Death In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

735 Words2 Pages

“It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake” (183) Tim O’brien, the protagonist and author of the novel, The Things They Carried, describes his interpretation of death and the power it has to make you feel certain emotions. When the soldiers are dealt with death, they use their strong brotherhood to help with their emotions. The soldiers’ emotional development when dealing with death matures dramatically as they experience tragic situations. Before the war the soldiers believed that their mental state of being was strong, until it was tested when their fellow soldier, Ted Lavender, was unexpectedly shot and killed. Lavender’s death is a significant point in the novel because it marks the first time the soldiers witnessed a death during the war. Lavender’s death was shocking to many, especially Rat Kiley. Tim is in shock and …show more content…

However, the tragedy that O’brien faced when he was nine was too great for him to not be mentally distraught. Her death had a significant impact on his life because it marks the first time O’brien started to tell fake stories to make himself feel better. O’brien describes the death and the way he thinks about Linda by saying, “She was nine years old. I loved her and then she died. And yet right here, in the spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her as if through ice, as if I'm gazing into some other world, a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all.” (232) Linda’s death is very important to the novel because she was the first person who O’brien fell in love with and experienced death with. The significance of her death is that her death had a long lasting effet on Tim. When someone would die in the war, it would take him back to remembering Linda and the way she left O’brien’s

Show More
Related

  • The Things They Carried by Tim O´brien

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    Linda was what kept Tim going throughout the book, even if only just her memory played a big role in his life. Dying from a brain tumor when they were just nine, she inspired him to keep fighting when life was hard. To him she was always nearby in spirit. He contended with her death by dreaming, and eventually used that in his later writing during struggles. These dreams and st...

    Read More

  • Feeling Death in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    War is often thought about as something that hardens a soldier. It makes a person stronger emotionally because they are taught not show it and deal with it internally. People say that death in war is easier to handle because it is for the right reasons and a person can distance themselves from the pain of losing someone. However, there is always a point when the pain becomes too real and it is hard to maintain that distance. In doing so, the story disputes the idea that witnessing a traumatic event causes a numbing or blockage of feelings. Rat Kiley’s progression of sentiment began with an initial concern for the buffalo, transforming into an irate killing of the animal, and then ending with an ultimate acceptance of death. These outward displays of feeling suggested that witnessing the death of a close friend caused him to become emotionally involved in the war.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    By allowing the reader the "[privilege of] the soldiers experience" (Chattarji) it shows how difficult it is to get rid of the weight as begins to define you and the more it becomes a part of a person the harder it is to remove an aspect of yourself. In his repetition, O'Brien wants to give readers a deeper meaning into the everyday struggles of soldiers. He portrays the ways that soldiers were effected in the war and focused on the burdens that developed. O'Brien highlights how war changes those involved as "[the individual dreams of soldiers rise and fall and] their hopes riddled by disillusionment, their fantasies broken by shrapnel edged realities" (Timmeran). Wartime altered soldier’s perception and caused them to develop these emotional and physical weights that followed them for years. When many solider returned they were now stuck with daily burdens that had started since the day they landed in Vietnam. Constantly, these soldiers endured the long lasting results of participating in the war and unable to escape or forget the weight that they endure. "The Things They Carried" serves as a constant reminder to readers about the true realities of soldiers and the impact of war. How soldiers are not stable as they return home because of these weights that have become a part of them and how simple acts such as carrying around a weapon has now manifested itself into an emotional burden that will not leave. Often the realities of being a soldier are not portrayed accurately but O'Brien attempts to put into perspective what it really is like to go through warfare by drawing on his own experiences as a foot

    Read More

  • O'Brien's Things They Carried Essay: Experiences and Emotions

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Figurative Elements In The Things They Carried

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    The text reveals that the soldiers have a hard time with the death of ted lavender. For example, they describe ted’s death as if he just ‘’flat fuck fell’’— [The things they carried] The lieutenant cross felt the pain of losing one of his men and he blamed himself for it. One of the characters Kiowa explained how fast it had been. The guy had dropped like so much concrete.’’ Boom – down like cement’’. The lieutenant cross felt the pain of losing one of his men and he blamed himself for it.

    Read More

  • The Emotional and Psychological Burdens in 'The Things They Carried'

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.

    Read More

  • Jimmy's Innocence

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is both a story of love and a story of war. But more than either of those types of stories, The Things They Carried is a story of losing one’s innocence. Innocence is the idea of not knowing the horrors of the world. The horrors of war and the horrors of heartbreak. When people are born they are born with an air of innocence, they believe in the good in the world as they do not yet know of the evils. As people grow up they lose their innocence, the learn of violence and of war and of the hate of other people because they are different, they also learn the pain of heartbreak. All of these things tears the innocence away from people, some people lose their innocence younger than others. For Lieutenant

    Read More

  • Death in The Things They Carried

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book order is chronologically in reverse; this is significant because as the reader one learns about his first experience with death in the last chapter of the book, "The Lives of the Dead". In this chapter, O’Brien illustrates the genuine love he felt for a girl named Linda. After his first official date with her, O’Brien clarifies to the reader that Linda was sick and eventually the reader learns that she has died from complications from a brain tumor. O’Brien portrays the feelings that he has as a fourth grader and the thoughts of death that he experiences. O’Brien expresses the feeling of disbelief, "It didn’t seem real. A mistake, I thought. The girl lying in the white casket wasn’t Linda. For a second I wondered if someone had made a terrible blunder" (241). O’Brien’s coping mechanism was to dream; he uses his memories to create dreams of real life situations that he and Linda could have easily been involved in. O’Brien uses situations like ice skating to make up elaborate stories to keep her memory alive (244). O’Brien as a child seems remote and solitary, so his mother asks “‘Timmy what wrong?’” and he replies, “‘Nothing I just need to sleep, that’s all’” (244). He understands she is dead but these intricate stories stuck with him, even through the war.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Relationship Between Shame And Courage In The Things They Carried

    1455 Words  | 3 Pages

    The last chapter of the novel, “The Lives of the Dead”, is meant to emphasize that the novel is not about war and has a much broader meaning than just the fighting. The story of Linda and O’Brien fits into the overall theme of the novel because he keeps her alive through stories (239). Linda is a symbol of his innocence, when she passed away so did his innocence; She was talked about for so long because it was a significant change in O’Brien’s life, even though he was just a child. She continued to impact his life because she was his guardian angel; symbolically she wore a red cap and a white tassel similar to guardian angels in the Christian religion. Linda’s statement “Timmy, stop crying. It doesn’t matter” is Linda’s attempt to help O’Brien realize that he must not mourn over the little factors and continue to fight his war like she fought hers for as long as he

    Read More

  • Literary Elements In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1853 Words  | 4 Pages

    The chapter “The Man I Killed” includes an in depth examination of the dead Vietnam man. Describing all of the man’s new physical attributes from a grenade explosion. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged…” For a full page, O’Brien reminisces about the picture of the man that is now engrained in his head. He further analyzes all of these features deducing and making assumptions about personal details of the life of the dead man. “He would have been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He had accepted this. It was never open to question. Secretly, though, it also frightened him. He was not a fighter.” This chapter is also extremely influential to O’Brien, who uses imagery as a way to grasp his actions. O’Brien does not try to dull his pain or separate himself from the dead man. Giving the dead man a back-story only makes him more human making this kill so much less detached and much more personal. Kiowa tries to help O’Brien justify his actions, but O’Brien is not focused on the

    Read More

  • The Role of Storytelling in The Things They Carried

    2570 Words  | 6 Pages

    One of the hardest events that a soldier had to go through during the war was when one of their friends was killed. Despite their heartbreak they could not openly display their emotions. They could not cry because soldiers do not cry. Such an emotional display like crying would be sign of weakness and they didn’t want to be weak, so they created an outlet. “They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted”(19). Of course things were scripted especially when Ted Lavender died. It had happened unexpectedly and if they didn’t have something planned to do while they were coping they would all have broken down especially Lieutenant Cross. Cross...

    Read More

  • Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried Essay

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tim O’Brien dedicates his book to his characters in order to relieve the guilt he feels for surviving while his comrades died. The first thing a reader sees when opening the book is the dedication in eye-catching italics, which states “This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of

    Read More

  • The Cost Of War In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death also plays a big role in the health of a person 's mental state. It is the way a person handles death that determines how they are affected by it. The reactions that Cross and his troop have to the death of Lavender are very indicative of the psychological trauma that death in war can have on soldiers. Kiowa, a member of the troop, frequently refers to Lavender 's death with " 'boom, down '" or " 'zapped while zipping '" (108). However, he is not the only soldier who utters these two phrases. Rat Kiley, can only express the phrase " 'the guys dead '" (106) over and over again. The reactions these soldiers ' have are neither out of the ordinary nor normal for an environment and profession ravaged by death constantly. To make jokes or light of the death may seem as cruel and insensitive, yet it is a warped way of coping with death so that one does not become consumed by it like Cross does. Not only does he forgo love because of Lavender 's death, he also relives the death constantly. O 'Brien makes this very apparent in the way he presents Lavender 's death to the reader. He never tells Cross ' story in order from start to finish. Yet he intertwines the happenings before and after the occurrence of Lavender 's death with the actual day he dies. In this way the story can be viewed in the present and past. It can be read as if the events are happening as they are told, or as if the soldiers are reliving these memories years after the Vietnam war. Death can have such a lasting impact that it permanently scars a person mentally, so much that it haunts them years after the death itself took place. A memory lying dormant waiting to be awakened by a catalyst, such a balloon being popped that sounds like a gun shot. It is not only in the present that soldier deal with death, but also in future through flashbacks and night terrors. Death sticks with a person throughout their life. The

    Read More

  • If I Die In A Combat Zone Analysis

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    These instances contribute to his emotional turmoil and hatred towards the Vietnam War. The deaths became constant, and most would learn to conceal their emotions on the subject. One day the Alpha Company was traveling from one village near Pinkville to another. Passing by a herd of cows and many young boys in a field, the soldiers took this opportunity for target practice, just like at Fort Lewis. O’Brien did not shoot, but did so without protest. Amazed at his comrades for their actions and outward pleasure by the smiles on their face (pg. 139). Emotionally the war is changing these men, making them numb to the fact of death, and others who watch and wonder are still apart of the overall effect. He mentions on page 81 that O’Brien has even found himself not knowing when people arrive and when others die. The emotional turmoil has affected him and his officers tremendously in the fact that they have all learned that the death of the vietnamese and possibly of their own, are just apart of the war (pg. 141). Mad Mark, the platoon leader, is described to have no-fear or in other words “insanely calm.” This emotionlessness is apparent when he flaunts a ear he just cut off a person he killed. The other soldiers giggle and find his stunt as amusing, all together confirming that the continuous death has damaged his

    Read More

  • Character Comparison in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

    556 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most desirable way to describe Ted Lavender was scared. They were all scared. Scared of dying. The most suitable way for Lavender to deal with this scared feeling was to carry tranquilizers and about 6 ounces of marijuana. He also carried more than the required amount of ammunition.

    Read More

More about Death In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Open Document