Nick's Thesis

There are two themes that relate to post war problems present in The Sorrow of War, by Bao Ninh, and in The Things They Carries, by Tim O'Brien. There is the theme of post war psychological problems and the theme of post war abandonment. Tim O'Brien and Bao Ninh write to release the sadness provoked by their experiences with the Vietnam war.

Semester essay thesis

Since the very start of the written word the narratives of literature have taken a very liner approach starting at the begin and ending at the end, but now the age old tradition has been challenged. A new type of narrative called a shifting narrative is beginning to make it’s appearance, in Vietnam war litterateur. This new type jumps from place to place, time to time, plot to plot and even narrator to narrator. The first reaction any reader gets is confusion but once they get past that then the reason begins to dawn on them. The Vietnam war was certainly not conventional, it’s lack of a front line among other things made it so and therefor an unconventional writing style is needed to convey it.

Semester Essay Thesis

Fear is an "intense and instinctive emotion aroused by impending or seeming danger." (Webster's Dictionary 343). In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O'Brien shows the emotion fear, in the characters, and how they struggle to overcome it. In, The Sorrow of War, the author, Bao Ninh, also uses fear to illustrate its influence on the character's prospect of life. The theme of fear and its affects are explored in both novels. The struggle with conquering fear is identified in O'Brien's novel; whereas, the surrender to fear is portrayed in the, The Sorrow of War.