Things They Carried Reflection

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The book The Things They carried by Tim O’Brien, the book gives few accurate representations of events that happened in the past. Occasionally, the author exaggerates and adds fictional detail to make the book a work of fiction. In addition, the novel presents many stories that are not known to be true. Therefore, The Things They Carried expresses true events but is transformed into a work of fiction. In the book The things they Carried by: Tim O’Brien, the author exaggerates about issues that impacted soldiers which makes the novel an inaccurate representation of history. The chapter “Enemies” , the author tells a story about a soldier who had beaten up and broke another soldier's nose because someone had stolen his jackknife. Soon after …show more content…
Para. 4 .2010). Using the story from The Things they Carried, the author made the reader infer that soldiers in the Vietnam war were very hostile towards others. After researching how soldiers interact with each other during the Vietnam War, I concluded they weren’t violent or hostile because every soldier shared the same experience as each other. I also concluded that the story represented in the chapter is fictional because the author made the reader understand that soldiers were violent toward one another, while in reality, soldiers were not as violent as they were presented in “Enemies”. Secondly, the author of The Things They Carried expresses another inaccurate story about how a soldier resolves his dental issues by just pulling his teeth. In the chapter “The Dentist”, Curt Lemon became fidgety and tense when he was informed about the dentist coming into base. When the dentist checked Curt Lemon’s teeth, there seemed to be no issue. After the dental check was complete, the author said,“Curt went to the captain and said ‘I have a massive toothache like a nail is in my jaw’. The dentist couldn’t find any problem but Curt Kept insisting. The dentists shot in Novocaine and yanked the tooth out.’”(O’Brien 84). …show more content…
In the chapter “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, The author tells a unrealistic story about a soldier’s girlfriend that comes into Vietnam to visit him. After she arrives she is slowly progresses into a barbaric savage due to the environment of war. Tim O’Brien writes a unrealistic story about a soldier’s Innocent girlfriend named Mary Anne Bell who flew by helicopter deep into the heart of Vietnam to visit her boyfriend Rat Kelly. After Mary Anne has been exposed to the war environment for a long time, she quickly develops a savage/soldier mindset. In this chapter, the author expressed his observations about Mary Anne Bell , “Vietnam made her glow in the dark. She wanted more she wanted to penetrate deeper into the mystery of herself. All camouflaged up, she went barefoot carrying a weapon”(O’Brien. 109). This shows that the girlfriend started to progress into a soldier of war. Also the author included the fate of Mary Anne. The author said “ She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and her necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill”(O’Brien.110). During the Vietnam war, the girlfriends of the soldiers didn’t typically go into Vietnam to visit their boyfriends or other soldiers. The website
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