CliffsNotes on

The Things They Carried

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About the Author

Personal Background
Career Highlights

About the Novel

Introduction
A Brief Synopsis
List of Characters

Summaries and Commentaries

The Things They Carried
Love
Spin
On the Rainy River
Enemies
How to Tell a True War Story
The Dentist
Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
Stockings
Church
The Man I Killed
Style
Speaking of Courage
Notes
In the Field
Good Form
Field Trip
The Ghost Soldiers
Night Life
The Lives of the Dead

Character Analyses

“Tim O’Brien”
Lt. Jimmy Cross
Norman Bowker
Mary Anne Bell
Kiowa
Rat Kiley
Linda
Henry Dobbins

Critical Essays

The Things They Carried in a Historical Context
Narrative Structure in The Things They Carried
Style and Storytelling in The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried and Loss of Innocence
The Things They Carried and Questions of Genre

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Who's baby is going to become the cutest kid?

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's
Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey's
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's

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Summaries and Commentaries

The Man I Killed - Ambush

Trung sisters  (d. 42 C.E.) Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, were daughters of a powerful Vietnamese lord who lived at the beginning of the first century.

Tran Hung Dao  Famous general who defeated two Mongol invasions in late thirteenth-century Vietnam.

Tot Dong  Field in 1426 where the Vietnamese routed the Chinese. Two years later, the Chinese recognized Vietnam’s independence.

48th Viet Cong Battalion  One of the most effective Viet Cong military units.

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