The_Things_They_Carried

The Things They Carried It is difficult for the young adults of our generation to grasp the intensity of the mental anguish endured while engaged in militant combat, especially when we refer to the Wars of Korea and Vietnam. Several students rarely even cover the wars in History class. To that end, it is no surprise that cinema is the primary educator on the subject. However, movies are often dramatized or overly fictional and therefore undependable. Literature is the next source, and while it is an accurate depiction, it is simply too boring for the common student. Contradictory, Tim O’brien’s portrayal through metafiction, in the story The Things They Carried offers cinematic appeal and literary precision. The combination presents an illustration of the real human emotions of soldiers in the Vietnam War. In the stories’ beginning, we met Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, a romantic, who longed for his distant love, Martha. He carried (or “humped” as O’Brien respectively put it) with him letters from her; and while they weren’t love letters he obsessed over them as if they were. In one instance, she had sent him a pebble for good luck. His mind wandered into a dream of Martha walking along a shoreline with her vietnam, war, o’brien, while, carried, o’brien’s, tim, things, story, soldiers, military, work, one, missions, metafiction, fictional, about, truths, through, sense, readers, purpose, mental, martha, love, letters, human, fiction, common, yet, weights, weight, wars, various, tunnel, troops