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Symbolism of characters in the things they carried
Symbolism of characters in the things they carried
Symbolism of characters in the things they carried
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O’Brien writes a war story that contains no traditional war heroes because some soldiers aren’t capable of being called a war hero due to the actions made on the battlefield.
Norman Bowker could not be classified as a war hero because of the actions he made on the battlefield. Bowker let two people die. He let his best friend die due to selfishness and cowardice, and he also let himself die due to the lack of an objective in his life. Bowker needed a specific purpose in his life to feel as if there was a meaning to life. A true war hero wouldn’t give up on anyone and themselves. A real hero would fight until he can no longer fight. Norman Bowker let his best friend Kiowa get taken by the shit field in Vietnam because Bowker was selfish and was only thinking about himself. In order for Bowker to be classified as a war hero and to receive the Silver Star, he needed to save Kiowa. Instead, Bowker let go of Kiowa and let him sink into the field, drowning in the mud and waste. Bowker watched his best friend slowly sink into the mud while he plugged his nose because he couldn’t stand the smell of the field. “The shit was in his nose and eyes… and he could no longer tolerate it… He released Kiowa’s boot and watched it slide away.” (Pg 143) Norman Bowker isn’t classified as a war hero because he took his own life, he didn’t see his life going anywhere. Bowker felt the need to have an objective in his life to continue living, and without an objective, he decided to end his life. A war hero would never take their own life because of the problems they are facing, they would deal with their problems and find an objective to complete. “Eight months later he hanged himself… Norman was a quiet boy, his mother wrote, and I don’t suppose he wante...
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...ng the grenade and killing the man. Without killing the enemy soldier, O’Brien could’ve been to blame for losing many of his comrades, and maybe even his own life. A true war hero wouldn’t be hesitant to take out an enemy to protect their comrades. They’d react instantly and do their job. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone…” (Pg 118) A typical war hero would keep their focus on the war and their comrades. Even though fear runs through every man, a war hero would fight through the fear and do their task at hand to save their comrades and their own life. Hesitating on the battlefield can cost many lives, even their own life.
O’Brien writes a war story that contains no traditional war heroes because some soldiers aren’t capable of being called a war hero due to the actions made on the battlefield. Every soldier is a hero in their own way.
Before O’Brien was drafted into the army, he had an all American childhood. As talked about “His mother was an elementary school teacher, his father an insurance salesman and sailor in World War II” (O’Brien). He spent his tour of duty from 1969 to 1970 as a foot soldier. He was sent home when he got hit with a shrapnel in a grenade attack. O’Brien says as the narrator, “As a fiction writer, I do not write just about the world we live in, but I also write about the world we ought to live in, and could, which is a world of imagination.” (O’Brien)
O Brien's point of view is an accurate one as he himself because he is a Vietnam veteran. The title of the short story is meaningful because it describes each soldier’s personality and how he handles conflict within the mind and outside of the body during times of strife. The title fits the life of a soldier perfectly because it shows the reality that war is more than just strategy and attacking of forces. O’Brien narrates the story from two points of view: as the author and the view of the characters. His style keeps the reader informed on both the background of things and the story itself at the same time.
The word "hero" is so often used to describe people who overcome great difficulties and rise to the challenge that is set before them without even considering the overwhelming odds they are up against. In our culture, heroes are glorified in literature and in the media in various shapes and forms. However, I believe that many of the greatest heroes in our society never receive the credit that they deserve, much less fame or publicity. I believe that a hero is simply someone who stands up for what he/she believes in. A person does not have to rush into a burning building and save someone's life to be a hero. Someone who is a true friend can be a hero. A hero is someone who makes a difference in the lives of others simply by his/her presence. In Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, the true heroes stand out in my mind as those who were true friends and fought for what they believed in. These men and women faced the atrocities of war on a daily basis, as explained by critic David R. Jarraway's essay, "'Excremental Assault' in Tim O'Brien: Trauma and Recovery in Vietnam War Literature" and by Vietnam Veteran Jim Carter. Yet these characters became heroes not by going to drastic measures to do something that would draw attention to themselves, but by being true to their own beliefs and by making a difference to the people around them.
he can create a new world where soldiers never died and there never was a war to be fought. Through the magic of storytelling, “[O’Brien] can still see Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Kurt Lemon and sometimes [he] can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights” (O’Brien 245-46). He created a new world where soldiers never died and there never was a war to be fought. In this story, there was no deaths to be sad about, and there was no funerals to attend. Each of O’Brien’s vignettes saved a different moment.
Several stories into the novel, in the section, “How to tell a true war story”, O’Brien begins to warn readers of the lies and exaggerations that may occur when veterans tell war stories.
A true war story blurs the line between fact and fiction, where it is neither true nor false at the same time. What is true and what is not depends on how much you believe it to be. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” from the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author provides various definitions to how the validity of a war story can be judged. The entire chapter is a collection of definitions that describe the various truths to what a true war story is. Unlike O’Brien, who is a novelist and storyteller, David Finkel, the author of “The Good Soldiers”, is a journalist whose job is to report the facts. Yet in the selection that we read, chapter nine, Finkel uses the convention of storytelling, which relies heavily on the stories the combat troops tell each other or him personally. Finkel attempts to give an unbiased view of the Iraq war through the stories of the soldiers but in doing so, Finkel forfeits the use of his own experiences and his own opinions. From O’Brien’s views on what a true war story is combined with my own definitions, I believe that Finkel provides a certain truth to his war stories but not the entire truth.
Tim O’Brien is doing the best he can to stay true to the story for his fellow soldiers. Tim O’Brien believed that by writing the story of soldiers in war as he saw it brings some type of justice to soldiers in a war situation.
the soldier who kills the most enemy or the pilot who bombs the most targets that are the heroes of the war but it is those people that stand up and proclaim the utter stupidity of war. The snare of the snare. The heroes are those who stand up for what they believe is right even if that means disobeying the order of the king. These books were written most of all to share with us that war is wrong and is a waste of valuable lives.
Overall, the author showed us the courageous and coward s acts of O’Brien the character. The fact that he was a coward made him do a heroic act. O’Brien made the valiant decision to go to war. It would have been easier and cowardly to jump and swim away from all his fears. However he decided to turn back, and fight for something he did not believe in. Thinking about the consequences of running away makes him a hero. He went to war not because he wanted to fight for his country, but for his own freedom. Either choice he could have made would take some kind of courage to carry out. Going to war required some sort of fearlessness. In other words, running away from the law would have been brave; but going to war was even tougher.
Although the soldiers were united and served for the same goal, each of the men had a different motivation. For O’Brien, his motivation to join the war was the shame of running away. Almost all of the characters were afraid of being ashamed, and that served as a drive for them to do acts of heroism and similarly acts of stupidity. For example, in the story “On the Rainy River”, shame drove O’Brien to do an act of heroism as a fear of being ashamed. O’Brien wrote “For more than twenty years I 've had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to
People are heroes in different ways for different reasons. American soldiers are heroes because they fight boldly for their country. Corrie Ten Boom is also a hero because she took risks and saved hundreds of Jews. Abraham Lincoln is another example of a hero because he fought for what he thought was right and helped free all slaves. Similarly, Odysseus, the main character in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, possesses all of these characteristics and many more, making him a true epic hero.
O'Brien's allows his text to represent the thoughts of his views as well as the American view about guilt felt soliders, women in combat, and his distaste of those that deceitfully create war stories. If these connections are not apparent it is must easier once the historicist approach has been applied because it allows one to decipher the thoughts of a particular society at that time frame. This is because it is almost as if the author soaks in the feelings of that time to express how society should operate.
O’Brien’s provides prose that arise doubt both in his work and other war novels by his metafiction within the novel. A reader could potentially read “How to Tell a War Story” and doubt the “credibility” of all war stories on the basis of how the story is presented. He does this by providing an additional perspective of the storyteller by providing realistic motives in the narration of stories that are often overlooked. O’Brien explicitly says this to the reader as:
For example, there was a small hotel owner who kept Inge Borck sheltered for a couple of nights. In the text, Douglas states “When the Gestapo came to get them, my parents sent me to a small hotel to save my life. The owner was the first little hero. She kept me safe for a couple of nights” (822). In addition, there was a former housemaid that help hid Inge Borck from the Nazis during the Holocaust. In the text, the author states “When it became dangerous I met my second hero. Or should I say heroine? She was our former housekeeper. She hid me for a while and endangered her own life” (Douglas 823). In fact, Inge Borck was taken care of by nun when she was ill. According to the passage, “ My little heroes were the nuns who took care of me when I was very sick”(Douglas 823). Thus, the average common day civilian can be a hero as long as they help other people (Douglas
...ng these decisions, good or bad. For all these men the fact that they stepped up to the plate, or in Norman’s case didn’t step up, shows how the war affected them. O’Brien and Cross manned up and dealt with the situation that was bestowed upon them. Bowker had a hard time dealing with his cowardice which unfortunately leads to his death. These men didn’t necessarily agree with what was happening to them, but in some way the way defined them as a coward or “hero.” They did what a man should do, which is to take responsibility for their actions. Whether they handled it the right or wrong way is determined by how their reaction was to it. For Cross and O’Brien it was taking ownership, and unfortunately for Bowker’s it led to unhappiness and his death. War does weird things to people. It puts them in situations where they either become a coward or someone who is brave.