The Human Experience In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
584 Words3 Pages
The novel was written during the late 1980’s and first published January 1, 1990. The Things They Carried discusses the 1960’s and this was a time where things were really shifting. People weren’t content with holding on to the previously conceived notions of life; they wanted to invent their own. There were wars going on everywhere, and not just the kind that show up in history books. The book gives concrete voices to all of the turmoil, the unrest that was prevalent throughout the era. The discontent of the world is reflected in various aspects of the novel, like the mindsets of the characters. Tim O’ Brien has said that The Things They Carried “is meant to be about a man’s yearning for peace”. For him, telling his stories and putting “the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam — the people of Vietnam” and his “fellow soldiers” down onto paper he is able to give himself a bit of that peace.…show more content… Regarding his deceased father O’Brien said: “…there's something about carrying the image of him, the symbol, the emblem of carrying that, at least in my experience, is pretty important to being human, I mean.” The Things They Carried is a novel that consists of a collection of short stories, and is then more allegorical than symbolic. Allegories typically reveal concealed meanings that may be moral or political, but in the case of this novel they seem to bring to attention the significance of stories themselves. The allegories that exist within the novel serve the purpose of communicating the idea that stories are powerful tools that serve many purposes; purposes that prove beneficial to the person telling them and the recipient. Tim O’Brien also unveils that stories possess a certain ambiguity that may not have been apparently