TTTC - final graded discussion questions

The questions that we will be using for the final graded discussion can be found on the student assignment drive as well as below. As always, be sure to prepare responses with specific references to the text.

1. Why do Tim O’brien and the other characters in The Things They Carried tell stories?
2. O’Brien suggests that we can use fiction to better understand truth. Using the text, explore the relationship between fiction and truth, and evaluate the narrator’s claim.
3. Examine the roles played by female characters in this novel and explain why you believe the author included them in this novel.
4. How do O’Brien’s female characters break from expectations? How do they follow expectations? Why is this important to the text?
5. Examine the themes of courage and cowardice in The Things They Carried. How does the text’s treatment of these themes go along with traditional values, and how do they defy traditional values? Relate the text’s treatment of these themes to postmodernism.
6. Compare and contrast how characters from The Things They Carried are differently affected by posttraumatic stress, and explore the importance of the similarities/differences that you discover.
7. Evaluate which chapter(s) best typifies postmodernism, and justify your response using the text.
8. Apply the story truths from “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” to the larger text of The Things They Carried. Use specific examples from the text to support your argument.