Question 7

"The Things They Carried" showed no structure of a beginning, middle, or end. It is mostly structured around the memories of Jimmy Cross from his experiences in the war. Also, in some parts of the book it flows in order, but then it goes all over the place with different memories. For example, in the first chapter when Ted Lavender gets shot it talks about the affect it had on the men, but later on in the book Cross brings up a memory about when Ted adopted a puppy and Azar killed it. This memory was brought up much later after Cross mentioned Ted was already shot and killed. Even though a memory was brought up in one chapter, he elaborates more later on in the book.

I agree to an extent, I understand what you mean by saying that there is no specific order and there is not really a beginning, middle or an end. Tim O'Brien jumps from event to event and reflects on past events at the most unexpected times; it is quite frustrating. But I feel like there is somewhat of an organization pattern that O'Brien uses, I just am unsure as to what to define it as.

I on the other hand believes that this book has no structure at all, but that is what makes the book so interesting to read. O'Brien brings up all kind of different memories, and some of them may not be in order with the previous, but that is what makes it much more personal, and that's the type of feeling the readers want to get when they are reading a book.