Tim O'Brien - Thesis and body paragraph

The crowded hour to fear to live or die

In the book The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien is he as the main character thinking and trying to make a right decision on his way of life. “Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live or die” is Tim O’Brien considering the risks and embarrassment of going or not going to the war. The author is trying to hook up the reader, to make him feel the right bitter taste of the situation, the pressure the main character is facing by using an enormous amount of imagery. He wants to give the reader the full experience of characters feelings and thoughts. This is one of the most important rules in writing-to keep the reader interested, connected with the writer and the characters. It is a challenge, an opportunity for the readers to find what they are looking for-to escape from reality and everyday routine and discover the world on he pages. The way the writer gives the reader this opportunity makes the reader feel the dilemma of the main character as his own: “And I want you to feel it – the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You´re at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You´re twenty-one years old, you´re scared, and there´s a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you´re leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”(56) In this quotation is writer trying to connect with reader as much as possible. He wants him to think, to feel how it really was, to imagine, to know. He wants to keep the reader connected with the plot and mainly the main character. The other type of imagery is making the reader imagine the environment, the scenery where the plot occurs.”The afternoon was sunny and cold. A stiff breeze came in from the north, and I remember how the little fourteen-foot boat made sharp rocking motions as we pushed off from the dock. The current was fast. All around us, I remember, there was a vastness to the world, an unpeopled rawness, just the trees and the sky and the water reaching out toward nowhere. The air had the brittle scent of October.” This book seems to be interesting and sometimes even breathtaking although I´ve read just a small part of it. The writer is doing an amazing job by talking straight to a reader. It keeps the reader in the world of the book which is the main purpose of the masterpiece.