien para. 2). The writer describes real places in the book and introduces a narrator named Tim O’Brien, who is close to the author, making readers think about the reality of the events described.

However, other details are transparent fiction, changing the notion of the work. For example, in the book, the narrator has a daughter named Kathleen. In turn, the writer became the father of two sons and, later, after the book’s publication. The author used fictional truth, as he considered it more effective in addressing the feelings of readers (Tim O’Brien para. 3). Thus, having the features of non-fiction literature, his stories are artistic.

The Vietnam War was widely publicized, and the fact that it was terrible, like any other war, is well known. However, the differences between knowledge of something and actual experience are significant. O’Brien uses the events he encountered and his feelings about them and complements them with fiction to interact with the audience. The writer revised his stories several times, removed details, and added new ones. A researcher Young notes that when studying various versions, attention is attracted not by their historical accuracy or artistic aestheticism but by how they affect readers and what kind of notion they form (12). This feature of the work blurs the boundary between reality and fiction and enhances the impression of the experience received by the author, and pushes for deep reflection.