Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Introduction
O’Brien, in his novel The Things They Carried, pictures himself as a soldier sent to Vietnam in the late 1960s on an American mission to combat. He describes the war as terrible for the American soldiers like himself, the Vietnamese civilians, and his fellow soldiers. O’Brien links his childhood with his being a soldier in the novel and his present self as a writer and explores the trauma he undergoes after the war.
The connection between the Narrator, Child and old Timmy
When expressed as both character and author, Tim has similar experiences in the two cases. O’Brien shares the same name as the protagonist in his novel and also a similar background. Like O’Brien in the story, William Timothy Junior was born and spent his early life in Minnesota at the borders of South Dakota in America. His childhood compares to that of his characters in the novel, marked by American kid-ness, summers spent on baseball leagues, and later as an adult spent his life on jobs and girls. During his early childhood, Tim describes himself as a reader. The author also had an interest in magic tricks where books acted as a bending reality for escaping it. O’Brien expresses that his enthusiasm for books was as a result of role models; both parents were reading enthusiasts. His father worked on a local library while his mother was a second-grade teacher.
After graduating from the University with a bachelor’s degree in government and politics, the author embarks on opposing the Vietnam War. He worked as a supporter to the then Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy in 1968, who openly opposed the war. Coincidentally, the U.S government fell short of soldiers to join the battle and opted for recruits. The protagonist finds himself among the recruited members a situation he dreads the most. O’Brien hated the war and to the extent of plotting to escape to Canada. However, through the pressure he received from his community and parents-who had met in World War II-he let go of his convictions about the war, pulled himself together, and joined the army. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The author, O’Brien, links his childhood with his protagonist character in the novel as the foundation for his being a soldier and the present-day writer. With his parents having participated in World War II and the expectation from his community to defend his country, he joins the war. The parents were readers as well, and this formed a basis for his present writing skills.
Memories and their Effect on O’Brien’s Later Life
O’Brien’s preoccupation with memories proves his inability to forget his life in Vietnam and adopt a healthy life. The protagonist attempts to assume that his war experience was smooth; however, he implicates symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The disorder is characterized by war-related depression, isolation, anxiety reactions, guilt, and nightmares. He tries writing as a tool to aid him in erasing such memories. He confronts the various traumas as he seeks to resolve all chaos he still feels thirty years later. O’Brien spends his time in the novel in search of an emotional home, a feeling he yearns from his childhood but is aware that he will never encounter it. The author mourns his childhood innocence and feels betrayal towards the community that he feels their misguided beliefs sent him to war.
Lessons Historians Can Learn
By using his name for a character, O’Brien captures his readers guessing as to whether the book is a fact. Readers are unable to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction; by employing his name as the protagonist makes O’Brien tale a more representative of reality.
Conclusion
In his book, O’Brien captivates his readers’ gaze by connecting his childhood, his life in Vietnam, and his present life harmoniously. The author also points out the memories that later haunt his life after the war, which he seeks to resolve. His ability to exemplarily deploy his name as that of the protagonist makes the book more thrilling.
Bibliography
O’Brien, Tim. The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
Stein, Rachel. “The Things They Carried.” Literary Geography: An Encyclopedia of Real and Imagined Settings (2019): 277.
Mahini, Ramtin Noor-Tehrani Noor, Erin Barth, and Jed Morrow. “Tim O’Brien’s “Bad” Vietnam War: The Things They Carried & Its Historical Perspective.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 8, no. 10 (2018): 1283-1293.