All humans experience the different weights of life, whether in the form of a heavy bag or a past memory. O’Brien begins The Things They Carried opens with a detailed description of each object a soldier in the Vietnam War carries on their back. These men carry their own weight of their heavy bags, intricate guns, medical supplies, among other items. In addition to the physical weight each soldier carries, the psychological weight of their experiences are also outlined. A typical soldier carries his uplifting hopes, crushing realities, or horrific experiences in the war, accumulating and changing these mental packages continuously. As the first chapter of The Things They Carried, the concept of the mental weight of the war is central to the overall theme of the novel. While it may be more comfortable to put down your mental bag and rest, the sheer horror of the war keeps each soldier with a heavy pack for the rest of their lives, only being able to relieve tension by …show more content…
sharing your stories with others. O’Brien meets his first dilemma in the early stages of the novel: act as a good American and serve his country in the war, or forfeit his honor and dodge the draft.
As a young man with a promising life ahead, the draft is crushing to his reality. O’Brien has plans to go to a prestigious university, and enjoy a fulfilling career later on in his life. Simply dodging the draft would have been an easier option, yet O’Brien chooses to go to war, in fear that his cowardice would bring him mental anguish, and great shame to his family and community. O’Brien believes that in a perfect world, “we will behave like the heroes of our youth” and accept the danger and responsibility that accompanies going to war (66). He carries the mental burden of regret and embarrassment long before enlisting in the war, affirming the lifelong baggage that is outlined in the first chapter. Feelings and emotions are among some of the lighter luggage that soldiers carry, but the burden and stories of the dead weigh much
more. For O’Brien, stories are the only way to save the dead, preserving their personality, lost stories, hopes and dreams. In the brutal, war-torn life O’Brien has been forced into, friends indicate some of the last ties to the pure, outside world. Experiencing the terrors of Vietnam may be horrifying for an individual, but with your comrades, these horrors seem less intense. This is why the loss of their lives is much more significant, resulting in a heavy memory imprinted onto a soldier’s conscience. O’Brien experiences a great deal of loss in Vietnam, and chooses to preserve his lost friends in lives in the stories he tells. Within O’Brien’s stories “the dead sometimes smile and […] return to the world” creating a temporary reincarnation of those lost in the war (225). Not only can O’Brien save those lost in his memories, he can also relieve some of the weight that these losses have on his consciousness. All soldiers try to do what they can to relive this immense weight that they carry throughout their lives, and for O’Brien, this comes in the form of stories. Unfortunately, all humans have to deal with these pressures in their lives, choosing to relieve their mental tensions in a variety of methods. Soldiers have to live with all these stressors, as well as the weight of the horrors of war, something that you can never let down. Storytelling is crucial to provide relief for these experiences, allowing an individual to temporarily put down their bag and let someone else pick the weight back up. The weight of war is permanent, weighing down mentally stressed soldiers for the remainder of their lives, choose what you pick up carefully, or else you may be unable to handle the weight.
Although their physical loads did not weigh the soldiers down, they definitely became their necessities. Certain physical burdens became items that helped them escape from the reality of being at war. Even though these men had things they had to carry, they elected to carry more. The items they carried were intended to illustrate aspects of their personality. All of them carried great loads of memories, fears, and desires. These abstract objects were an essential part of them and therefore could not be put down. They continued to carry these emotional burdens along with them throughout the war. And as Lieutenant Jimmy Cross came to realize, “It was very sad…the things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to
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.
In the book “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses imagery, figurative language and repetition to convey his message. O’Brien’s purpose for story telling, is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. Many young men were sent to war, despite opposing it. They believed it was “wrong” to be sent to their deaths. Sadly, no one realizes a person’s significance until they die. Only remembering how they lived rather than acknowledging their existence when they were alive.
I wonder what it was like to witness the Vietnam War firsthand in combat. Well, in the short story, “The Things they Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, the theme was portrayed as the physical and emotional burdens that soldiers had to deal with during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story, the author goes into great detail about the heavy physical loads that the soldiers had to carry with them. Even the way O’Brien describes the many loads seems to grab your attention on the extreme conditions these men had to go through just to survive another day.
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.
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.
The point of stories it to tell a tale and inflict certain emotions onto the reader. Tim O’Brien uses this in his novel The Things They Carried. These stories were fictional but true, regaling his experiences of war. In the last chapter he writes that stories have the ability to save people. He does not mean “save” in a biblical sense, but as if a person saved the progress on a game they have been playing.
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.
Initially, in the chapter “On the Rainy River” we see O’Brien’s first interaction with his decision on whether he should go to the war or not, when he receives his draft letter. Immediately he has made up his mind not to go since he believes the war is immoral and that he is too good, too smart and too compassionate for this war. He later lists many accomplishments in his senior years such as being “the president of the student body, and his full-ride scholarship to Harvard” (pg.41), to show how much of a bet...
The title of the book itself couldn’t be more fitting. The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Tim O'Brien about soldiers trying to live through the Vietnam War. These men deal with many struggles and hardships. Throughout this essay I will provide insight into three of the the numerous themes seen throughout the novel: burdens, truth, and death.
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 soldier 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.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a complex piece of literature and understanding it can be approached many different ways. The story in this book is told in both the first and the third person. This creates a mixture of viewpoints and character perspectives that would not be possible otherwise. The Things They Carried is a fictional story based on the author's real life experience. In evidence to that, its mainly a fictional story because its made up but it’s also considered as an autobiography because of real life experiences. Primarily, truth in storytelling stands out as the strongest theme in the novel, for it is called
The summer that Tim O’Brien received the draft notice was one of both confusion and clarity. He spent that summer wrestling with his emotions in an attempt to find a solution. “The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause” (O’Brien, 38). Tim doesn’t truly understand the nature of the war, and because of this
One of the most perplexing components of human life is how there are a plethora of different variables that go into shaping a person to who they are. Whether it be on a microscopic level, such as our DNA, or the environment in which one lives in, or even whom a person chooses to affiliate themselves with, everything contributes to shaping and guiding them through life. In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, O'Brien adroitly incorporates the theme that one’s friends will guide and comfort them in, even in times of hardship, guilt, or pure terror, through the utilization of: juxtaposition, and anecdotes.
Conflict in a story can be either external or internal and the “conflict is the struggle that shapes the plot in the story” (Clugston, 2014, par 4). There are many factors that can determine the conflict and the resolution in literature. In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien the most obvious conflict is the Vietnam, War. To emphasize this the setting and characters all revolve around the war during that time. The fighting during the war was a physical conflict where the characters battled elements and even battles against one another as well as internal conflicts. Tim is the main character who battles conflict of his own personal turmoil in deciding whether to go to Vietnam War. He also battled his supposed love for Martha the girl he left