The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a fictional novel about American soldiers’ lives during and after the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien illustrates in his novel the physical and emotional burdens that the soldiers carry with them during and after their deployments. One of these emotional burdens, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is written about in particular depth compared to the more physical burdens the men carry. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health disorder caused by a traumatic event. Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Tim O’Brien vividly describes the soldiers’ slow and realistic descent into loneliness and worthlessness that
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They finally make out that the sounds are coming from what appears to be a local’s wedding party, but the problem is that the men are in the middle of a war torn jungle. The men then return to their base after bombing the surrounding jungle, saying only that, “[They’ll] never know—wrong frequency—you don 't even want to hear this. Then they salute the fucker and walk away, because cer-tain stories you don 't ever tell. (70)” Tim O’Brien utilizes this quote to describe the soldiers’ beginnings with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where the stress from the war has finally gotten to them and they are no longer able to contain their inner fears. These fears, after being built up throughout the soldiers’ deployments, are finally showing themselves through auditory hallucinations. Their experiences are related to PTSD victims where they, according to med.upnn.edu, “May involve auditory hallucinations and paranoid ideation where…they may hear a voice or set of voices that are not physically present.” Tim O’Brien therefore accurately depicts how a real soldier would become affected by PTSD, with the soldiers experiencing a slow descent into madness. Another example of Tim O’Brien using stories to …show more content…
One example of this is when the narrator kills a young Vietnamese fighter. The narrator witnesses the boy being shot and then contemplates to himself about what the boy did while he was alive, saying, “He was a citizen and a soldier and a scholar maybe. The man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics (119).” Tim O’Brien’s mind is trying to deal with the newly acquired grief he feels for the boy which begins his descent into madness. According to mayoclinic.org, one of the signs of PTSD is a person experiencing, “Uncontrollable thoughts about the traumatic event.” Tim O’Brien is experiencing these uncontrollable thoughts while his mind was fixating on the boy, describing his body in details such as, “ [The Boy’s] star shape hold was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out at the center of the star.” These details not only show Tim O’Brien fixating on the event that caused him to begin his descent into a life of PTSD, but also correctly describe how a real life soldier could easily fall into madness after experiencing combat during times of war. Another example of Tim O’Brien using current events to accurately describe the soldiers’ experiences with PTSD is the civilian’s misunderstanding of the Water Buffalo story. Tim O’Brien explains that
They finally make out that the sounds are coming from what appears to be a local’s wedding party, but the problem is that the men are in the middle of a war torn jungle. The men then return to their base after bombing the surrounding jungle, saying only that, “[They’ll] never know—wrong frequency—you don 't even want to hear this. Then they salute the fucker and walk away, because cer-tain stories you don 't ever tell. (70)” Tim O’Brien utilizes this quote to describe the soldiers’ beginnings with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, where the stress from the war has finally gotten to them and they are no longer able to contain their inner fears. These fears, after being built up throughout the soldiers’ deployments, are finally showing themselves through auditory hallucinations. Their experiences are related to PTSD victims where they, according to med.upnn.edu, “May involve auditory hallucinations and paranoid ideation where…they may hear a voice or set of voices that are not physically present.” Tim O’Brien therefore accurately depicts how a real soldier would become affected by PTSD, with the soldiers experiencing a slow descent into madness. Another example of Tim O’Brien using stories to …show more content…
One example of this is when the narrator kills a young Vietnamese fighter. The narrator witnesses the boy being shot and then contemplates to himself about what the boy did while he was alive, saying, “He was a citizen and a soldier and a scholar maybe. The man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics (119).” Tim O’Brien’s mind is trying to deal with the newly acquired grief he feels for the boy which begins his descent into madness. According to mayoclinic.org, one of the signs of PTSD is a person experiencing, “Uncontrollable thoughts about the traumatic event.” Tim O’Brien is experiencing these uncontrollable thoughts while his mind was fixating on the boy, describing his body in details such as, “ [The Boy’s] star shape hold was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out at the center of the star.” These details not only show Tim O’Brien fixating on the event that caused him to begin his descent into a life of PTSD, but also correctly describe how a real life soldier could easily fall into madness after experiencing combat during times of war. Another example of Tim O’Brien using current events to accurately describe the soldiers’ experiences with PTSD is the civilian’s misunderstanding of the Water Buffalo story. Tim O’Brien explains that