... , deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as time changes. (Salman Rushdie) He tells his audience, in The Things They Carried, a compilation of stories in order to help others understand his whole story about Vietnam. All that O'Brien believes and feels about what happened while he was in Vietnam is what he is attempting to illustrate. Then the statistics and facts directly concerning the war are unimportant. O'Brien's foremost ... for the reason that the innocence lost in war can be in a way eclipsed by the girls back home who are overflowing with humanity. So O'Brien feels as if i...

• Word Count: 1540
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... character psyches are explored in a novel, the movies tend to lack the luster of the original text. Using their imagination, readers are able to conjure up characters and scenes that are unique. This is the case with Tim O"Brien's, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." This is a story where love and war collide after a soldier brings his sweetheart to his Vietnamese post. On the whole, this chapter in The Things They Carried ... Stark contrasts exist between the description of the characters and emotional content between the book and the movie. This may be mainly due to the limited length of...

• Word Count: 1208
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... alone in life is not worth living through. A person's gender or who they are does not change the fact that an experience with war can lead to self-discovery. Anyone can change because they have seen how terrible it is during the adversities of war. The characters in The Things They Carried have to think of what war does to their lives. War will always pass through their mind because it is such a powerful experience. Each character experiences ... a time of loneliness and transformation that leads to their self-discovery. O"Brien makes a decision he does not reward himself for, but ... ...

• Word Count: 1446
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School