The Things They Carried WT2

Written task 2 for part 4: Literature – critical study

Outline

Prescribed question: How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?

Title of the text for analysis: The Things They Carried

Part of the course to which the task refers: Part 4: Literature - critical study

My critical response will:

1. Explain what genre the text conforms to / deviates from

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” conforms to most of if not all the conventions of post-modernism.

1. In what ways does the text conform to / deviate from the conventions of this genre?

There are several conventions of post-modernism, these include but are not limited to:

The author being a character in the book, plays with language, reality and fiction being blurred, and the inclusion of fictional artifacts. Tim O’Brien has utilized all of these in his work The Things They Carried.

1. What purpose does the utilization of these conventions serve?

The author has chosen to use this genre and these conventions to allow the reader some insight on the reality of the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War, although the incidents described in the book are not real event, they express real feelings and thoughts. It is a way of telling the soldiers’ truth and express their full experience which was not just limited to the war itself.

How does The Things They Carried conform to the conventions of Post-Modernism and what purpose does this serve?

“The war wasn’t all terror and violence.” (O'Brien 31) is how Tim O’Brien starts the chapter Spin in his novel The Things They Carried. This post-modernistic text takes on the reality of the Vietnam War and its impact on the soldiers through sever short stories with teams ranging from love and friendship to pride and death. Although the book is written about the soldier’s experiences, the events in the book is not necessarily what physically occurred. In the chapter How to tell a true war story, O’Brien writes “Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.” (O'Brien 79), this quote explains how the author through these short stories that make up the novel is able to write lies but still convey his own truth. With this text, Tim O’Brien utilizes several post-modern conventions in order to convey his own feelings, truth and experiences from the Vietnam War to the reader, these include; the author being one of the characters, plays with language, reality and fiction being blurred together, and lastly the inclusion of fictional artifacts.

Through the inclusion of both physical and fictional burdens, the author, Tim O’Brien manages to convey the soldier’s thoughts and feelings about the Vietnam War. In the first chapter, the things they carried, he writes about what everyone brings with them in the war, this includes physical artifacts, such as Kiowas bible and Ted Lavenders dope, but also something that can weigh much heavier, because first lieutenant Jimmy Cross also carried “the responsibility for the lives of his men.” (O'Brien 6). This helps the reader better understand the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, and in this instance it also invokes sympathy for Jimmy Cross, not only because he as lieutenant has been given this huge responsibility, but also because the reader gets informed about the fact that Ted Lavender is going to die very early on in the book, and Cross will blame himself for this and feel responsible.

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