how-useful-is-tim-o-brien-s-quot-the-things-they-carried-quot-as-a-primary-historical-source
Instructions: Write an essay that offers a persuasive answer to this question: How useful is Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried as a primary historical source? Evaluate the strengths and the limitations of the evidence which O’Brien’s collection of short stories provides.
Length:4-5 pages (please do not exceed the page limit!), not including notes and bibliography
Format:Double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman, with 1 inch margins all around.You must include the following:
- A title
- an introduction that hooks reader and presents a clear and thoughtful thesis statement
- 3 or 4 body paragraphs, develop argument by presenting and interpreting evidence from the book (can use outside sources, do not need to)
- Strong conclusion that wraps up the essay and establishes why thesis is significant
- bibliography
- footnotes
********** PDF of the whole book attached is attached. 2009 Mariner Edition. **************
Your bibliography and notes should be in the Note-Bibliography format from the Chicago Manual of Style.
Suggested Procedure:
- If you are unfamiliar with how historians define a primary source, look up the term using reputable reference tools.
- Read through Patrick Rael’s guide, “How to Read a Primary Source,” section 2b at http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/.
- Examine how Rael’s framework applies—or fails to apply—to The Things They Carried.
- Questions to think about that illuminate important dimensions of this short story collection’s usefulness for historical research:
- What does O’Brien mean when he meditates upon what might count as “a true war story”?In what ways does The Things They Carried meet O’Brien’s definition, and in what ways might the book fall short?
- What can fiction—writing that is by definition inventive, imaginative, and contrived—tell us about history?What parts of the book seem the least reliable as historical evidence?What portions of the book seem to ring true on some level or other?
- How typical was Tim O’Brien’s experience in Vietnam?How might other characters in the book have understood the events, emotions, and meanings O’Brien narrates?
- Does the fact that O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried many years after returning from Vietnam compromise its validity as historical evidence?Why or why not?
- What biases, ideologies, personal qualities, and social positions (including O’Brien’s race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and sexual identity) inflect O’Brien’s understanding of the war—casting some dimensions of the conflict in a sharper light while blinding O’Brien to others?
Further Reading on the Book:You may find some useful ideas in the following places:
