O'Briens intent

O'Brien in writing in The Things The Carried about his friends in the Vietnam War. He is creating a real person for the reader inner eye, they seem to be alive. Even though he doesn't write a full story, he creates little memories of the persons, and with every little short story he is adding a bit more information for the reader, to complete the image. He wants that the reader to "dream along [...] and [that] memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head." (O'Brien 218) His intention is to keep memories alive.

Socratic Seminar Questions for 11-11-10

1. Do the stories in The Sorrow of War follow O'Brien's definition of true war stories? If not what is Bao Ninh's definition of a true war story?
2. Why does Kien tell war stories?
3. Why does Kien see writing the novel as his duty?
4. What are the similarities and differences between Phuong and Linda?
5. Why do soldiers disrespect corpses? What does this signify?
6. Why is it significant that Kien's nickname is "Sorrowful Spirit"?
7. Why is it significant that both Kien and O'Brien see their lives in rivers?
8. Why does Bao Ninh choose to switch between points of view in The Sorrow of War?
9. Do Foxholes represent safety or danger in The Things They Carried? Does this differ in The Sorrow of War?
10. What Motifs does Bao Ninh use?

Socratic Seminar Questions, Wednesday 11/10/10

1. What opinions are expressed of absolute occurrence compared to story-truth in The Sorrow of War?

2. What is the importance and effect of ghosts in The Sorrow of War?

3. Why do O’Brien and Ninh include women in their novels? How do women influence the novels?

4. Why do O’Brien and Ninh create settings or characters that give soldiers an excuse to behave a certain way? Why is this important?

5. What literary devices are used to represent the jungle as a character in The Sorrow of War and The Things They Carried?

6. How is the idea of aging or time passing shown and reflected in The Sorrow of War? What examples or literary techniques represent this? Why is time important to any war novel?

7. Both Bronte and O’Brien used authorial distance in their novels. How is this used in The Sorrow of War?

8. What is the form of The Sorrow of War? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the style for the reader and the writer?

9. Discuss the differences of the opinion of war between Americans and Vietnamese.

10. Discuss the similarities of characters between The Things They Carried and The Sorrow of War. Why are so many similarities found between the books?

O'Brien's Intent

O'Brien articulates his primary purpose in writing "The Things They Carried" in his final story "The Lives of the Dead". In the opening line of this reflection, the author declares that "stories can save us" (O'Brien 213). O'Brien condenses his essential intent in this statement and further maintains that his stories "can revive...that which is absolute and unchanging" (O'Brien 224) in the characters he depicts (including himself). O'Brien's purpose of "[keeping] the dead alive with stories" (O'Brien 226) is manifested throughout the novel in characters such as Ted Lavender and his propensity to resist the war with tranquilizers. O'Brien recounts Rat Kiley's story of Curt Lemon trick-or-treating, adding that "to listen to the story...you'd never know that Curt Lemon was dead" (O'Brien 227). Ultimately, O'Brien intends to animate important figures who were lost to Vietnam and preserve the crucial aspects of both himself and his comerades.

O'Brien's Purpose

O'Brien writes The Things They Carried to keep the characters alive. By telling these stories, he creates the image in our mind of a specific person. From that image, emotions grow inside us and we become attached to that character. When that happens, the person becomes alive. O'Brien writes that he "want[s] to save Linda's life. Not her body- her life." (O'Brien 223) When Linda is written about by O'Brien, she lives on.

The reason that the entire combination of short stories are put together is not to save just the characters in those specific stories, but in the end, it's to save O'Brien. "I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life." (O'Brien 233) The idea of infusing all the stories together is to keep everything that makes up Tim O'Brien, alive. By making this novel, O'Brien has become alive in all of us.

Response: "What is O'Brien's purpose in writing this novel?"

O’Brien tells stories in The Things They Carried to honor the dead by keeping them alive. The Linda in O’Brien’s head describes being dead as “being inside a book no one is reading…all you can do is just wait and hope that somebody’ll pick it up and start reading” (O’Brien 232). O’Brien states that writing is about remembering which will “leas to a story, which makes it forever… [writing joins] the past and the future” (O’Brien 36). Remembering keeps people alive even if they are no longer physically alive.

O'Brien's Purpose in Writing TTTC

O’Brien had many motivations to write The Things They Carried, but he states his most integral purpose in "The Lives of the dead”. O’Brien wrote this novel in order to keep the memory of loved ones lost. In "The Lives of the Dead" , he explains Linda, whom he loved, but who died of cancer at age nine. After Linda’s death, O’Brien would dream of talking to her, and she tells him that to be dead is like “being inside a book that nobody’s reading” (O’Brien 232). O’Brien writes The Things They Carried in order to create a book that will be read by everyone, and not only occasionally. Therefore, everyone can experience reading about Linda as she was before she died, as well as all the other characters in the novel who died in the war. O’Brien however has an additional motive to writing this novel, but one that he does not quite admit to. O’Brien does “not look on [his] work as therapy” (O’Brien 152), however he would not have had such an easy “shift from war to peace” (O’Brien 151) if he had not been able to release built up memories and remembered mistakes through writing stories. He states “the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse” (O’Brien 152). O’Brien writes not only to keep his memory strong of the dead, but also to not become overwhelmed with the grief of the death and slaughter he witnessed in his time in the Vietnam War.

Tim O'Brien , of course , had many different reasons to write "The Things They Carried ," but one of my opinions is that Tim O'Brien wrote the novel as a set of instructions for all future story tellers. He wrote the novel to tell people "how to tell a true war story ," (O'Brien 64). This title is deceiving because it could be perceived as how to determine the validity of a war story but in my opinion the title is suggesting how to physically tell a true war story. Instructions are given throughout the book , for example , O'Brien states that "you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you," (O'Brien 66). Searching for the truth in a story cannot embarrass you but telling a story can. The truth behind the novel is irrelevant because the stories are merely there to direct the reader how to physically tell a war story.

Tim's Purpose for TTTC repost

Tim O'Briens purpose for writing "The Things They Carried" is to save himself. Tim's writing leads him through memories that "might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse" (152). Norman Bowker hangs himself a short while after the war. The war traumatized Norman to the point of taking his own life. Through the stories Tim creates he is able to resolve his emotions. All the traumatic memory Tim experianced he turns into stories. Tim saves himself from death by writing "The Things They Carried". He relieves the burdon of all the emotions he carries from Vietnam by writing continuously.

Response: "What is O'Brien's purpose in writing this novel?"

O'Brien wrote this novel in order to "remember" or rather show himself and the reader that which is worth remembering. According to O'Brien, "sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future" (O'Brien 36). By saying this, O'Brien is describing how he writes in order to remember how we got here. This suggests that he believes that how we got here matters. As he says later in the book, “if the answer matters, you’ve got your answer” (O’Brien 79). He is saying that if it matters whether a story is true or not, if one would feel cheated if it wasn’t, the story itself doesn’t actually matter. But if it’s meaningful whether it’s true or not, then it’s a true story even if it never happened. Thus, even though he reveals that the entire book may or may not be true, he is showing that it still matters, that people should still know and remember these things. Again, later in the book he says "by telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths" (O'Brien 152), describing how the act of remembering and the act of writing can make one see them in a new light, and makes one see the "certain truths" that are in the story. In other words, storytelling is for looking back on what happened before, separating what matters from what doesn’t, and remembering that which is important.

Why Did O'Brien Write TTTC?

Tim O’Brien writes The Things They Carried to “make past things present” (O’Brien 172). He is writing his stories “as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story” (O’Brien 233), meaning that O'Brien uses writing as a door to his happier, simpler childhood memories, and well as a coping device for the more complex, traumatic memories of the Vietnam War. He writes to preserve and express the memories of his lost loved ones, including his childhood self. Kiowa, Ted Lavender, Linda, Curt Lemon, as well as memories of other members of the platoon and young Timmy are preserved within Tim’s various stories in the novel. Tim believes that stories can bring people back from the dead. He says that being dead is like “being inside a book that nobody’s reading…up on a library shelf…safe and everything, but the book hasn’t been checked out for a long time” (O’Brien 232). The memories of his old friends are “checked out” and appreciated every time one of O’Brien’s stories are read or told. Through his writing, O'Brien makes sure that his friends are never forgotten.

Why Tim O'Brien wrote TTTC

O'Brien's novel is essentially a collection of war stories. In the beginning he tells us the purpose of writing stories, that "Stories are for eternity,when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the stories." (O'Brien, 36) However, we later discover in "Lives of the Dead," that there is a personal motive to this ideal on stories. In "Lives of the Dead" he writes "but this too is true: I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still here, I keep dreaming Linda alive...In a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile, and sit up and return to the world." He admits stories keep the dead alive; at least the memory of them. So yes, this novel is a collection of war stories, but they are Tim's war stories. By telling his stories, and his friends' stories, they will never die for stories are for "eternity." In his closing paragraph, Tim says " I'm young and happy. I'll never die. I'm skimming across the surface of my own history,... I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story." (O'Brien, 233) Tim's purpose in writing TTTC is to "save" his life, forever.

O'Brien's Intentions-Estrella

O’Brien states as a writer it is his job to save Linda and “Timmy’s life with stories” (O’Brien 233.) O'Brien writes to preserve himself. He writes to keep himself alive so he will never truly die. He is a writer because it is his duty to 'carry' on soldiers lives and his own. After he dies people will still be listening to his lectures and reading his stories. He will re-live through his stories after he is dead. He also re-lives through his stories now by writing them. He 'carries' on memories, truths and lies which will still be carried on after he dies. 'The Things They Carried' is a symbol for why he writes. The things the soldiers carries will be carried on from soldier to soldier, just like he wishes his life will be after he dies.

O'Brien's Purpose For Writing the Novel

O'Brien tells stories to attempt to bring the dead back to life, but he publishes these stories in a novel to immortalize himself. At the end of the novel O'Brien clearly reveals that he keeps "dreaming Linda alive [,] and Ted Lavender too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man [he] killed", "but in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world" (O'Brien 213) (O'Brien 213). For Linda, Ted, Kiowa, and Curt, he dreams them into stories so he can see and love them again; whereas for the man he killed, his dreaming is a coping mechanism to bring the man he killed back to life and show his regret for what he did. O'Brien has a separate more selfish motive for publishing the novel, to make himself immortal. Although O'Brien is not yet dead he will be some day, and by sharing these stories he can make the dead "sit up and return to the world" (O'Brien 213). The entire novel is in first person through the eyes of Tim O'Brien himself, and at this point millions of people are telling his story to themselves and others because of the novel. In the last paragraph O'Brien reveals that this is in-fact a motive, claiming that " [he's] young and happy, [he'll] never die" (O'Brien 233). O'Brien also specifically states that he is young, because The Things They Carried tells of Tim's life, but also Timmy's. O'Brien does "realize it is Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story", by bringing him back to life every time his story is told (O'Brien 233).

O'Brien's Purpose

O'Brien's purpose is controversial. However, there are two main reasons O'Brien wrote this story. The first reason is to immortalize people, not only victims of the war, but people whose lives have been unjustifiably taken from them like Linda. By telling their stories in his book, O'Brien makes the characters "come to life". In the "Lives of the Dead" short story, he says, "But this too it true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted, Lavender too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed and an old man sprawled besides a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I lifted and umped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (O'Brien 213). By writing (dreaming) about the dead he brings them back to life and allows people to be aware of them, making their characters immortal. The second major reason is O'Brien uses it as a form of therapy, or in his words, "clarity and explanation". In the story "Notes", O'Brien says, "...the act of writing had led me through a swirl of of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain." (152). So, by writing, O'Brien and the reader can better understand the war and O'Brien can acquire the comfort in clarity.

Immortilization

Tim O'Brian composes TTTC mainly to immortalize both himself and his friends. He shows this in his last chapter, " The Lives of the Dead." " We kept the dead alive with stories ... It was a way of brining body and soul back together" (O'Brian 226) He had recorded these stories to "cope" with his experience in war, and to share the stories of the soldiers he had been with. In "The Lives of the Dead" he talks mainly about his first love, Linda. Linda "explains" to him in a dream is " 'like being in a book that nobody's reading... but the book hasn't been checked out in for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading'" (232) O'Brian is telling the reader that these lives would be forgotten if he had not put them in this book, but now that he is written about them, their "books" are being checked out and he is making people remember of the fallen soldier and Linda.

O'Brian's purpose: Maddy's

Tim O'Brien's intentions for writing this book are clearly stated in the last chapter "the Lives of the Dead." Tim O'Brien believes that through his writing he can keep those important in his life "Alive" "What a story does [is] keeps the dead talking" (O'Brian 218). Another reason for his writing is a release. by allowing these people, memories, emotions and thoughts live through his writing he is preserving that of which is important to him. In many ways writing is a persons validations that their life exists and they have a part in the world that can be so isolating. The book is as much for our understanding at it is for O'Brian's.

Purpose for Writing TTTC - Elliot

O'Brien has multiple purposes for writing the things they carry. One of the purposes that O'Brien has for writing the book, is that he wants to inform people that war is not just blood shed and senseless violence, but also that "war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love" (O'Brien 76). He tries to inform people that war is also beautiful and that one "can't help but gape at the majesty of combat" (O'Brien 77). Besides persuading people into believing that war isn't just hell, O'Brien's motives for writing The Things They Carried are personal reasons. O'Brien believes that "stories are for joining the past and the future," that "stories are for eternity" (O'Brien 36). Therefore by writing about himself, he is forcing people to remember him. Also by writing, he not only makes himself ageless, but brings back people who have already died. He does this, not because the readers need to know about all of these people, but also because he misses them and feels guilty that they died. O'Brien writes and utilizes the full extent of "the magic of stories" by communicating to the reader, making himself immortal, and using writing for easing emotional pains like guilt and loneliness.

O'Brien's intentions in TTTC

Tim O'Brien's intent is to convince his audience, the reader, that nothing is one sided, black or white, good or bad. In his novel's cultural context, his idea is extremely relevant due to the widespread controversy regarding the War in Vietnam. The war was debated and regarded by its protesters as a terrible thing, yet seen by its advocates as necessary. From the perspective of a soldier, specifically Tim O'Brien, "war is grotesque, but in truth war is also beauty," due to the "astonishing" visual appeal of things such as "the purply orange glow of napalm, [and] the rocket's red glare," despite their negative connotations (O'Brien 77). Tim O'Brien applies his general idea to war in order to alienate his readers from their ability to question and/or disagree with his opinion, because the majority of them have never been to war. He uses his war experienced perspective as well as the second person narrative to do so. Placed in a war situation by O'Brien, "you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die," and therefore you, the reader, must take O'Brien's opinions as truth and assent to his idea.

Tobias Burger 3 Nov 2010

Tim's Purpose for TTTC

Tim O'Briens purpose for writing "The Things They Carried" is to save himself. Tim's writing leads him through memories that "might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse" (152). Norman Bowker hangs himself a short while after the war. The war traumatized Norman to the point of taking his own life. Through the stories Tim creates he is able to resolve his emotions. All the traumatic memory Tim experianced he turns into stories. Tim saves himself from death by writing "The Things They Carried". He relieves the burdon of all the emotions he carries from Vietnam by writing continuously.

Obriens Motives :GABRIELLA

Obriens purpose in writing this novel was to keep the soldiers alive. This story is fiction but in end ressults obriens purpose was too teach the readers how to keep dear memories alive. In "lives of the dead" obriens character Linda was dead but in his dreams she would say amazing things like "well right now, im not dead. but when i am its like... i dont know, i guess its like being inside a book that nobodys reading."(TTTC 232) this relation that obrien made with the book is that heis telling a story and that having himself in it has made him eternal. At the end of lives of the dead he says he realized he was trying to keep timmy alive by telling these stories well now by creating a story with timmy in it he know made the life of timmy and therefor tim everlasting. Obriens purpose is to teach the reader how to make their dreams, deepest wishes, and non existing ideas real and alive "im young and happy. I'll never die"(TTTC 233).

Annie: O' Brien's Intentions in Writing this Novel

O' Brien's intention in writing "The Things They Carry" is to make the reader know and understand what he and the soldiers felt emotionally through language and imagery. He wrote about how the individual soldiers were mentally and emotionally affected by the burden of war, who's minds were still at home, unfit to fight loyaly and readily, and prematurely gave themselves to the war no matter how intelligent or appropriate. O' Brien believes "if you support the war, if you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line" (O' Brien 40). He also makes a political statement with the difficult position he is forced into by the draft in "On The Rainy River". Another statement he's making is the emotional trauma and desensitization of the once stable and socially fit soldiers, who, after the war, can only remember uninteresting and seemingly pointless stories and clean an M-60. This point is made every time he states his age: 43, and writing stories that remind him of time passage, and guarantee immortality. He gives war stories (and slice-of-life stories) validity in saying that they needn't have a moral, an explanation, or make logical sense in order to make perfect sense in their emotional truth. In addition, O' Brien tries to connect with the reader in an effort to redeem himself and the "faceless responsibility and faceless grief" (O' Brien 172).

O'Brien's Motive's Ariana

O’Brien’s reasons for writing the novel are most evident in “The Lives of The Dead””. In the “The Lives of The Dead” O’Brien tells us that during the war “[they] kept the dead alive with stories. “ O’Brien’s novel, even though it is fiction, is a part of history. The Vietnam war did not happen long ago, and the soldier’s who experienced the war are still alive. However some day the people who experienced the war first hand will not be around, and their children will forget their stories. O’Brien’s reason for writing the novel is to keep the memory of the war alive. O’Brien makes people more real even by the way he makes the truth more true. It is easy to feel empathetic to the soldier’s and the Vietnamese people after reading the novel. O’Brien wrote the novel to prevent other wars and conflicts, and to make people understand and relate to the way the war effected people involved in it.

Tim O'Brien's Purposes in Writing "The Things They Carried"

Even though Tim O'Brien's stories may have been fiction and copies of other stories, there is still a purpose to him writing a book about war. One of his purposes in this book is to teach the reader about war, not specifically just the Vietnam War, but war in general. With his striking skills of imagery, he brings war to life; he creates an image of war, disgusting, but beautiful. As Entertainment Weekly says "his Vietnam stories are really about the yearning of peace—aimed at human understanding rather than some 'definitive' understanding of the war . . . He can bring the dead back to life. And bring back the dreaming, too." Tim's purpose isn't to make war this huge complicated story. The concept of war may be complicated, but actual war isn't. Another purpose of his is to help the reader to ultimately understand war itself. His stories may all be made up, but he experienced war; he lived it. He knows what war is like. It is believed that Tim O'Brien may have never even gone to war, but not going to war can't stop him from honoring those who served in the war. This brings another purpose to reality. In his last story of the book, "The Lives of the Dead", he brings up this little girl he knew when he was a child. She died at the age of nine from a brain tumor. Tim could have made Linda up, but it was, as I said before, to help us understand and feel what he felt; mourning, sorrow and honor. At the end of the story he talks about how he "still [dreams] Linda alive in exactly the same way . . . [he] can still see her as if through ice . . . [he] can see Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon..." (232-233). The main purpose of this book is to remember and honor those who served in the war, those including his own friends.

O'Brien's Motives

O'Brien writes to promote an anti-war sentiment and to demonize America for it's messy war in Vietnam. Or maybe he wants the reader to feel certain emotions that can only be evoked through the telling of 'true' war stories. We'll never know exactly why he writes. He could just like to write fiction or make the money he makes from his work. I personally think that this guy has found a good front for writing a bunch of weird fiction that takes cheap shots at the part of American culture that was trying to achieve victory. That's why this guy gets his ass kissed by the San Francisco Examiner, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, and other left wing outlets. But, I can always be wrong. It's possible that this guy has the best intentions, completely unbiased by politics.It's possible that O'Brien just tries to entertain. Anyway, even if we could ask him about it, the only thing we'd get is the 'truth'.

Tim O'Brien's motive in writing The Things They Carried

O'Brien discusses in "The Things They Carried" many reasons for writing the novel through stories.O'Brien gives great examples of what story telling is all about. "If a story seems moral, do not believe it" (O'Brien 65). O'Brien does this so he can have the reader feel and relate to the stories. His purpose to is to give the reader a sense of imagination of what can or cannot happen in the war. It's easy to forget a loved one who has passed away through the years, therefore O'Brien wants the dead to be alive through stories."She was dead. I understood that. After all, I'd seen her body. And yet even as a nine year old I had begun to practice the magic of stories" (O'Brien 231). O'Brien's purpose in writing "The Things They Carried" is to be as close to the dead as possible, through thick memories of the loved ones.