The Things They Carried In "The Things They Carried," O'Brien made reference to the Vietnam war that was closely associated with the physical, psychological, and emotional weight the soldiers beared. The overall method of presentation of this story incorporated many different outlooks on the things the soldiers carried, dealt with, and were forced to adapt to. In addition to this, O'Brien showed us the many reasons why and how the soldiers posessed these things individually and collectively and how the were associated directly and indirectly. The strong historical content in "The Things They Carried" helped emphasize the focus of the story and establish a clearer understanding of details in the narrative and moods of the war itself. From this, we are able to draw conclusions and assumptions to the events as it relates to the Vietnam war. Three areas that "The Things They Carried" established and elaborated were the youthfulness of the Vietnam soldiers, their language and thought patterns, and the actual tangible and intangible things they carried. During Vietnam, soldiers were selected to be bought in to fight by draft. Many families lost their youth through this process that would immediately force young boys to leave home and train for war. I found an intriguing website that will tell you according to your birthdate, if you would or would not have been drafted during that time period. (Go) In O'Brien's narrative, he portrays the soldiers as being young. In the opening of the story, we immediately see a young man, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who is deeply in love with a college girl. On page 13, we find out that he is only twenty-four. Throughout the story we find many hints toward the youthfulness of the soldiers including their dialect, playfulness, and the things they carried such as drugs and condoms. Vietnam made a big portion of history also through its use of slang and war specified language. This language came about through many means including its adaption to the Vietnamese language, coded words, phrases, profanity and initials that represent war objects, and other means, and to represent or even hide their emotional stand points. On page 19, O'Brien describes the young soldiers as actors. They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it. On page 12, Lieutenant describes his feelings for Martha as dense, crushing love. He then explains how he wants to sleep inside her lungs, breathe her blood, amd be smothered. This sounds like extremely harsh description for love. However, the soldier's environment became the most they could relate to. For example, to describe the death of a soldier, they'd used phrases such as "Boom. Down. Like Cement," or "flat fuck fell." O'Brien explains how the soldiers would make conscious efforts to joke about things and make comical references to have themselves laugh. Page 19 describes that they used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. At the end of page 18 and beginning of page 19, we find that the men would now and then panic and have the desire to cry out for the misery to stop. They'd make unguaranteed promises to God and their parents in hope that that would be their source of survival. On page 11 O'Brien tells that the Imagination was a killer. During particular routines or situations, the soldiers would make joking references to the worst that could happen. Throughout the story one would find the soldiers seriously joking under their breath or even talking to themselves. Throughout the narrative, O'Brien describes the tangible objects the men carried. In addition to this, one would also recognize the intangible things they weighed such as their emotions and past experiences. The things the carried as explained by O'Brien wre determined by several things such as necessity or near-necessity, mission, field specialty, or by function of rank. The things they carried were determinded overall by the pound. The story stresses the weight of almost every object, and describes the bulk that one may carry in pounds. As seen on page 5, to carry something was to hump it. However, this word implied the carriage of these as burdens over distances. In addition to a variety of weapons and amuniton page 4 and 14 lists many of the necessities that all the men carried. I found a web site that gives a bulk of informaiton on the M-16 as described on page 7. (Go) Individually, the young men may have carried extra things that corresponded to their own personal needs or wants. Many of these reflect each soldier's personality, feelings, and experiences. Lieutenant Cross humped his love for Martha as seen on page 5. He also carried along with him, her letters and a pebble that traveled in his mouth. By the conclusion of the story, Cross recognized his attatchment to his love as being a burden like described on page 5. He in turn developed a hate for her, intentionally got rid of the letters, pictures, pebble, as well as his spastic daydreaming . From then on, he humped the responsibility for his men. For example, the things Henry Dobbins carried coincided with his huge size. The things Dave Jensen carried were in accordance to his field work of hygene. Ted Lavender's things reflected his personality. Kiowa's things reflected his upbringing and relaitonship with his grandparents. Kiowa humped the awful sight of Lavender's death. In reference to the war, the intangible things the men carried described the mood and effects of their environment. An page 15, O'Brien describes that the men carried the whole atmosphere. On page 15, we are made aware that they carried diseases, parasites, infections and many other ailments. Page 15 elaborates on how the soldiers carried the land itself. They carried ghosts, their lives, eachother, pressures, and often the burden of just being alive as explained on page 19. "The Things They Carried" helped recognize particular aspects of the war as it associated with the soldiers and their lives individually and collectively. Through his story, O'Brien described the overall mood of the war and the soldiers involved. "The Things They Carried" posed many aspects and angles of the burdens the soldiers packed during throughout the war as well as the emotional stress that was associated along with it.
In particular, The Things They Carried depicts this consequence of war through the repetition of phrases such as “they carried” and “they would” to indicate the homogeneity among the soldiers when fighting as a collective. Additionally, it is important to note how prevalently longer sentences are incorporated within the text to suggest the plethora of items they carry in common for the war, as O’Brien elaborates, “They carried M-14s and CAR-15s and Swedish Ks and grease guns and captured AK-47s and Chi-Coms and RPGs…” (7). In this case O’Brien’s inclusion of “and” allows him to extend his sentences in order to convey how uniform the soldier’s identities have become due to the war, as they are now only responsible for carrying their necessary weapons and equipment. Another passage that suggests the soldiers’ uniformity is when O’Brien depicts their lifelessness while marching by claiming, “They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts…but no volition, no will, because it was automatic,” (15). From this, the soldiers have become robotic due to the war, as they no longer possess any emotion or individuality among themselves and thus are no longer differentiable. In order to restore what’s left of their respective
In "the things they carried", author Tim O’Brien tries to teach readers that war changes people, by using baggage as a symbol throughout the book. Ultimately, "the things they carried" is literally built on a foundation of the things they carried. Whether it’s the way Jimmy Cross uses the pebble to escape from his duties as a soldier. Or the way that they all look up to the pantyhose as an almost godly relic. All the way to Norman Bowker finally realizing that courage comes from within, not from winning the Silver Star. These things, made up the soldiers attributes, made up the soldiers’ persona, made up the soldier. But they didn’t stop at the soldier; certain items characterized all the soldiers as a collective group. It even went as far as to describe an entire group by the things all of them carried, of course being the green berets. There were no single green berets just a group; nobody made an effort to distinguish one from another. Like the way we make no effort to name each and every cell in our body, they are just smaller pieces that make up one entity.
In Chapter one "The Things They Carried", Tim by O'Brien gives deeper meaning to items soldiers were carrying consistently. “The Things They Carried” which takes place in Vietnam during the war time the physical weight humped is emotional and psychological burdens. The purpose and the way O’Brien describes the situation in the chapter tells the reader different aspects and reasons for carrying certain things with them and how they coped with war. The items carried directly correspond to the soldiers’ behaviors. It is directly correspond to the soldiers behaviors. The soldiers adapt to the things they have to deal with by force
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...
The Janjaweed were a militia that was tolerated by the Sudanese government in the attempts to control land. It has been said that the Sudanese government formed the Janjaweed but they deny this, saying that they only formed self-defense armies after they were attacked. Although, the Sudanese government did in fact use the Janjaweed at one time or another to protect and serve Sudan. After the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked the Sudanese government, they armed the Janjaweed and sent them to counterattack. The Janjaweed executed a ?scorched earth? attack meaning they destroyed everything useful to their enemy and killed many people.
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.
As conflict erupted in February 2003, JEM (Justice and Equality Movement), SLA (Sudan Liberation Army), and other rebel groups began to form in response to the government’s support of Janjaweed, an Arab militia. The Janjaweed which were made up mostly of the Masalit tribe served as the forerunner of this racial ideology and continues to be used by the Khartoum. In an Australian review their claims for this uprising stated “The motivation for the initial
Recycling helps protect the environment by saving a lot of trees. It is true that we can gain a lot of natural resources from trees like rubber, cloth and wood. Companies that need natural resources will need to cut down trees to provide us the supplies that we need. Because of recycling we can reduce the rate of the trees that are being cut down. Instead of cutting down trees we can use an alternative resources or what we know as recycled materials to provide us of what we need. We can make supplies like paper, pencils, tires that are made from recycled materials. It is not just trees that can benefit from recycling but also energy resources that we use every day to watch television, to preserve items in the refrigerator, and more. Recycling
The groups involved in the conflict in Darfur are the Sudanese government, Janjaweed, Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justices and Equality Movement (JEM). There are many factors resulting in the conflict in Darfur and reasons for each groups involvement, including economic, ethnic, environmental and religious factors. However, one of the significant causes would lie with the environmental degradation in Darfur. The SLA and JEM are rebel groups that represent the Black Africans in Darfur and are considered to be guerrilla groups – using military tactics that allow them to be quite mobile such as the hit-and-run tactic. There has been a long existing competition over the fertile soil between the Black Africans and the Arabs, who are represented
First of all, it costs way too much.Did you know that recycling costs almost double the amount of money it takes just to make it again? Well, it does, and Recycling, What a Waste of Time, says, “ I know that the cost of recycling exceeds its benefit. This is the simple result of the observation that recycling does not return a financial profit.” This is because of many things. Now, people
benefits the economy, conserves resources, and is better for wildlife yet the majority of Americans do not recycle. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, only thirty eight percent of Americans profess to be “avid recyclers.” This is an alarming statistic given that the average American generates 4.4 pounds of trash a day. As a nation this country produces approximately 250 million tons of trash every year. Only thirty five percent of the millions of tons of trash collected annually in the United States is recycled. There are a myriad of reasons given by those who do not recycle. For example, some Americans consider recycling inconvenient, others cite lack of space to recycle while some claim recycling is difficult. Perhaps an inducement would entice more people to be ecologically responsible. Often people are spurred to action if there is enough incentive to act. There should be a financial incentive for people to recycle which would increase the number of citizens who recycle and decrease the amount of recyclable items in the landfill.
The Earth and Moon are very different for many reasons, but they are also very similar in some ways. Earth is a planet that orbits a star, the sun. The Moon orbits the Earth and is not a planet. Earth is an “alive” and changing planet, while the Moon is a “dead” and still.
The first reason recycling is bad is because it is not always cost effective because sometimes there may be a need to establish separate factories to process reusable products. This mean that it may create more pollution as they would go under the process of cleaning and transportation. “Recycled products are not of durable quality, because they are made of trashed waste picked up from other waste products, so recycled products are cheap and last for shorter periods.” (www.conserve-energy-future.com) Others may say by recycling you can prevent our country from being buried
As we all see it, recycling is needed in our society in order to protect our environment, but it
Recycling could save the earth money because statistics show that during waste disposal there is approximately “294,950 annual tons of paper, metal, plastic and glass that is being thrown away”. These statistics come from San Francisco Diversion and Disposal in 2012. “Recycling is often efficient because of limits imposed by hazardous behavior.” (Singh) Others may say recycling is not good because some people do not want to reuse something someone they don’t know about has used before. What they don’t know is recycling is the best thing for them because they will not get charge by the government as much because during waste disposal someone is paying for the traveling expenses for the waste. One main benefit of recycling is it saves the earth money. “On average, NIH receives the following for the value of recyclables on a monthly basis... This equates to nearly $90,000 per year for the value of these recyclables. This money helps offset the costs of the recycling program.” (Benefits of Recycling) Here they are basically saying with recycling the earth could save $90,000. Two ways one way is because they collected $90,000 worth of recyclable items this can help by not using so much energy to put off bad pollution and the other way is the government or humans don’t have to pay so much for them to make brand new items to be used for whatever people