Essay, Research Paper

It was necessary and important to for The Things They Carried to be written anachronistically and in short narrative signifier to convey the messages and subjects of the novel. Tim O Brien would non hold succeeded in pass oning his points to the reader if the novel was written as one long chronological narrative. There are three chief subjects that emerge from The Things They Carried ; narrative truth vs. go oning truth, the fact that one can do asleep people come alive through narratives, and that the war corrupted people and made them lose their artlessness. The Things They Carried is a aggregation of related short narratives about the Vietnam War.

One of the subjects that permeates the book is the subject of narrative truth vs. go oning truth. O Brien believes that in order to do the reader experience what was traveling on in the war, or the go oning truth, it is necessary to make a narrative and overstate a small. These narratives are called the story-truths. Throughout the novel, O Brien interjects and explicitly tells the reader that the narrative he is stating is non wholly true, instead, it s a narrative truth. In the chapter entitled Good Form, O Brien states that about everything he writes is invented. Earlier in the novel, in the chapter entitled How to State a True War Story, O Brien besides implies that his narratives are non true. The short narrative format allows O Brien to come in and state the reader non to believe what he is stating. However, if the book were written chronologically and in the signifier of one long narrative, O Brien would hold had to awkwardly infix transitions about narrative truth vs. go oning truth in the center of the narrative. Those transitions would hold seemed out of topographic point because the narrative would hold had a certain flow to it. However, by composing anachronistically and in utilizing short narratives, O Brien allows himself to infix chapters about narrative truth vs. go oning truth without interrupting the flow of the book- because there is no existent order to the novel.

Additionally, O Brien presents a subject of doing dead people come alive through narratives. He goes about making this by interposing the decease of a miss he loved, Linda, when he was 9, to the deceases he experienced in Vietnam about ten old ages subsequently. O Brien brightly relates this subject in the last chapter, entitled The Lifes of The Dead. This degree Celsius

hapter consists wholly of O Brien exchanging off between depicting Linda s decease and the deceases at Vietnam- an obvious manner of associating the subject. If the book had been written chronologically and in the signifier of a long narrative, the decease of Linda would hold come foremost and the deceases at Vietnam would hold come subsequently. The manner O Brien clearly relates his subject in the last chapter would non hold been possible.

Similarly, the subject that war corrupted people would non hold been so dramatic if the novel had been written in a different format. O Brien obviously showed the truth of how war corrupted people in the chapter entitled Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. In that chapter, the reader is introduced to a character named Mary Anne who changes from a carefree, guiltless adolescent into a adult female who loves traveling out on nightlong ambuscades. The short length of the narrative allows the reader to concentrate on its tragic terminal. Other narratives, such as the narrative of Norman Bowker, besides portray how war mentally ruined the lives of many. The focal point of these narratives was on the result of the war. However, if the narrative had been written chronologically and in the signifier of one long narrative, the focal point would hold been on the war itself instead than on the result. The novel besides would non hold focused on as many radically different people if it had been written as one long narrative. Because the novel was written the manner it was- as a aggregation of short stories- the reader is explicitly shown how the war effected many different types of people.

Since O Brien wanted to associate all the above mentioned subjects in the most limpid mode possible, he chose to compose The Things They Carried as a aggregation of short narratives. This allowed him to come in with remarks about narrative truth vs. go oning truth without interrupting the flow of the book. It besides allowed him to convey different illustrations of how war mentally ruined many lives. Because the novel was non written in chronological order, O Brien was able to hover between the decease of Linda early in his life and the deceases at Vietnam. If O Brien had written the novel as a typical fiction narrative, the subjects he wanted to pass on to the reader would non hold been as obvious and as easy to calculate out. It was important that O Brien wrote The Things They Carried anachronistically and in short narrative signifier.