Introduction
Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried after serving in the Vietnam War. He tackles many
difficult themes about human nature and the realities of war in his novel. He describes the
reasons why people do the things they do in extraordinary situations and how they deal with and
accept the aftermath of those decisions they make.
Task
Compose a one-page reflection on one of the following prompts:

1. Throughout the book, O’Brien challenges the reader to consider what constitutes truth
   and whether a well-told story can transcend the limits of fiction. O’Brien plays with the
   line between fact and fiction throughout the book. “By telling stories, you objectify your
   own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up
   others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened . . .and you carry it
   forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to
   clarify and explain.” Discuss ways O’Brien blurs the lines between reality and
   imagination. How does this contribute to our understanding of the war and human nature
   in general?
2. Choose a character and write a short analysis of the character’s individual moral code by
   quoting passages from the book. Include the soldier’s personal moral code and, more
   subtly, how the moral code connects to the politics and/or controversy surrounding the
   Vietnam War.
3. Write about your personal reactions to The Things They Carried. You should go beyond
   expressing what you like or dislike (this is not a book report). Include the emotions you
   felt while reading the book, and to examine why you felt those emotions. Which
   characters and scenes did you relate to, and which remained strange or difficult to
   comprehend? Was the resolution of the book satisfying? Comforting? Disturbing? Why?