Essay on The Role of Storytelling in The Things They Carried

The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in†¦show more content†¦Just like millions of other men had died during the war. The men who were in Tim O’Brien’s platoon caught on quickly, if they talked about everything that was going on as if it was only a story, their lives be came a little easier. It became easier even for the men who didn’t practically like the guy who died. In the war it wasn’t about liking one another, that didn’t matter, what mattered to them was expressing their grief without showing it. â€Å"In any case, it’s easy to get sentimental about the dead, and to guard against it† (82). Being able to guard against their grief was something that was hard for many. No matter how many stories they told, there was still a sadness that some of them never could get over. The death of Kiowa was one of those impossible to get over. His death impacted everyone in the platoon. Even though Kiowa was just their guide, they treated him like he was a part of their family of misfits. Every man in the platoon had a story for Kiowa. There was some who told people stories that had Kiowa never dying, there were two however where his death left such a huge impact on them. All theyShow MoreRelatedThe Importance of Metafictio n as a Literary Device in the Things They Carried867 Words   |  4 Pageshistory in which some great pieces of fiction were created. The Things They Carried, by Tim OBrien is a great example of one of these pieces of fiction. A big part of this novel was OBriens theme of metafiction. Metafiction is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction. This in another sense means that metafiction is the act of writing about writing. This literary device is used in The Things They Carried, as OBriens method to systematically remind his readers thatRead MoreOverview: The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien1510 Words   |  7 Pages The Things They Carried is a novel written by Vietnam Veteran Tim O’Brien. The Vietnam War took place between 1955 and 1975. Most of the soldiers fighting were young teenage men around the age of eighteen and nineteen years old. 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