“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” Norman Cousins. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien ,the main characters are Tim and his platoon are fighting in a wasted war in the middle of Vietnam. This book is a collection of memories that are not in order of how it happened. Also it was written 20 years after the war Tim O’Brien intended audience was other soldiers and he discussed the themes of mortality/death and shame/guilt.
In the chapter of “sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” has a theme of mortality/death. When Mary Anne first gets there she does not know what she is doing or happening in there. Then she cuts her hair and helps with the injured. Then goes on the night mission, finally she started going out by herself. Mary Anne the girl when she got there is not the same at the end. So she die and she will not be the same ever again. “They were very much in love, full of dreams, and in the ordinary flow of their lives, the whole scenario might well have come true.” (O’Brien 90). Mary Anne had a her life planned out and was all perfect and it was going to be one big happy ending. She did not know what Vietnam was going to be like and how it was going to affect her and her life.
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“The grief took him by the throat and squeezed and would not let go. ‘Lost”, he kept whispering.” (O’Brien 100). This is when Mark realized that Mary Anne will not be the same girl when she first got there. She was lost, and will not be the same. It is like if Mary Anne died or went missing. Mary Anne thought going to Vietnam was going to be a good thing. But then she started helping and going on mission. Mark tried to help Mary Anne but it just go worries. Mary Anne was lost and it seemed like she was missing or die. The chapter of “The Ghost Soldiers” has a theme of morality and death. O’Brien was shot 2 times and was at a battalion supply section. Jorgenson was the medic and he was new so it took some time before he helped O’Brien. O’Brien wanted revenge on Jorgenson. “Ou try to block it out but can’t. You see ghosts, You blink and shake your head. Bullshit, you tell yourself” (O’Brien 195). O’Brien realized that he may die. He try to black out the idea of dying and the pain of it. Also telling yourself that you're not going to. “It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and anger has a way of bringing you fully awake.” (O’Brien 183). O’Brien is saying that you can not understand or feel what someone is feeling unless you have experienced death or dying. O’Brien tried to think that you are not going to die or know when you are going to die or get shoot O’Brien is saying you can not understand someone or something unless you know what they are going through. O’Brien said you do not know how people will react to death and how they will process it. However, the chapter “In the Field” has a theme of shame and guilt. In this chapter, Kiowa’s death has an impact on the men. Especially Lt. Cross, he feels that it was his fault that Kiowa died. “Looking out toward the river, he knew for a fact that he had made a mistake setting up here” (O’Brien 157). Lt. Cross knew that he should have found higher ground to camp. He shames himself for not making that decision. Even though Lt. Cross did not know that Kiowa was going to die where they were, he still felt responsible for the death of his friend. He feels guilty that this young man died and he could of done something to stop it from happening. Also the chapter “Love” has a theme of shame and guilt. In the chapter “Love” Jimmy Cross went to visit Tim in Minnesota. They talked about the thing they carried with them throughout their lives with photographs. Cross says he has never forgiven himself for Ted’s death. Then they talked about the things that reminded their fellow troops of love and happiness. “...he’d never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death” (O’Brien 26). Cross feels like Ted’s death was his fault. It was something that never went away. He also felt ashamed in himself because he was in-charge of him and his life and now he is dead. Cross now is more aware of his surroundings and pays more attention. The themes of mortality/death and shame/guilt are brought up in Tim O’Brien book The Things They Carried, with the intended audience being the other soldiers.
Mortality and death has an impact on people's lives. Also, some people feel shame/guilt for their lives because of something happened to someone like death but it did not happen to them. Soldiers experience death and fear of death that makes them feel guilty because nothing happened to them or feel responsible for it. The reader felt the novel was insightful because Tim O’Brien showed the reader what Vietnam as like on a soldier's point of view and how hard it was on them. Also, how they change from the war and how they are not the same when they come
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In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
Some tangible things they carried with them were remind them of home and provide them with some luck, while others helped keep them alive during the war time. The intangible things the men carried helped the men be carried through the war and survive. Each man carried something different both mentally and physically. Tim O’Brien saw and experienced these men and what they had to go through during this time of war. The chapter “The Things They Carried” shapes each character into who he was during the war and shows us the reality of the Vietnam
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. Author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the burden of guilt when he loses one of his men to an ambush.
In conclusion the soldiers use dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions which all allow an escape from the horrors they had to go through in Vietnam. These coping mechanisms allowed the men to continue to fight and survive the war. They wouldn’t have been able to carry on if it wasn’t for the outlets these methods provided. Without humor, daydreaming, and violent actions, the war would have been unbearable for the men, and detrimental to their lives going forward.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War, but in reality, the book centers around the relationships the men make, their connections to the world they left behind and the connections that they formed to Vietnam. The stories are not war stories, but stories about love, respect and the bonds made between men when they spend day after day fighting just to stay alive.
"War is hell . . . war is mystery terror and adventure and courage and discovery and despair and . . . war is nasty (80)." When it all happened it was not like "a movie you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait (211)." O'Brien and the rest of the solders were just ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. They needed to tell blatant lies" to "bring the body and soul back together (239)." They needed to eliminate the reality of death. As ordinary people they were not capable of dealing with the engulfing realities of death and war therefore they needed to create coping skills. O'Brien approaches the loss of his childhood friend, Linda, in the same way he approaches the loss of his comrades in the war as this is the only way he knows how to deal with death. A skill he learned, and needed, in the Vietnam War.
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
This contrast in style affirms that the soldiers are human and provides emphasis to the weight these intangible objects have on the soldiers. An emotional burden that the men must carry is the longing for their loved ones. The Vietnam War forced many young men to leave their loved ones and move halfway across the world to fight a questionable war in an unfamiliar land.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In The Things They Carried there are three instances in which the main character and author Tim O’Brien experiences first hand the tragedy of death. During his storytelling O’Brien describes the man he kills, next he describes the first death he witnesses in Vietnam and finally his first experience early in life with the death of Linda. O’Brien tells the reader how he has able to cope and learn with each experience of death. In the book, The Things They Carried O’Brien tells how he copes with death in his own way and how his understanding of death evolves throughout the novel.
The war story named "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" relates to the third part of the quote, which says "where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them". The story was about a girl that was changed dramatically by the Vietnam War.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.
Imagine walking through a rainy, humid tropical rain forest with forty to fifty pounds of precious luggage strapped to your back wondering where and when the next shot will be fired. Wondering whether or not you will live to see another day of combat with your brothers. American soldiers carried this burden with them every day while in combat during the Vietnam War. In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he explains the positive and negative effects of the things that soldiers carried with them during the Vietnam War.
The reality of war changed many soldiers' lives because of nightmares from firefights and small skirmishes to bombings and atrocities. Many places from Saigon to Khe Sanh are filled with stories from many veterans. A letter from a marine fighting in Khe Sanh said to his Parents "Since we began, we have lost 14 KIA and 44 men WIA. Our company is cut down to half strength, and I think we will be going to Okinawa to regroup. I hope so anyway because I have seen enough of war and its destruction." From the death of close friends any person's emotions would crumble. A normal everyday business person in the shoes of this soldier wouldn't last a day. The experience a soldier goes through will change his view on life forever. This is just showing how it affects people. Seeing death and killing on a daily basis. The random occurrence of death would truly disturb any person. Seeing the death of friends and mangled bodies of South Vietnamese villagers left by Vietcong guerillas, the soldiers were left with the vivid visions of the bodies.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.