BOO!

The Things They Carried - Essay Topics #3 - DUE: THE SECOND DAY OF CLASS, the week of October 31, 2011; length: approximately 800 words. (About 3 pages, 12 pt. font, MLA format--DO use quotes from the novel, with citations and bibliography; you might also want to read and reference from the posted research material on O'Brien) 


1. The Importance of Storytelling to the Men of Alpha Company.
Storytelling is vital to all of the characters in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, not just the narrator. What stories are told by Mitch Sanders, Rat Kiley, Jimmy Cross, and Norman Bowker? What benefit comes to each man from telling stories? In what way are these men “saved” by their stories? Who is the one man who is unable to tell stories? What happens to him? In summary, what does this book suggest about the power of storytelling?

2. Guilt as a Motivating Factor in the Lives of the Men of Alpha Company.
How does guilt enter the lives of Jimmy Cross, Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Dave Jensen, Curt Lemon? Why is shame or guilt so difficult? In what way does guilt compel each man to make emotional, rather than logical decisions? How does storytelling help relieve some of the guilt?

3. The Things They Carried as a Metaphor of Life.
Discuss the concept of war as a metaphor for life; that is, in what way is all life a war? How are both a kind of crucible in which the human heart is constantly "under pressure"? How does paradox in the novel reveal the conflicts and confusion of the war and of life? For example, how is this novel of the Vietnam war a novel about love? How does the horror and ugliness of war bring out the beauty of nature as well as the goodness and decency of some of  the men of Alpha Company?

4. “Truth” in The Things They Carried
Aeschylus, the Greek philosopher and playwright, said, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried is very much concerned with the truth of war. How does O’Brien distinguish between the “happening-truth” and the “story-truth”? Which is more important? Why? How does storytelling—the use of fiction—allow for a greater sense of truth than factual reporting might? What are the pervading truths of this novel?