When we think of the word “baggage” it probably brings up an image of a bag or suitcase containing our personal items that we may bring on a trip. Another way to think to of “baggage” is not just in the physical sense, but also in a metaphysical way. People who fought in war carry both physical and metaphysical baggage during and after the war, especially the metaphysical baggage. The physical baggage would involve the items soldiers’ carry in their rucksacks, such as guns, maps, letters, and food, whatever they thought was found necessary. While the metaphysical baggage is the emotional load, such as the memories, fear, and guilt. There is even a psychological load that is carried by soldiers after the war. In The Things They Carried written …show more content…
Just from the title, a reader may think O’Brien is writing about the physical baggage soldiers carry upon their backs, but really it’s about the metaphysical baggage that really weighs them down. While it may be easy for soldiers to take off the physical load, the same cannot be said for the emotional load. In comparison, the short story “Wandering Souls” by Bao Ninh, part of The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, is about a Vietnam War veteran, who is struggling with the metaphysical baggage of their memories and guilt. Both authors use a combination of fiction and reality in their writings. In both The Things They Carried and “Wandering Souls” the theme of emotional and psychological baggage is depicted throughout the each of the …show more content…
The narrator is haunted by the memory of the “horrible slaughter which had wiped out his battalion” and ends up reliving that incident in his mind (Ninh 15). The detailed description of the bedroom could be an indication that he is not doing so well after the war. For instance, “a lone figure in [an] untidy, littered room where the walls peeled...where empty bottles were strewn and where the broken wardrobe was now cockroach-infested” (Ninh 15). This can be inferred as Kien having a hard time trying to adjust to life possibly. It was not easy for veterans to just jump back into the life they lived before they went off to war because they are not the same person anymore. They have experiences things that others who were at home might not understand what they went through. Similar to O’Brien, who found an outlet through writing about his time during the war, Kien also wrote his memories down. Kien is burden with survivor's guilt and the memories of his dead comrades. “Cruelly reviving the images of his comrades, of the mortal combat in the jungle… where his battalion had met its tragic end” (Ninh 15). He will never be able to forget what he saw, but he might be able to find some peace through his writings. By writing and sharing his writing, Kien would be sharing the burden he carries with others
The death of Kiowa is the point in this story, and arguably the entire novel, where the true nature of war becomes evident. His death in any situation would have been tragic, and camping in that “shit field” alone would have been an emotionally scarring experience; however, that these events had to coincide in time only multiplies the gravity of the situation. Interestingly, every soldier has his own way of grappling with such overwhelming feelings of grief for his highly-esteemed comrade. Yet what every man has in common is that in the end he concludes that he alone is the one ultimately responsible for Kiowa’s death.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien’s opening chapter describes a group of soldiers marching through the jungles of Vietnam. Subsequently, Tim O’Brien started revealing personal items each soldiers carries with them during the war. These soldiers carry some surprisingly heavy physical and emotional burdens thought the jungles of Vietnam. However, these emotional burdens are far heavier than anything ...
Tim O’ Brien alternates between narrative and descriptions of the tangible items that they soldiers carry. He remembers seemingly everything that his squad mates were carrying and provides an “emotionless recitation” of the weights of each of the items the soldiers carried into the field. He frequently uses the term “humping” to describe how the soldiers carry their gear; making them appear more uncivilized, like animals. As he switches back to mentioning the intangible items, such as the experiences of his leader Jimmy Cross and his love Martha, the emotional weights of each soldier is felt by the reader. This contrast in style affirms that they soldiers are human and provides emphasis to the weight these intangible objects have on the soldiers.
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
"The Things They Carried," is a fiction story-telling book about the Vietnam War by Tim O'Brien that describes the physical and emotional burdens the men carry not only during their time in Vietnam but also years after leaving the warfront. The book is a series of stories told with O'Brien as the main narrator. O'Brien tells of the journey he takes alongside his unit, revealing his fight for courage and decision to commit to the serving in the war. It is a groundbreaking meditation on war, memory, imagination and the redemptive power of storytelling.
During his deployment in Vietnam, Kiley experienced the dark elements of the war, indubitably changing his perspective of the war and him as a person-- from the deaths of his fellow soldiers to the unresolved issues, nightmares, and detachment from reality. What is left of Kiley is only a
Cultural associations give him confidence and maintain his individuality in a situation that calls for perfectly conforming soldiers so "Kiowa always took along his New Testament and a pair of moccasins
The Tale of Kieu is the most popular and adored Vietnamese literary work to date. It is a beautiful epic poem composed by Nguyen Du. The epic tells a breathtaking story of the woes of a young girl named Kieu. Through the life of Kieu, Du explores the concept of how much of our lives are preordained by fate or the cosmos, and how much is free will. From beginning to end, readers are captivated by the main character’s misfortune, resilience, and strong moral character. The Tale of Kieu is a riveting read that will challenge readers to think deeper about concepts such as fate, destiny, and karma.
Similarly, to many other veterans, O 'Brien has a difficult time going into everyday life, everyone is curious about his experiences, his life and what happened while he is away and he just doesn 't want to talk about it. "In ordinary conversation I never spoke much about the war, but certainly not in detail" (O 'Brien 157). O 'Brien didn 't know how to express his feelings. He did not want to bring people into the side of him he tried to shut out. Similarly, to Jensen, O 'Brien didn 't know how to talk about what was plaguing him. Although the people may not have understood where he was coming from, they care about him and would want the best for him although he knew they would never they would never be able to understand the full extent of what has happened while they were
Personally, I think O’brien’s emotions hit hard. You can’t just let go of something and someone like that. It’s something that will always be there in your mind. He said, “I’d wanted to take my daughter to the places I’d seen as a soldier. I wanted to show her the Vietnam that kept me awake at night.”He decided to show her his past, the important things in his life. If those things didn’t matter to him, would he still have took the time to show her? He not only showed her the field he fought on. He also showed her where his friend Kiowa had died. “Now, looking out at the field, I wondered if it was all a mistake. Everything was too ordinary. A quiet sunny day, and the field was not the I remembered”, he remembers it different. I picture he remembers it as a dark, dreary, noisy place. During their time at the field O’brien took his friends Kiowa’s moccasin’s and put them in some sort of “mush” where he passed away. He wanted to tell Kiowa that “he’d been a great friend, the very best”. “In a way, maybe I’d gone under with Kiowa, and now after two decades I’d finally worked my way
ccording to the 1990 Veterans organization report, one in every three Vietnam veterans that were in heavy combat suffers from post-traumatic stress; this includes thirty-three percent of soldiers who went to Vietnam, or nearly one million troops, who gave into post-traumatic stress. PTSD must have been common in the group of soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” due to the amount of burdens each soldier carried. Throughout the story, O’Brien demonstrates theme of psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He emphasizes these burdens by discussing the weight that the soldiers carry; their psychological and mental stress they have to undertake as each of them experience the brutality of the Vietnam War. The physical burden that each soldier carried was a necessity for them due to their emotional burdens that they carried.
Going into a war leaves a physical and emotional mark on a person. Each person carries the weight of the war differently. Those who carry the war emotionally are effected morally compared to those who physically carry it. People possess tangible items and intangible items that both have significance on how a person mentally reacts in different situations. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, we see how the intangible items have more of a prominent impact on the character’s life. This directly relates to today’s world and all the war we have encountered first hand. The direct impact from the indiscernible items has a more lasting and never changing outcome comparatively.
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.
The emotional impact of war had overpowered his will to live, causing him to choose the path of desertion, and later becoming an empty corpse at the base of a nearby mountain. Before leaving, Can explained, “I’m not afraid of dying, but this killing and shooting just goes on forever. I’m dying inside, bit by bit” (20). Similarly to Kien, the war had slowly numbed him and taken away his identity and his conduct. The only difference is that Kien had come to terms with his fate, whereas Can could never accept who he had become.
The theme of emotional weight and its effect on soldiers in the Vietnam conflict is one that O'Brien tackles. By placing physical items next to intangible things like emotions in a list format, O'Brien forces his reader to acknowledge the weight and effect of both of these things on the person who carries them. Lt. Jimmy Cross' inner fear that he was the cause of Ted Lavender's death was symbolized by Martha's pebble and letters. He felt that when he burned the pictures he was conquering his fear, even though no one can simply burn their emotions away. To a certain extent, these men are defined by the things that they carry, "And for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry," (O'Brien, 16).