Exploration 6: The Things They Carried Reading Response-Amanda Chirico

The stories throughout the book have been very interesting. The story I would say has meant the most to me so far would have to be Ambush. I know how most people don't like to admit or discuss the time they killed someone in war so I'm sure this story was tough and took a lot for O'Brian to write about it. That’s what I like the most about this story, Tim O'Brian's strength to write about the time he killed someone, his feelings, how he felt at the time and how he was scared. In the beginning of the story it starts out with his nine-year-old daughter asking him that question "Did you ever kill anyone while at war" and his response was "It was a difficult moment but I did what seemed right, which was to say, "of course not"(O'Brian 125). Then going on he writes, "He was a short slender young man of about 20. I was afraid of him-afraid of something-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a generated that exploded at his feet and killed him"(PG.125). I’m sure most families who have had a love one fight in any war are faced with situations like O'Brian was.  

I feel like the character I connect best with would be Tim O’Brian. Tim being the narrator and involved in almost every story, he uses his past experiences to tell stories as a way to cope with his guilt and confusion of the atrocities he witnessed during war. He puts you in the shoes of a soldier, like in the beginning when he listed every thing a soldier carried and how much it weighed. He wanted to let the reader feel like he or she was a soldier carrying all that stuff.  O’Brian is faced with many difficult situations with that he overcomes his fears showing his strength as a person.

Something I've noticed throughout the book has been O'Brian's great use of the convention of narrative scene. When he tells all the different stories he does a great job going in detail and giving you a good sense of what’s going on around them and making you feel like you are there in the scene like you are a part of the story. 

“Inside me my chest, I felt a terrible squeezing pressure. Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it-the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooden frontier, you’re at the bow of the boat on the Rainy River, you’re Twenty-one years old, you’re scared and there’s a hard squeezing pressure on your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and you childhood and your dreams and all you’re leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did" (O’Brian 54)? This passage really impacted me because it shows the feelings he was having and he asks the reader what they would do if they were faced with the same situation he was face with.