Conflict in The Things They Carried
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The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Lesson Plans by Kristy Littlehale
O’Brien calls his novel a work of fiction, but it is based on the experiences of thousands of men, called to fight for their country in the muck and jungle of a part of the world far removed from their own.
Storyboard Description
The Things They Carried Literary Conflict by Tim O'Brien
Storyboard Text
- MAN vs MAN
- MAN vs SELF
- MAN vs SOCIETY
- Lee Strunk steals Dave Jensen’s jackknife, and they get into a fistfight over it. Jensen eventually overpowers Strunk and hits him hard in the face until Strunk’s nose breaks. Three men have to pull them apart, and Strunk has to be airlifted for medical help. When he returns, Jensen is paranoid that Strunk will shoot him, so he breaks his own nose with his gun to make them even.
- Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is broken up after Ted Lavender is shot. He feels that if he hadn’t been spending so much time thinking about his love back home, Martha, that he might have been able to prevent Lavender’s death. That night, he crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters and pictures.
- After returning home, Norman Bowker finds it difficult to readjust to living normally again. He struggles to find meaning in his life after it had been turned upside-down in Vietnam. He can’t hold a job for more than 10 weeks, he drops out of junior college, and plays basketball all day. Bowker can’t find a way to fit back into his old life, and no one seems to understand or know how to help him, even his parents.
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