Reading response prompts for "The Things They Carried"

Here are the prompts for last of the four reading responses. Again, you need to have done two of these four to meet the minimum requirements.

Reading Response for Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” (468)

Due: Thursday, January 22

Choose one of the prompts as the focus of your response. Use specific evidence from the story to demonstrate your opinion.

1. Why does Lieutenant Cross burn the letters at the end? How does this relate to the new identity he is forming and the old one he is abandoning?

2. What stories do the men tell themselves about the war and their place in it to keep themselves going? Are these stories based on truth or necessity? Or both?

3. What kinds of personal items do the men carry? Why do they carry these things? What do they represent? Don’t just talk about each one separately; find a common pattern.

4. What kinds of things do the men do together that help them keep moving? How do these actions help them?

5. Choose your own focus for analysis.