The Vietnam War was one of the longest and most costly wars fought and over 45,000 people had died. “The Vietnam War lasted from 1954-1975 and it took place in South and North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos” (Vietnam War). War literature is important to people because it tells them what happened in war if it is a nonfiction book and what could have happened in war if it is a fiction book. The Things They Carried has information about Vietnam and how the soldiers survived. Ghosts in the Fog has Information about WWII and it tells the story of the Japanese invasion on Alaska. “After the war, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines stayed free of communism” (Rohn).
The book The Things They Carried has many differences and similarities to the book Ghosts in the Fog. In order to compare two books about war one should: explain how a book is classified as war literature; what aspects need to be accounted for in each book and what one was more successful, the style choices each author made and the impact they had, how the experience levels of each author affect the impact of the book, and how emotional details, stories, facts, and truth are important in a novel breakdown.
There are many war related books that many people read around the world. There are many different ways to classify a book as appropriate war literature. To classify a book as appropriate war literature, the primary action should take place on a battlefield or in a civilian setting. Specific events have action such as shooting guns, running, and yelling because of the war and bad stuff that is going on. There is shooting and running because people are killing each other with guns and knives trying to kill the enemy to save their country. Someone has declared war on someone else and they are fighting for their rights and their peoples rights to keep them safe and independent. Historical events is another way to classify a book as appropriate war literature. Many war stories are nonfiction which means that the stories are true and they actually happened.
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The book gives factual information on who won the war, how many people that were killed in war, and how the war had started and how the war ended. “American and Japanese armies fought from May 11 to May 30, 1943, for control of Attu, a small, sparsely inhabited island at the far western end of Alaska’s Aleutian chain in the North Pacific” (Battle of Attu). There are also many war stories that are fiction which are made up stories about war. These stories still have lots of action and killing but all of or most of it is false information. Although fiction stories are made up some of the stories told might be true and the main storyline could be based on real events in a more exaggerated way.
In the fiction book The Things They Carried the author tells many stories that are made up but he also says things that actually happened when he was at war but in a more exaggerated way. In war literature based books there are people talking about their feelings of a specific event that happened in war. They may give their own opinion on what they thought about different people and what happened at war.
Many aspects need to be accounted for of war literature in the books The Things They Carried and in Ghosts in the Book. One aspect in each book is the characters who impacted war literature. Tim O’Brien was impactful to the The Things They Carried because he told the story and he knew what war was like because he fought in war. He told many stories about his experience at war and what he had to do to survive. Although most of stories were made up, the storyline was partly true but exaggerated.
Lt. Jimmy Cross was also impactful in the book The Things They Carried because he lead the group and made most of the decisions at war. Charlie House and Edwin Layton were impactful to war literature in the book Ghosts in the Fog because they were leaders and made big decisions on keeping everyone alive and calm. The style of each book was different and they were written in different ways. The Things They Carried was written as a storyline and had many war stories. It told what people thought at war and how they survived and what they did. It also had what the characters felt and how they reacted to things that were happening.
Ghosts in the Fog was written using more of factual information to tell a story. The author was not in war but she got information from other people and used these facts in her book. The books were written in different ways but they each had a theme about war and people were killing each other and they had to fight to survive. “More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians” (Vietnam War). Even though the two books were written in a different way and they had a different style they both were successful.
The Things They Carried was very successful because it was interesting and fun to read throughout the whole book. It told many war stories and the author talks about what he felt at war and what other people had felt. He talks about his feelings and uses lots of exaggeration to show how war was like as a soldier. Ghosts in the Fog was successful because it uses factual information about the war to tell a story. Both books are successful but The Things They Carried is a great book to read to get more of a storyline and Ghosts in the Fog is also good to get more factual information.
The two books were written in a different way and they were both impacted by their style. The theme in The Things They Carried was friendship and fear and overcoming fear. O’Briens personal experience shows that fear of being shamed before one’s peers is a powerful motivating factor in war. He thinks that fighting in war is unjust or not right but he does not want to be thought of as a coward so he overcomes his fear of fighting in war and being shamed by his peers and fights in the war.
The book also shows friendship because in order to survive the soldiers have to get along and work together. O’Brien had friends that helped along the way saving his life and he also saved theirs. They may not have got along everyday but they had to deal with it and work together. The theme in Ghosts in the Fog is slavery and getting captured. “Starting on June 3rd,1942, the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska were officially occupied by Japanese forces. After nearly a year, the U.S. and Canada reclaimed the islands” (WWII In Alaska).
When the islands were taken over many people of those islands became slaves and they had work all day and night doing what the Japanese told them. They worked in fields collecting food and they changed the landscape of these islands. Many families were torn apart and captured by the Japanese and many were taken as prisoners. “Yet the life of any one individual became insignificant as world-wide suffering and death increased. Families were torn apart. Millions of people were driven from their homes and brutalized” (Hoobler).
The theme of The Things They Carried and the theme of Ghosts in the Fog are different because one is about friendship and overcoming fear and the other is about slavery and becoming prisoners. Tim O’Brien uses both first person point of view and third person to tell his story. He uses mostly first person because he is telling the story of the war he was in and what he did. He also uses third person because he also tells the story of his fellow soldiers he fought with and what they did at war.
Samantha Seiple uses third person point of view because she is telling a war story about other people and talks about the soldiers and families in the book. The books were written very differently because Tim O’Brien tells a story about the Vietnam War and what he did to survive. He tells many personal stories about himself and the other soldiers, and he makes them interesting by using exaggeration. His book is a storyline and he uses characters. Samantha Seiple tells a story about WW2 and the Japanese Invasion on the Aleutian Islands. She uses facts and other information from other people and articles to tell a story.
The experience levels the authors have in war are important for them to write about war literature. Tim O’Brien wrote his book about the Vietnam War and how he fought in it and how he was entered into war. O’Brien was a soldier at war and he knows what war was like which gives him many ways why he can write about war literature. He not only knows what happened but he knows how it feels and the pain he went through at war. He is able to tell emotional and personal stories about what happened to him and other soldiers he was with.
Samantha Seiple wrote her book about WWII and the Invasion on Alaska. She may not have the experiences levels of being in war and knowing what it is like like Tim O’Brien but she took many good facts from other people and other articles to write her book. She does not have to emotional and personal stories in her book because she did not fight in war and she doesn’t know what it was like. Her book may not be as interesting as Tim O’Brien’s because she does not have many personal stories to make the book interesting. Although her book has lots of factual information which O’Brien’s does not have and is helpful to readers who just want to read a book with facts about war.
Many aspects in degree are important in a novel breakdown emotional and personal details, stories, facts, and truth. Tim O’Brien has many personal stories in his book The Things They Carried. First off he was a coward because at first he did not want to fight at war and he was very scared. He tells many emotional and personal stories such as what the men carry with them at war so they don’t forget someone or if they need to use what they are carrying along the way.
O’Brien tells the story of when he almost died, he said they were running away from people shooting at them and he fell and was let behind but one of his fellow soldiers had found him and helped him get up on his feet and cured his wound he had when he was shot. He said if it wasn’t for that soldier he would have been laying there dead. He also tells us stories after the war when he is with his daughter. He brings his daughter with him to the war zone and he tells her what he did here and what happened. One of his friend soldiers died and they had left him a pair of shoes where he had died and the shoes are still there. He shows his daughter and tells her what they are for and whose they were.
Ghosts in the fog also had emotional and personal stories but not as much as The Things They Carried. Samantha Seiple tells many stories about the slaves that were captured in her book and how their life was before and after they were slaves. She told many personal stories about the slaves and the families that were captured. Millions of families were driven from their home and many died. Many of the soldiers fighting for these people also died “Of nearly 3800 American soldiers, 549 were killed in the battle” (Recapturing Attu Island).
Tim O’Brien told many stories in his book and involved many people. He told the storied by using exaggeration and saying what happened at war. He involved the soldiers he was fighting with such as Lt. Jimmy Cross, he told many stories about him and his girlfriend and how he carried his girlfriends pantyhose to keep him calm. Samantha Seiple also told stories about the slaves and families that were captured and brutalized. She tells the stories using facts she had got and stories from other people that had survived war.
There was many facts and true stories in the book Ghosts in the Fog but The Things They Carried had many made up stories. Tim O’Brien told many stories in his book and some of them were true but they had lots of exaggeration. Tim is using exaggeration to make it more realistic if we were at war and was feeling what he felt. He also made up many stories to make the book more interesting and make people read it more. Ghosts in the Fog has lots of facts and true stories about the Japanese Invasion, and it also had stories about the people that were being captured and the slaves and the soldiers that were fighting.
In order to compare two books about war one should: explain how a book is classified as war literature; what aspects need to be accounted for in each book and what one was more successful, the style choices each author made and the impact they had, how the experience levels of each author affect the impact of the book, and how emotional details, stories, facts, and truth are important in a novel breakdown. Even though The Things They Carried and Ghosts in the Fog are of war literature they are very different types of books in there style of writing and the storyline. One uses facts to tell a story and the other uses exaggerated stories and made up stories to tell a war story. Communism was a big part of the Vietnam War “Ho Chi Minh believed communism offered the people of Vietnam the best way to improve their lives” (Otfinoski).
