The Things They Carried
Bob Kiley, or Rat, was a great story teller and was a friend to everyone. He had a main part in most of the stories and was the most important character in the book. Before and after his friend Curt Lemon died, Rat showed different and interesting aspects of his personality. Tim O'Brien characterized Rat well in The Things They Carried, specifically in the chapters "How to Tell a True War Story" and "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong". In these chapters Rat tells stories about other people and we hear stories of him. The way Tim O'Brien describes Rat show what tipes of thoughts, words, and actions he has. His thoughts, words, and actions describe perfectly what his personality is. Rat doesn't quite think like other soldiers. His unconventional ways of thinking help and hurt the people around him. His thoughts, explaned in Tim O'Brien's book, show how important Tim O'Brien thinks Rat is. In "How to Tell a True War Story" Rat keeps to himself and the reader learns right away that he is boyish and sentamental. "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it, and what happens
A major action that contributed to Rat's personality occured in "How to Tell a True War Story". Tim O'Brien and his company came across a baby VC water buffalo. Rat starts out being nice to it, then he procedes to vent his anger about Jack Lemon on it. He shot it in its knee, ear, hindquarters, the hump on its back, twice in the flanks, its mouth, tail and ribs, spurts in the belly, it's left knee then in the nose. This scene shows how badly Rat took Jack's death. In Rat's mind, he made up for Jack by killing something innocent and beautiful. All the soldiers were exposed to a dark side of the once sentamental Rat. Dave Jensen kept saying "'Amazing,' . . .'A knew wrinkle. I never seen it before.'" (86). Killing the Buffalo vented Rat's anger, but his actions also exposed to the rest that he was brutal deep down. The choice of words Rat uses adds exclamation to his personality. His word say that he is poetic and kindhearted. With the same quote, "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back" (77), the word "fuckin'" doe
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 753
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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