Assignment task:
Book: The Things They Carried
Problem 1: What is ironic about the feeling of isolation O'Brien experiences the summer of his draft notice?
Problem 2: What is the effect of O'Brien's directly addressing the reader at the end of this chapter (On the Rainy River)?
Problem 3: What is the irony within these pieces ("Enemies" and "Friends")? Use a specific quote from each chapter (along with MLA in-text citations) to support your response.
Problem 4: "How to Tell a True War Story" is the centerpiece of the novel. Its theme is about everything that O'Brien has been building toward with his tricks and slight of hand regarding the accuracy of the stories.
Tim O'Brien creates an intentional paradox for his readers when he writes a wrenching, violent, but gripping story about Rat Kiley and then at the end of the story, tells the reader that the characters and events of the story did not happen as he has just described them, but rather they happened in an entirely different way to other people. But he insists that the story is true. Thus O'Brien challenges the reader to discover what the truth of the story really is. O'Brien asks the reader to discover what the nature of fiction is.
Did O'Brien cheat the reader when he said that the events did not happen after the reader became involved in those events?
Problem 5: Why is this short chapter (The Dentist) placed immediately after "How to Tell a True War Story"?
Problem 6: What is ironic about Lemon's incident with the dentist?
Problem 7: Would the irony have been as strong if O'Brien had placed this short story before the chapter describing Lemon's death? Why or why not?