1. Tim O’Brian
Vietnam War Author
Jeff Stinson
Prof. Owens
Eng 1102
4 Mar 2012
Things They Carried

2. Tim O’Brien
William Timothy O’Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota, son of an insurance salesman and a
schoolteacher. He grew up in Austin and in Worthington, Minnesota, and attended Macalester
College in St. Paul.
Upon graduation in 1968, O’Brien was drafted. He considered refusing to serve in the Vietnam War,
but believed it was wrong for someone with his advantages to dodge service while the armed
forces filled up with disadvantaged young people. O’Brien saw battle as an infantryman in
Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 and was awarded a Purple Heart after receiving a shrapnel wound
near My Lai. O’Brien’s wartime experiences decisively shaped his values and perceptions. Like
Ernest Hemingway, to whom reviewers have compared him, O’Brien uses wartime settings to
explore violence, courage, illusion, and the reality of combat.
After his discharge from the army, O’Brien attended Harvard for graduate studies in government and
worked as a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1973, he published his first book, If I Die in a
Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. Although he invented the dialogue, O’Brien calls
the work a war memoir since it describes his experience in Vietnam. He left Harvard in order to
work full time as a novelist. In 1975, he published Northern Lights, a novel about a soldier
returning to civilian life. In 1978, O’Brien’s best-known novel, Going After Cacciato, was
published. A mix of reality and fantasy, Going After Cacciato is about a soldier who heads for
Paris in an attempt to escape the Vietnam War. The novel won the National Book Award in
fiction. O’Brien has also written The Nuclear Age (1985) and The Things They Carried (1990).

3. Thesis
How being drafted for the Vietnam War has effected
O’Brien’s writing.

4. Popular Literary works

5. REPETITION
O’Brien effectively uses repetition to make points
in his stories.
VOICE
O’Brien uses different voice throughout his stories
to increase understanding.

6. Works Cited
Bruckner, D.J.R. "A Storyteller For the War That Won't End." 03 04 1990.
NYTimes.com. Web. 22 02 2012.
"Everybody Must Get Sloshed." 13 10 2002. www.nytimes.com. web. 22 2 2012.
"Interview with Tim O'Brien: The things he carries - The Writer Magazine." 7 2 2011.
www.writermag.com. web. 22 2 2012.
Lopez, Ken. "Ken Lopez Bookseller: Intro to Tim O'Brien." 1997. lopezbooks.com.
web. 22 2 2012.
McMurtrie, John. "Interview with TIm O'Brien." 4 April 2010. SFGate.com. Web. 22
February 2012.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1990. Print.
—. Tomcat in Love. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Print.
Steinglass, Matt. "Letter From Vietnam - Reading Tim O'Brien in Hanoi." 04 04 2010.
NYTimes.com. Web. 22 02 2012.
"Tim O'Brien Criticism (Vol. 103)." 1998. enotes.com. Web. 03 03 2012.
"Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried Criticism." n.d. www.enotes.com. web. 3 3
2012.
"Two Sides of a Modern Disaster." n.d. www.nytimes.com. web. 22 2 2012.
Weber, Bruce. "Wrestling With War and Love; Raw Pain, Relived Tim O'Brien's Way."
02 09 2002. NYTimes.com. Web. 22 02 2012.