Comparison of Slaughter House 5 And The Things They Carried Essay

The two books I read this summer were Slaughter House Five and The Things They Carried. Both these books took place in wars for the majority, of the stories. In both of the books the point of view is from young men fighting in these wars. The styles of these books are not simular at all, in The Things They Carried it focuses on all the little details and tells the facts as they are facts. While in Slaughter House Five it uses metaphors and symbolism to show a bigger picture.

Slaughter House Five takes place in World War II, it goes through the story of Billy Pilgrim and his fight for survival during the war in Europe. Billy was a prisoner of war who survived the air attack on Dresden Germany, this is the largest air strike in the history of United States Air Force. This bombing killed 125,000. Neither nuclear strikes killed as many people as the bombing of Dresden.

The Things They Carried also centered around a young man in war. Tim O Brien tells the stroy of him and the men in the outfit he was in Vietnam. Tim was the average American solider, he was not for the war yet he was still there. He didnt want to kill anyone, yet he did and he was terrified. He hated war and hated being there.

Billy grew up not haveing any control over his life. He didnt have any during the war and he didnt have it in the career he chose. So Billys imagination takes over and he believes that he was abducted by alines and taken to theyre planet. Billy has the control to travel to any point in his life past or future. He predicts his own death and is calm when it comes. This is the only time he actually has control over his life and he loves it. His imagination is how he copes with the war and the lack of control over his own life. While Tim OBrien copes with the storys he tells in The Things They Carried He feels guilty for ever going to the war and not standing up for what he belived in for the fear of what other people would think of him.

Both of these storys were very well written and memmrobal in different ways. The Authors had very different styles yet both were were good at doing what they were supposed to.