What does spin mean in The Things They Carried?

For example, the media often ‘spins’ the impressions given by a political candidate to make them seem more favorable or more troublesome to their audience. This chapter is titled ‘Spin’ because O’Brien writes that ‘the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance. ‘

Who narrates Spin in The Things They Carried?

Tim O’Brien
Tim O’Brien – Narrator, age 21. He carries memories of Linda. As narrator, he is always there but is part of the story in “Spin,” “On the Rainy River,” “The Man I Killed,” “Ambush,” “Notes,” “Good Form,” “Field Trip,” “The Ghost Soldiers,” and “The Lives of the Dead.”

How does O’Brien describe the boredom of war?

O’Brien tells the readers many times and through many different stories that war is chaotic and random and impossible to understand unless one experiences it. In “Spin,” for example, O’Brien describes the boredom: “The war was nakedly and aggressively boring.

Why does the AWOL soldier return the things they carried?

I want to hurt it back.” It’s clearly not a story about peace, but rather that when this soldier goes AWOL and basks in freedom for a while from the war, he feels compelled to return to action because the peace isn’t enough. After experiencing war, it doesn’t feel right to feel at peace.

What is the primary message of spin?

“Spin” is like a map of the uncharted territory of war for readers who have never experienced it. The story allows us to feel the boredom of war by describing the things that happen when nothing is happening: jibes, songs, stomachaches, and despair.

What does O’Brien say about memory?

“O’Brien” suggests that people remember the past (and, how, incidentally, he gets ideas to write): “You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present.” Presumably, a little girl’s memory — Kathleen’s — is not too broad, and her present is filled with thoughts of …

What was O Brien’s greatest memory from the war?

Author Tim O’Brien’s Most Powerful Memory of the Vietnam War Has “Nothing to do with Bullets”

Who always says we got ourselves a nice mellow war today?

Sometimes they would ask Ted Lavender how the war was that day, and if he was high, he would say, “Mellow, man. We got ourselves a nice mellow war today.” Chapter 3, pg. 33 Tim remembers the time they hired an old Vietnamese man to guide them through a mine-infested area.

Why does Rat Kiley carry M&Ms?

Idea #1: Rat Kiley carries death. The medical items he carries mean that he is constantly dealing with blood and guts and gore and wounds, many that he undoubtedly cannot heal or treat, hence the reason for the M&M’s he “carried for especially bad wounds” (5).

What is a VC corpse?

Sometimes they carry things according to superstition. Norman Bowker, for example, who’s normally very gentle, carries a thumb that Mitchell Sanders cut off a Viet Cong (VC) corpse. They found the corpse lying in a ditch, and Mitchell Sanders said that there was a moral to it.

Why does O’Brien use storytelling?

O’Brien thinks about how he has made the transition from Vietnam to the world after. He has done this by telling stories, which he likens to clearing the throat. Storytelling enables him to clarify and make sense of his experiences, objectifying them and separating them from himself.

What did Tim O’Brien carry physically?

Tim O’Brien: I carried all the standard military stuff: grenades, ammo, an M16, sometimes an M60. Letters from mom, dad. Letters from a girl back home. More than the physical, I carried incredible terror with every single step I took.

What are the things they carried in spin?

The Things They Carried Summary and Analysis of “Spin” and “On a Rainy River”. “Spin” is a collection of disjointed memories. Azar, a soldier, gives a crippled boy a chocolate bar. Mitchell Sanders pries off his own body lice and puts it in an envelope to send to the draft board in Ohio.

What are the quotes in the things they carried?

Important Quotations Explained. This quotation from the first story, “The Things They Carried,” is part of a longer passage about the emotional baggage of men at risk of dying. O’Brien contends that barely restrained cowardice is a common secret among soldiers. He debunks the notion that men go to war to be heroes.

What was the nature of ” play ” in the things they carried?

The nature of “play” in war takes on a sinister shade. O’Brien is showing how war warps “play”. Not only are the soldiers too young to always know right from wrong, but they’ve been put in a war where right and wrong doesn’t exist. O’Brien knocks off a laundry list of other fragmented memories.

Why did O’Brien write the things they carried?

Though ‘The Things They Carried’, O’Brien wanted to spread the message of the effects of the war on those who fought in it. However, the author chose to do this in a surrealist and ambiguous way. The author’s main point of writing ‘The Things They Carried’ was to share the burden of the Vietnam War as a collective past.