The+Things+They+Carried

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien is a short story focused on a man named Lt. Jimmy Cross and how he deals with emotional baggage and longing for home. The story begins with describing the physical objects all the soldiers carried, but as the story progresses you realize these aren't what weigh them down most. Throughout the story Lt. Cross is distracted by thoughts of a girl back home which results in a soldiers death. Upon reflection of the event Lt. Cross realizes the error of his ways and metaphorically destroys the memory of the girl back home to carry the lives of his men. Topics that are brought up in “The Things They Carried” include war, death, military, Vietnam, grief, love, emotional baggage, and desires.
 * __Summary __**
 * __Topics __**

“The Things They Carried” was a dark reflection of a soldier’s trial and tribulations in wartime. The short story included imagery, symbolism, and even a little humor. O'Brien explained everything with a great amount of detail such as, “He lay with his mouth open. The teeth were broken. There was a swollen black bruise under his left eye. The cheek bone was gone” (119). This is one of the many examples of the imagery that O'Brien uses to capture the graveness of war. Throughout the story O'Brien's dark sense of humor is demonstrated. “The morals pretty obvious, Sanders said, and winked. Stay away from drugs. No joke, they’ll ruin your day every time. Cute, said Henry Dobbins. Mind-blower, get it?” (123). this joke was made right after a fellow soldier was shot in the head and they were smoking the dope that he carried. O'Brien uses the humor in this quote to demonstrate the soldier’s different coping mechanisms. In the story O'Brien uses a good amount of symbolism, however in my opinion the strongest case of this is when the Lt. Cross burns the picture of the girl back home to signify the end of that chapter in his life. Overall “The Things They Carried” was a compelling story that helped to capture the pain and suffering a soldier deals with on a daily basis. I enjoyed reading the story, however, I did not like the lack of quotations. This made the story harder to follow and disrupted the flow. In conclusion I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a better understanding of the lives of soldiers.
 * __Evaluation __**

McMahan, Elizabeth, Susan X. Day, Robert Funk, and Linda Coleman. //Literature and the Writing Process//. 10th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2007. 113-126. Print.
 * __Citation __**

On the internet site The Big Read, I found a short biography and an interview with the author of “The Things They Carried,” Tim O'Brien. The biography talks about O’Brien’s childhood, his time and experience in the military and the pieces of literature that came from those memories. Within the page there is also an interview with O'Brien that was done on November 13, 2008 with Josephine Reed, who is the Managing Audio Producer at the National Endowment for the Arts. In the interview they talk about “The Things They Carried;” how he managed to balance truth and accuracy, how some stories relate to other pieces of literature, and so on. I found this site to be very credible. The information relates to the book and author, and is at an appropriate level. The site is actually run by an organization called National Endowment for the Arts, and there is plenty of contact information given in the about us section of the site. The definitely seems reliable. __Citation: __ "The Things They Carried." //The Big Read//. National Endowment for the Arts, n.d. Web. 8 Apr 2015. [].
 * __Resources __**

====The database article “The Things They Carried” by Joseph Palmisano, is a complete overview of the whole book. The article starts with an introduction of the book itself and when it was published, then goes on to explain the plot and characters, and the major themes of the book. Lastly it mentions the critical reception, which is basically explaining how the book was critiqued. For example in this section Palmisano mentions, “Some reviewers regard  The Things They Carried as a continuation of O'Brien's first two Vietnam narratives: the autobiographical If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) and novel Going after Cacciato (1978)” (palmisano). He then later says that this volume is considered a work of metafiction. ==== __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Citation: __ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">"//The Things They Carried//." //Short Story Criticism//. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 74. Detroit: Gale, 2005. //Literature Resource Center//. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. = =