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The things they carried critical argumentative essay

By: Tim O’BrienEnglish 10September 7, 2004Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, was a good piece ofliterature. The book contains various stories from Tim O’Brien and peoplehe knew during the Vietnam War. The Things They Carried had very memorablecharacters that were all unique, realistic, and vividly portrayed. The plotof The Things They Carried had many recurring images, a well developedstructure, and an extremely worthwhile subject. The theme of the book isuniversal, developed as the book went on, and also gave the reader a newperspective.

All of the characters in The Things They Carried were unique, memorable, and very well described. They all had their own reasons forbeing in the war, weather they wanted to or not. There was Kiowa who wasNative American, who was very religious, and he was only in the war becausehe was drafted. There was also Tim O’Brien’s own story, which was that hehad gotten drafted, and almost ran away to Canada before the war. Thecharacters were also realistic to the story, mostly because the book isbased on true stories from Vietnam. “ The average age in out platoon, I’dguess, was 19 to 20…” They were mostly young men, all with their ownitems that they thought brought them luck, or had a kind of emotionalvalue. Carrying items for superstitious reasons was very popular during thewar, which makes the characters even more realistic and well portrayed.

“ When a mission took them to the mountains, they carried mosquitonetting, machetes, canvas tarps and extra bug juice.” In The Things TheyCarried, the phrase “ They carried…” was repeated many times throughoutthe book. It was the books most popular motif, and it related to the book, because each person carried different things to different places atdifferent times. The books structure was also well developed, because whenthe author gets the reader into the story that he’s telling at that time, he will end it, and then finish it later on in the book during anotherstory. Using this kind of structure, it makes the reader want to keepreading, and find out what’s going to happen next. The subject ofTheThings They Carried is very important. It is about the Vietnam War, whichaffected the lives of millions of people and changed the world. It’s a goodsubject for a book because it helps the reader learn about an important warthat affected the world. All of those qualities give The Things TheyCarried a good plot, which help make it such a good piece of literature.

The theme of The Things They Carried is very well developed. Itsstrongest quality is that it is universal. The book is showing how the warnot only destroyed the lives of Americans and hurt our country, but theeffects it had throughout the world. The negative effects of war are feltby everyone, whether they “ won” or “ lost”. War is war and there ‘ s noglorious par to it, and that is what the book is trying to show. “ Everyonelost something in the war, no matter which country they were from, or howmany medals they won. We all lost something.” As the book went on the storysteadily developed. The author would tie up loose ends, or give the readera final detail that helped you understand everything that went on. It alsogives the reader a new perspective, which is a strong quality of a goodpiece of literature. At the end of the book, the reader will get a newperspective about war, and life in general. After reading the book thereaders perspective changes to seeing that war is not glorious, it onlydestroys lives, and most of the time it is unnecessary.

The Things They Carried is a great piece of literature. It hasmemorable and unique characters, a very strong plot, and a universal andwell developed theme. All of these qualities contribute to making TheThings They Carried the great piece of literature it is.

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