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The song "Vietnam" by Jimmy Cliff brilliantly exemplifies Tim O'brien's feelings about the war. In the beginning of the novel he expresses how he coped with killing men by remembering his girl back home and everyone else he loved. O'brien never wanted to join the war in the first place, he felt pressured by his community because he "owed his country".

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Macy Plunkett

Maria Zarate

Nick Wolfram

Paulina Silcox

McCall Johnson

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One of the main philosophical beliefs expressed throughout "The Things They Carried" is the moral ambiguity of war. O'Brien through his storytelling that moral senses are lost within the boundaries of the jungle. His community has a moral objection to him denouncing war, however they are consequentially encouraging him to go overseas to partake in activities that would be seen as immoral, i.e. killing, destroying villages, etc. While O'Brien himself morally objects the war, he has an internal struggle still decades later over what he experienced in the war. This ambiguity to whether war is just or not ties into his storytelling - is it important what he writes is true, or whether his point is expressed correctly. Ultimately, O'Brien's main philosophical position is that of internal peace, in the face of the struggles war time happenings cause.

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" O'brien was born into a typical American child hood on October 1, 1946. O'brien's home town, Worthington South Dakota, had a huge impact on his writing style later in life. Later on in life O'brien was drafted for the military in 1968, shortly after recieving his masters degree from Macalester College. O'brien used to deal with his stress of being drafted by writing out his thoughts in numerous journals and essays. How ever, O'rbien felt obligated to accept the draft due to his parents belief that he owed his service to his country and his community. O'brien started training August 14, 1968 and later on got sent to Vietnam. O'brien's tour to Vietnam was a little over a year, but those 13 months in the 46th Infantry were long enough to scar him for life.

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lyrics:

Hey, Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam

Yesterday, I got a letter from my friend fighting in Vietnam
And this is what he had to say
"Tell all my friends that I'll be coming home soon
My time'll be up some time in June
Don't forget", he said, "To tell my sweet Mary
Her golden lips are sweet as cherry"

And it came from Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam

It was just the next day, his mother got a telegram
It was addressed from Vietnam
Now mistress Brown, she lives in the USA
And this is what she wrote and said
"Don't be alarmed", she told me the telegram said
"But mistress Brown your son is dead"

And it came from Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam
Vietnam, Vietnam, hey, Vietnam
Somebody please stop that war now

Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, oh
Vietnam, Vietnam, oh
Vietnam, oh oh, oh oh
Somebody please stop it

Vietnam, Vietnam, oh
Vietnam, Vietnam, oh oh, oh oh
Vietnam, hey, Vietnam, aha
Vietnam, oh oh, yeah

I wanna say now somebody stop that war
Vietnam, oh yeah, ah

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In Joanne MCcarthy's literary criticism on the book, she discusses the repetition and deep underlying theme of the novel. We agree that the novel demonstrates burdens that are both literal and figurative. These burdens appear within the chapters that slowly being to gain meaning to them. Tim O'Brien's collection of burdens lead to his past and his pursuit of coming to his experiences.

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"The style is the story — a plodding, monotonous narrative punctuated by brief flashes of action. The catalog of objects carried, the accumulating weight of things, extends in steady, numbing procession. Gradually the repetition of weights and measures acquires meaning. This is what their lives have become, step after step, ounce after ounce."-Joanne MCcarthy

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As we read the novel The Things They Carried, each chapter contains a different story with different characters creating a sense of curiosity. We agreed with Diana Andrew's criticism upon the book as a whole. Each chapter lead to the main material and ideas O'Brien conveyed. Despite the confusion, we agreed that the reader is able to follow along and see the book as one in the end.

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"The juxtaposition of the stories along with the additional material O’Brien wrote for the book work together synchronistically, and the effect of reading The Things They Carried as a complete work is very different from reading the stories individually. The characters, events, and memories swirl through the stories, turning back on themselves, self-revising as they go. What the reader learns in one story opens possibilities for the later stories." -Diana Andrews

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Henningfeld, Diane Andrews. "The Things They Carried." Magill’S Survey Of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006): 1. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.

Blyn, Robin. "O'brien's THE THINGS THEY CARRIED." Explicator 61.3 (2003): 189. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.

McCarthy, Joanne. "The Things They Carried." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition (2004): 1-2. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.

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"I'm young and happy. I'll never die. I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story." (246)

"In Vietnam, too, we had ways of making the dead seem not quite so dead... we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was" (267)

"We kept the dead alive with stories... Often they (the stories) were exaggerated, or blatant lies, but it was a way of bringing body and soul back together" (267)

"What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again" (204)

"(After 7 months in the bush)... I now felt a deep coldness inside me, something dark beyond reason... In the end, all I felt was coldness down inside my chest." (227-228)

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What psychological price do soldiers pay for killing?