The Things They Carried

Tim OÆBrienÆs ôThe Things They Carriedö is an account of OÆBrienÆs drafting into the Vietnam war and the subsequent disillusionment of typical values associated with war (honor, heroism, courage, etc.) OÆBrien endures. In this work, OÆBrien demonstrates that there were few things that could be ôcarriedö by troops that were reminders of normalcy and home. As he tells us, ôThe things they carried were largely determined by necessity,ö (OÆBrien, p. 1103). The book demonstrates that in combat normalcy is seldom the norm and the only thing that keeps some individuals from going insane are reminders of normalcy in the most unexpected ways and places.

The commentary of Bobbie Ann Mason (p. 1531) includes her admission that OÆBrienÆs account of combat in Vietnam ôknocked me down, just as if a hundred-pound ruck

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Approximate Word count = 1063
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)