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      • Together the stories also have an overarching plot, with a main conflict: Tim’s quest to understand his time in Vietnam and how that experience changed and shaped him and his friends.
      www.sparknotes.com/lit/thingscarried/plot-analysis/
  1. The characters of the platoon are repeatedly shown to have no real understanding of why they’re being sent on any particular mission, nor how their actions fundamentally change the conflict in which they’re embroiled.

    • Related Links

      'The Things They Carried,' 20 Years On. In this half-hour...

    • Suggestions for Further Reading

      Here, the author considers the entirety of O’Brien’s...

    • Allusions

      Popular pages: The Things They Carried. Character List...

    • Style

      The Things They Carried is written in an informal,...

  2. Tim asks Cross if it would be all right for him to write about what happened to them in Vietnam, and Cross gives him permission. Read an in-depth analysis of Jimmy Cross. As the book progresses, the conflict deepens for Tim.

  3. The Things They Carried. Full Book Summary. The protagonist, who is named Tim O’Brien, begins by describing an event that occurred in the middle of his Vietnam experience. “The Things They Carried” catalogs the variety of things his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company brought on their missions.

  4. Shame and guilt are constant and often inextricable themes in The Things They Carried. Soldiers felt obligated to go to war for fear of embarrassing themselves, their families, and their towns if they fled.

  5. system conflicts with the civilian moral system, which they knew before the war and which is still in place on the home front. The civilian moral system is black-and-white with strong, simple standards to dictate acceptable behavior. Aggressive behavior, such as assault and murder, is consistently condemned and

    • Sarah Bonney
    • 2016
  6. The Things They Carried (1990) is a collection of linked short stories by American novelist Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War. His third book about the war, it is based upon his experiences as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division.

  7. The title story describes what the soldiers must lug with them—both literally and figuratively— as they march: food, canteens, flak jackets, and weapons, as well as grief, terror, secrets, and memories.

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