The Things They
Carried
An introduction to Tim O’Brien and his
fictional account of the Vietnam War
Prior Knowledge
(Vocabulary)
Fabricated
 Psychological warfare
 Propaganda
 Communists
 Protagonist

Vocabulary
Fabricated

Made up, created.
– The child fabricated a lie when asked how
the lamp became broken.
– The child made up a lie when asked how
the lamp became broken.
Vocabulary
back
Psychological Warfare

Tactics that use propaganda to try to
demoralize an enemy in war, usually
including the civilian population
Vocabulary
back
Propaganda
Something communicated in a biased
way in order to shape or change the
ideas of a targeted audience
 information, ideas, or rumors
deliberately spread widely to help or
harm a person, group, movement,
institution, nation, etc.

Vocabulary
back
Communists
One who believes in a system of
government in which the state plans
and controls the economy shares all
goods equally with the people
 Create closed state economies that
barely trade with capitalist countries

Vocabulary
back
Protagonist

The central figure of a story; The
character with the lead role.
Vocabulary
back
Relevant Facts About the
Vietnam War
No fixed date that the US entered into
war with Vietnam
 Series of steps from 1950 – 1965

Vietnam
Relevant Facts about the
Vietnam War

Eisenhower fabricated a government
of South Vietnam
– Advisers to psychological warfare against
North Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam Timeline
– 1950 – Truman sent economic and military aid to
the French who were trying to retain hold on
their Indochina colony.
– 1954 – The defeated French conceded to a
communist government north of the 17th parallel.
– 1960 – JFK approves Aid
– 1964 – US began sending combat troops as a
result of The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Vietnam
Vietnam Timeline
– 1965 – 1966 Military escalation because S.
Vietnam couldn’t handle things
– 1967 – Draft began. Antiwar Protests happening
across US
– 1969 –My Lai Massacre where US soldiers kill a
village full of civilians
– 1972 – Ceasefire
– 1973 – Paris Peace Agreement
Click here for an online timeline offered by pbs.org
Vietnam
Vietnam Demographics
Location
 Religion
 People

Vietnam
Vietnam Demographics

Location – South of China, East of Laos and
Cambodia, West of South China Sea
Here is an
interesting
interactive map of
places mentioned
in the book
Vietnam
Religion

Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism,
Christianity, and Tam Giao (tri-religion, …)
Vietnam
Religions
100
80
60
40
20
0
Percentage of
practicing members
Buddhist
Catholic
Other*
None
9.3
6.7
3.2
80.8
*Other religions include: Hoa Hao (1.5%), Cao Dai
(1.1%), Protestant (.5%, and Muslim (.1%)
People of Vietnam
80% ethnic Vietnamese
20% - 50+ different ethnic minority groups, hill
tribes
Languages spoken: Vietnamese, Chinese,
English, French, Russian
Vietnam
What Do You Need to
Know About the Book
Before Reading It?
It is ALL fiction!
 Facts are not important!


Emotional effect of incidents is what
is important.
Tim O’Brien (author) vs.
“Tim O’Brien”
(character, narrator)

Protagonist and sometime narrator is
“Tim O’Brien”. This “Tim O’Brien” in the
book is NOT REAL.

Even when “Tim O’Brien” talks directly
to the reader, it is the fictional “Tim”.
Example of the narrator
“Tim O’Brien” speaking
directly to the reader
“Now and then, when I tell this story [about the baby
water buffalo], someone will come up to me afterward
and say she liked it. It’s always a woman. “…. What I
should do”, she’ll say, “is put it all behind me. Find
new stories to tell.”
“I wont say it but I’ll think it.
“I’ll picture Rat Kiley’s face, his grief, and I’ll think, You
dumb cooze.
“Because she wasn’t listening.
“It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story.”
~ “How to Tell a True War Story”, pgs 84 - 85
Tim O’Brien

The author Tim did
actually go to Vietnam
and really was in the
Alpha Company, but is
writing a fictional
account.
Tim O'Brien
Literary Devices found in
The Things They Carried
Imagery
Mood
Point of View
Characterization
Symbolism
Metaphor
Irony
Lit devices

Vivid language that puts a picture in
the mind of the reader

Example:
– “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip
and teeth were gone, his one eye was
shut, his other eye was a star-shaped
hole…” (pg. 124)
Lit devices

Feeling author wants the reader to
have while reading

Example:
– In the story “Ghost Soldiers” Tim wants
the reader to feel the fear of being on
night watch.
Lit devices

The attitude or outlook of a narrator or
character.

Example:
– The narrator “Tim O’Brien” is against war
and thinks himself a coward for going to
Vietnam
Lit devices

What the characters are like; their
personalities

Example:
– Henry Dobbins is superstitious and
believes in luck because he carries extra
rations and his girlfriend’s pantyhose.
Lit devices

Compare two things that are unlike in
any way (without using like or as)

Example:
– The disjointed telling of the story is a
metaphor for life as a soldier in Vietnam
Lit devices

An object that represents a larger idea

Example
– The Silver Star is a medal that
symbolizes courage and honor
Lit devices

The opposite of what is expected
happens

Example:
– When 2 characters are goofing off and
having a good time, a bomb goes off and
kills one.
Lit devices
Tim O'Brien biography:
The Early Years

Born in Austin on Oct. 1, 1946 and
grew up in a small town in Minnesota
– He shares this birth date with several of
his characters
Dad was an insurance salesman
 Mom was an elementary school
teacher

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
College Life
Political science major at Macalester
College, attended peace vigils and war
protests
 Graduated in 1968

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
To Go to War?
Received his draft notice upon
graduation
 Was against the war: hated Boy
Scouts, bugs, and rifles.
 Considered deserting to Canada once
he received his classification as an
infantryman

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
In Vietnam
Assigned to the 3rd Platoon, Alpha
Company, 5th battalion, 46th Infantry as
a foot soldier
 Served in Vietnam from 1969-1970
 Returned home with a Purple Heart

– Was wounded by shrapnel from a hand
grenade
Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
Views on Vietnam
Now believes it was an act of
cowardice to go to war instead of
fleeing to Canada
 Was 22 years old and feared the
disapproval of his family and friends,
his townspeople and country
 Hated every minute of Vietnam

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
Life after Vietnam
After returning to the states, he
became a grad student at Harvard.
 Left Harvard to become a newspaper
reporter for The Washington Post.
 Began writing fiction about Vietnam

Tim O'Brien
Works by Tim O’Brien
If I Die in Combat (1973)
 Northern Lights (1975)
 Going after Cacciato (1978)
 The Nuclear Age (1985)
 The Things They Carried (1990)
 In the Lake of the Woods (1994)

Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien Biography:
Current Whereabouts

Is currently a visiting professor and
chair at Southwest Texas State
University where he teaches in the
Creative Writing Program
Tim O'Brien
Tim O’Brien
Claims he still gets calls from people,
asking questions, offering their own
opinions about what happened.
 They want to know, missing the point
of the novel, that life often does not
offer solutions or resolutions, that it is
impossible to know completely what
secrets lurk within people

Tim O'Brien
Abbreviations found in
The Things They Carried
Abbreviation
Part of
speech
Definition
SOP
N
Standard Operating Procedure
CO
N
Commanding Officer
PFC
N
Private First Class (rank)
RTO
N
Radio Transmissions Officer
LP
N
Language/Listening Patrol
CS
N
Tear gas
MRE
N
Meal ready to eat
VC
N
Viet Cong
Vocabulary
Resources
http://www.indexmundi.com/vietnam/demographics_p
rofile.html
http://www.illyria.com/tobsites.html
pbs.org