Many young children dream of being princesses or superheroes when they grow up and the rest of the world permits them to live in this fantasy world while they can. Inevitably, though, one day, the children will realize that the world is not the fairytale they once imagined it to be. A piece of their innocence and bliss slips away. The idea of loss of innocence has been popular in literature for ages. One of the best known novels in the world, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, follows the story of a young girl as she discovers that her town is not the picturesque place she once thought it was, but is instead filled with people quick to judge, especially when it comes to race. Similarly, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried uses the theme
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Throughout the anthology, which focuses on the author’s experience in the Vietnam war, O’Brien comes back to the idea that war takes away the innocence of the young boys who fight in it by using literary techniques such as symbolism and juxtaposition. In the short story “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien implements the theme of loss of innocence by using symbolism. One soldier in the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries around pictures of and letters from a girl he knew back home. When obsessing over one of the pictures he has of her playing volleyball, he thinks, “She wore white gym shorts. Her legs, he thought, were almost certainly the legs of a virgin, dry and without hair, the left knee cocked and carrying her entire weight, which was just over 100 pounds.” This description of Martha portrays her as being very innocent, and these pictured of and letters from Martha are a symbol of that innocence. Many aspects of the photo’s description include aspects which are very symbolic of innocence. Cross says “she wore white gym shorts,” and white is often a symbol in innocence and purity. Her legs are described as “almost certainty the …show more content…
The narrator describes how one of the boys in the platoon named Rat Kiley was changed by the war. O’Brien writes, “He's nineteen years old— it's too much for him—so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead” (O’Brien 66). This description of Rat Kiley is a bit shocking as it draws a sharp contrast between his youth, a trait often equated with innocence, and his harsh words that reflect a much rougher character than might be expected of a nineteen-year-old boy. He is painted as a character just verging on the edge of innocence. He has “big said gentle killer eyes.” Often, the idea of having big eyes is associated with innocence, but at the same time Rat is described as a killer, someone who is guilty in the worst way. He never would have been a killer if he hadn’t come to the war, and he probably would still be a normal, innocent, nineteen-year-old boy. Rat Kiley’s big eyes and youth represent how innocent and naïve he really should be at this point in this life, but O’Brien demonstrates how he has lost that innocence because of the things he has experienced during war by juxtaposing his youth with the harsh language that he
Throughout the anthology, which focuses on the author’s experience in the Vietnam war, O’Brien comes back to the idea that war takes away the innocence of the young boys who fight in it by using literary techniques such as symbolism and juxtaposition. In the short story “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien implements the theme of loss of innocence by using symbolism. One soldier in the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries around pictures of and letters from a girl he knew back home. When obsessing over one of the pictures he has of her playing volleyball, he thinks, “She wore white gym shorts. Her legs, he thought, were almost certainly the legs of a virgin, dry and without hair, the left knee cocked and carrying her entire weight, which was just over 100 pounds.” This description of Martha portrays her as being very innocent, and these pictured of and letters from Martha are a symbol of that innocence. Many aspects of the photo’s description include aspects which are very symbolic of innocence. Cross says “she wore white gym shorts,” and white is often a symbol in innocence and purity. Her legs are described as “almost certainty the …show more content…
The narrator describes how one of the boys in the platoon named Rat Kiley was changed by the war. O’Brien writes, “He's nineteen years old— it's too much for him—so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead” (O’Brien 66). This description of Rat Kiley is a bit shocking as it draws a sharp contrast between his youth, a trait often equated with innocence, and his harsh words that reflect a much rougher character than might be expected of a nineteen-year-old boy. He is painted as a character just verging on the edge of innocence. He has “big said gentle killer eyes.” Often, the idea of having big eyes is associated with innocence, but at the same time Rat is described as a killer, someone who is guilty in the worst way. He never would have been a killer if he hadn’t come to the war, and he probably would still be a normal, innocent, nineteen-year-old boy. Rat Kiley’s big eyes and youth represent how innocent and naïve he really should be at this point in this life, but O’Brien demonstrates how he has lost that innocence because of the things he has experienced during war by juxtaposing his youth with the harsh language that he