ESSAYS -
LIST OF AVAILABLE ESSAYS ...
Select any essay below and it WILL be delivered to you TODAY via your choice of e-mail or fax! --Only $/pg!-- The bibliography page(s) are always FREE!

Tillie Olsen: The Story is Her Life
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A 7 page paper which examines how Tillie Olsen’s life, the Great Depression in particular, impacted her writing, and considers how reality shaped her fiction. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Filename: TGtillieol.rtf

Tim O'Brien/ "The Things They Carried"
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A 5 page analysis of Tim O'Brien's novel of the Vietnam War—"The Things They Carried." The writer argues that the unusual structure of this novel blurs the line between fiction and reality in order to demonstrate how the war experience affected the soldiers involved. No additional sources cited.
Filename: 99obttc.doc

Tim O'Brien/ "The Things They Carried"
[ send me this essay ]
A 5 page analysis of Tim O'Brien's novel of the Vietnam War—"The Things They Carried." The writer argues that the unusual structure of this novel blurs the line between fiction and reality in order to demonstrate how the war experience affected the soldiers involved. No additional sources cited.
Filename: 99obttca.rtf

Tim O'Brien/"Things They Carried" & Innocence
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A 3 page essay on the short story, "The Things They Carried," in which author Tim O'Brien offers a complex psychological portrayal of the combat experience. O'Brien's writing style is not chronologically oriented, that is, one episode does not lead directly into the next. The abrupt starts and stops in the narrative mirror the disjointed and fractured thinking processes of the narrator rather than the reality of the situation. However, the narration is linked by several themes, and it is from one of these themes that O'Brien draws his title. This title, "The Thing They Carried," indicates the manner in which identity is formulated and how reality, for each soldier, is defined. In presenting this theme, O'Brien focuses on how the things they carried is connected to sense of self and how destroying what he carried symbolized lost innocence in the eyes of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. No additional sources cited.
Filename: khcarino.rtf

Tim O'Brien/Combat in Vietnam
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A 10 page research paper that examines the question as to whether or not Tim O'Brien novel of Vietnam combat experience, The Things They Carried, should be given to a soldier in the military right now. The writer argues that it should not precisely because O'Brien's stream of conscious narrative is so realistic that it could be demoralizing to a soldier facing combat conditions. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Filename: khobviet.rtf

Tim O'Brien/Reality v. Fantasy
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A 3 page essay that analyzes the theme of reality versus fantasy in Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, which presents the experience of soldiers fighting in Vietnam in a realistic manner. A realistic war story is nothing new. Many writers have related the carnage and horror of war, but they do so in a standard linear fashion, which has the effect of relating the irrationality of war in a rational fashion. O'Brien's writing, rather than presenting his war stories in a rational, chronological fashion, blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. In doing so, he presents a truer picture of combat experience because this recreates the psychic landscape of the traumatized combat soldier. No additional sources cited.
Filename: khtorv.f.rtf

Tim O'Brien/The Things They Carried
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A 5 page research paper/essay that discusses how author Tim O'Brien uses the structure of this novel to blur the lines between fiction and reality. The writer argues that the structure shows how the narrator jumps from one topic to the next in an effort to circumnavigate traumatic, painful memories that are literally more then the mind can bear. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Filename: khtimcar.rtf

Tim O'Brien/The Things They Carried
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A 6 page research paper/essay that analyzes the fiction of Tim O'Brien and his war novel The Things They Carried. The writer argues that O'Brien's style of writing mirrors the fractured way that his protagonist thinks due the trauma of war. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Filename: khtotttc.rtf

Tim O'Brien: "The Things They Carried"
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This 6 page paper briefly explores O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried to understand why he chose to write a work of fiction rather than strictly reporting facts, and what that means for our understand of the book and of Vietnam itself.
Filename: HVThiCar.rtf

Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River” and Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal”
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A 3 page paper which examines the literary device of paradox and irony in Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River” and Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal.” No additional sources cited.
Filename: RArainy5.rtf