The reflection of tim O’brien’s life in The Thins They Carried

ABSTRACT

An autobiographical novel is a novel which is based on life of the author. While the events of the author’s life are recounted, there is no pretense of neutrality or even exact truth. Events may be reported in the way the author wishes they had been with enemies which are more complete than perhaps they actually were. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is categorized in into a autobiographical novel.

In this case, the researcher is interested in analyzing one of popular autobiographical novel, i.e. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, one of the great America novelists of the Vietnam War. She is analysis on its autobiographical aspects. She chooses this because the same book said that The Things They Carried is Tim O’Brien’s’ autobiography fiction.

To get the proof that autobiographical novel is a novel that written based on the experience of the author, the reflection of Tim O’Brien’s life in The Things They Carried is chosen as the subject of the study. The purposes of the study are: to describe what kind of experience Jimmy has in The Things They Carried and to describe how Tim’s experiences reflects to Jimmy’s experience.

To give clear description of how this study is conducted the researcher uses literary criticism as her researcher design in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. She uses biographical approach. Biographical approach is a systematic study concerning process of creativity. Subject creator is deemed as the history of literary work. The meaning of literature is the same as the aim, purpose, instruction, and special of the author.

Furthermore, the researcher finds that sevearal comparable incidents about the similarities between the life of Tim O’Brien and Jimmy Cross particularly on the Jimmy’s education that graduated from Macalester College, Jimmy’s joining army was a first Lieutenant in America War in Vietnam, Jimmy’s love with Martha, Jimmy’s Career as a story teller and member of National Guard, Jimmy’s simply living was works at meatpacking plants, and Jimmy’s childhood experiences was works with the warehouse. Tim O’Brien uses Jimmy Cross as medium to look back over his own life although he avoided using actual names, by making up the scenery and names of the people in his fiction. From a comparison of the two stories we can learn about Tim O’Brien himself, and in creating The Things They Carried as fictional autobiography. Of course, Jimmy Cross is not Tim O’Brien, nor is The Things They Carried precisely the story of Tim’s own life. The Things They Carried is unusual only because it seems to copy some of the events and characters of Tim O’Brien’s life very closely.