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Vietnam war essays
Vietnam war essays
Psychology and literature essay
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Have you ever pack to make a long trip to fight for the beliefs of your country? If you have not, the short story, The Things They Carried, will take you into an adventurous journey. Tim O’ Brien describes the story of a platoon led by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. The items soldiers carried were described as tangible and intangible. There are physical and emotional loads in which every ounce is considered. They walked with the burden to stay alive. Having to stay in a deserted land and away from tranquility awakens their fear that will stay active for the reminding of their journey. Ultimately, the main objective of this text is to revive and embody the experiences encountered while fighting during the Vietnam War. Therefore, in the story, the author …show more content…
He is mentioned among the lines as someone “who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head” (2). Fear is a constant emotion within the troop that increases with the death of Ted Lavender. The image of being shot in the head represents the horror that is among them. Also, going into a dark and deep hole and not knowing if one will be back or not, acknowledges the reality they are in. Later in the story, Lieutenant regrets the death of Lavender as “He felt shame. He hated himself” (16). One emotion after another one. The agony and the things they carried get heavier and heavier as the story progresses since Lieutenant recognizes that “… he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (16); a stone that symbolizes the emotional burden but can also be a physical load. Life is not different. Age progresses with a risk. Human are not immortal gods. We are vulnerable to the dangers of the outside and we are the pray of even the smallest virus in earth. A disease or a traumatic event can be the thing we carry. It is a condition that is heavy emotionally and physically. A stone in the body can be a buildup of calcium in a duct that obstructs fluid. This leads to emotional disturbances such as lack of sleep or loss of appetite. It is a path where humans cannot rest and must continue to walk with or without the emotional support. This physical thing we carry can be constant and permanent. As we age, we become more vulnerable to these diseases, challenging the smooth path we would all like to have to walk through. Furthermore, an illness does not only the result in physical changes but emotional challenges must be addressed as well. A stone affecting the anatomy of a human being also affect the cortex of the brain. Electrical signals traveling to the cortex of the brain cause unpleasant emotions. These changes the mood of the ill. Reality turns from positive to negative.
One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the end, responsibility.
‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien provides a insider’s view of war and its distractions, both externally in dealing with combat and internally dealing with the reality of war and its effect on each solder. The story, while set in Vietnam, is as relevant today with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as it was in the 1960’s and 1970’s in Southeast Asia. With over one million soldiers having completed anywhere from one to three tours in combat in the last 10 years, the real conflict might just be inside the soldier. O’Brien reflects this in his writing technique, using a blend of fiction and autobiographical facts to present a series of short narratives about a small unit of soldiers. While a war story, it is also an unrequited love story too, opening with Jimmy Cross holding letters from a girl he hoped would fall in love with him. (O’Brien 1990).
“They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (O’Brien 604) “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’brien, portrays a platoon of soldiers in The Vietnam War by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. The main character, whom was assigned to be First Lieutenant of the platoon, is twenty-four year old Jimmy Cross. Lt. Cross is a prime example of a leader who is too immature to handle the responsibility of their role. He is constantly daydreaming about Martha, obsessing over the letters and gifts she has sent him, rather than leading his men. Martha is a student at a college back in Lt. Cross’s hometown. Lt. cross and his men all have baggage that weighs them down, but as the assigned leader, Lt. Cross has to free himself of these distractions. In “The Things They Carried” Lt. Cross’s inexperience and lack of focus, combined with his ample emotional and physical baggage, stand in the way of him fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon.
The Things They Carried describes real objects American soldiers carried during the war. They carried an M-60, a .45-caliber pistol, an assault rifle, ammunition, compass, maps, code books, the PRC-25 radio, sandbags, tanning lotion, toilet paper, tranquilizers, rabbit’s foot, Purple Hearts, diseases, the wounded, the weak, and the land itself. Many soldiers experienced horrific events in Vietnam. War affects the mind. O’Brien said, “We all got problems.” (O’Brien 18). O’Brien relates one example of the war’s negative effect when a soldier shoots a baby water buffalo. He not only wants to kill the animal, but to make it suffer. Silence disturbs soldiers. Many times soldiers think they hear something which results in a bad decision. O’Brien describes a group on night watch who hear noises, go crazy...
In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses many themes to help draw connections between the book and the reader. O’Brien’s “On The Rainy River” chapter contains countless motifs that make this chapter so compelling. “On The Rainy River” describes his decision whether to enter the draft or to flee to Canada where he would not get condemned. The main theme in this chapter is embarrassment. First Lieutenant Tim O’Brien goes insane from the embarrassment he would face if he did not enter the draft.
Experiences and Emotions in The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. “It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war” (King 182). O'Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, O'Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point.
Imagine walking through a rainy, humid tropical rain forest with forty to fifty pounds of precious luggage strapped to your back wondering where and when the next shot will be fired. Wondering whether or not you will live to see another day of combat with your brothers. American soldiers carried this burden with them every day while in combat during the Vietnam War. In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he explains the positive and negative effects of the things that soldiers carried with them during the Vietnam War.
Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried in 1990, twenty years after the war in Vietnam.In the novel,Obrien takes us through the life of many soliders by telling stories that do not go in chronical order. In doing so we get to see the physical and mental things the soldiers carry throughout the war in Vietnam.Yet the novel is more than just a description of a particular war. In the things they carried Tim O’Brien develops the characters in the book slowly, to show the gradual effect war has on a person. O’Brien shows this by exploring the life of Henry Dobbins, and Norman Bowker.
The short story, “The Things They Carried” was written by author Tim O'Brien in an unusual pattern. It contains a non-linear narrative of a short period in the life of a military unit active in Vietnam during the late 1960's, punctuated by an astonishingly vast inventory of items carried by each of the soldiers. The piece begins by introducing narrative and inventory items in somewhat separated sections, but as the story evolves the two categories become more and more mixed together, until it becomes apparent that who they are and what they are carrying are one and the same. It also becomes apparent that, in order for the unit's members to do the job they were sent to Vietnam to do, they need to streamline what they carry – only take what is needed to survive, dispose of the rest. This applies in a physical sense, where added weight can make them less physically effective, and also in an emotional/metaphysical sense, where the heavy psychic burden of trying to survive the day-to-day life of a warrior leaves no space for “extras”. In O'Brien's tale, there is an underlying question in all that he presents – what is a necessity, and what needs to be disposed of?
Literary Analysis Essay on The Things They Carried The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is fiction and truth wound together to create a frustrating and addicting novel of fiction about the Vietnam war. O’Brien created stories by using his experiences during the Vietnam whether they are true stories or not is an unattainable knowledge for the reader, the only person of that knowledge is only O 'Brien himself. Through his writing he emphasized the the fact that you cannot perfectly recall the experiences of your past when your telling a story but the way it is told is “true sometime than the happening-truth(O’Brien 171) which helps give The Things They Carried depth beyond that of a “true”, true story. O’Brien has many characters in his book, some change throughout the book and others +are introduced briefly and change dramatically during their time in war and the transition to back home after the war.
“The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition” (12). Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Dave Jensen, and Kiowa all seemed to have a deal in superstition. Each man carried an object that he thought would bring him luck and never left anywhere without it. These men carried these objects because it connected them to home in some way and made them feel more powerful on the battlefield. All men carried fear. At any moment, their life could be lost and they would never see their friends and family ever again. To any ordinary man, his greatest fear in life is death. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried more than just fear for his own life, but the responsibility of the lives of the men in his unit as well. He often would feel guilt as men died throughout the war. Kiowa often carried distrust towards the other men due to biased opinions on where he came from.”That’s a smart Indian. Shut up” (17). Kiowa carried what many men didn’t have within the unit, sympathy. He cared about others even when he didn’t want to and told the honest truth. The final thing every man carried with him is his own mind. The thoughts and memories of war are not always pleasant and it is something they must carry with them for the rest of their lives. “They were tough” (20). The men were tough and though some struggled with the thoughts of war back home, they still fought for their country
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
The novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien takes place in the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Lieutenant Cross, is a soldier who is madly in love with a college student named Martha. He carries around photos and letters from her. However, the first few chapters illustrate how this profound love makes him weak in the war.
The Things They Carried is a funny little book in the sense that it isn’t told how most books are. It goes from war to camping on the borderline of Canada, back to war, and then into present day times. It works marvelously well, showing you what actually happened and then what he thought about what happened and what he could have done to change the outcome. There are many things that I think people can learn from his experiences in the Vietnam war and the way he tells those stories and lessons really bring you along for the ride.
One of the most overlooked aspects in the life of a soldier is the weight of the things they carry. In Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien details the plight of Vietnam soldiers along with how they shoulder the numerous burdens placed upon them. Literally, the heavy supplies weigh down each soldier -- but the physical load imposed on each soldier symbolizes the psychological baggage a soldier carries during war. Though O'Brien lists the things each soldier carries, the focal point centers around the leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and his roles in the war. Lt. Cross has multiple burdens, but his emotional baggage is the most pressing. Of all the weights burdened upon Lt. Cross, the heaviest baggage is located in his own mind. Specifically, the heaviest things Lt. Cross carries are an emotional obsession over Martha's love, the physical consequences caused by his daydreaming of Martha, and an unrelenting guilt about Ted Lavender's death.