What is the most important passage in The Things They Carried?

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.” “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done.

How do you tell a true war story The Things They Carried quotes?

“you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. ”

What is the last line in The Things They Carried?

The book ends with a story titled “The Lives of the Dead,” in which Tim remembers his childhood love, Linda, who died of cancer when she was 9. Tim says that in a story, he can “steal her soul. I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging,” and bring Linda back to life.

What is the main message of The Things They Carried?

The primary theme in the novel The Things They Carried is the burdens we all carry. The first chapter of the novel is dedicated to the physical and emotional burdens the men carried with them as they marched: the guns, the gear, the photos, the letters, the hope, the fear, the memories, and the guilt.

What does M&M stand for in The Things They Carried?

Answer and Explanation: Become a Study.com member to unlock this answer! In The Things They Carried, M&M stands for the variety of medications, particularly powerful pain medications, carried by Rat Kiley, the medic…. See full answer below.

What is humping in The Things They Carried?

hump To travel on foot, especially when carrying and transporting necessary supplies for field combat.

What does O’Brien compare the war to?

O’Brien says the moral of a true war story, like the thread that makes a cloth, cannot be separated from the story itself.

Why does O’Brien insist that war stories are not moral?

Why does O’Brien insist that war stories are not moral? As in most of the other chapters, O’Brien has explored the fact that, in war, old notions of morality and immorality do not hold. If someone tries to attach a moral to a war story, he or she is probably altering the truth of the story.

What does Tim O’Brien reveal at the end of notes?

O’Brien explains that when he received Bowker’s letter he thought about how easily he transitioned from Vietnam to graduate school at Harvard University. He thought that without writing, he himself might have been paralyzed.

What does M&M chocolate stand for?

Although many joked about the chocolate standing for ‘Men and M’ladies’ or ‘Motor Mouth’, it actually stands for Mars & Murrie. The two ‘M’s in the name represent Forrest E. Mars sr – the founder of Mars – and Bruce Murrie, who was the son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie.

Why does Norman carry a thumb?

We know more about Bowker at peace than we do about him at war. At war, we know that he’s gentle, but carries a thumb that Mitchell Sanders cut off a VC soldier and gave to him. The only other personal thing he carries is a diary.

What does the water buffalo symbolize in The Things They Carried?

The puppy and baby water buffalo symbolize innocence and purity. In the beginning, O’Brien recalls when a fellow soldier, Azar, strapped a puppy to a mine and squeezed the firing device. Azar rejoices in the animal’s violent death because it gives him a sense of control over his own circumstances.

Is The Things They Carried a true story?

By establishing that the novel is a “work of fiction” as he notes on the title page of the story, Tim O’Brien clearly wants readers to understand that while the book may be inspired by his experiences in Vietnam, it is not a memoir of his time there. Many events in the novel did not really happen.

Was Jimmy Cross Real?

Jimmy Cross never visited me at my house in Massachusetts, because of course Jimmy Cross does not exist in the world of objects, and never did. He’s purely invented, like Martha, and like Kiowa or Mitchell Sanders and all the others. I never ran way to the Rainy River. I wanted to—badly—but I didn’t.

What is Tim O Brien’s thesis in The Things They Carried?

The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered.