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Contemporary Literature 6 The Things They Carried 215 Views
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Description:
How did the Vietnam War change the public perception of the U.S. government? What themes are explored in The Things They Carried ? Do you know the Muffin Man? That last one isn't covered in this video, we're just interested.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in contemporary literature the things they
- 00:08
carried a la shmoop the vietnam war is a really
- 00:12
important contemporary war because it's a moment where many many
- 00:17
americans began to distrust the government so the vietnam war
- 00:23
was a really confusing war A lot of people think
Full Transcript
- 00:26
of it as a as a bad war not that
- 00:29
war is generally good but this is a war that
- 00:32
wasn't planned or executed well on dh where it wasn't
- 00:37
clear for american troops and their allies who they were
- 00:40
really fighting and why they were fighting and how to
- 00:42
fight the vietnam war is a moment where guerrilla warfare
- 00:46
becomes much more important Non military troops so small bands
- 00:53
of fighters fighting and really unpredictable ways So it was
- 00:57
just an incredibly difficult war to even compete in Historians
- 01:02
still grapple with how to register It is either a
- 01:04
success or a loss but pretty definitely a loss for
- 01:08
the american people in terms of their confidence in government
- 01:11
On dso tim o'brien's the things they carried was published
- 01:15
in nineteen ninety i hesitate to call it a novel
- 01:18
because it's a group of stories that blur the lines
- 01:22
between fiction and nonfiction on dh it's a set of
- 01:25
stories about the war and it's also like mouse just
- 01:31
a really intense reading experience on dh one where ultimately
- 01:36
you're you're immersed in this world and you're supposed to
- 01:40
understand kind of how violent and confusing and devastating it
- 01:44
wass it is a set of multiple stories narrated by
- 01:48
multiple characters That's not unusual in literature we can go
- 01:52
back all the way to the canterbury tales defined like
- 01:55
a multiple perspectives story But the thing here is that
- 01:59
sometimes what different character say they contradict each other You're
- 02:03
never totally sure what is real and what is not
- 02:06
So it really emphasizes this idea that the facts are
- 02:11
always uncertain and there's all of this confusion about who
- 02:14
you can believe in who's telling you the truth How
- 02:21
did the vietnam war change public perception of the u
- 02:23
s government What themes Air explored in the things they 00:02:26.758 --> [endTime] carried
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