Theme Of Community In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

A person from the very beginning of his/her life is a part of something, a family, a nation, a race, a community etc. it is such a natural thing that people never realize how important the knowledge of the fact that they’re a part of something is. Mostly because the absence of it is fate to very few types of people and most commonly these people are soldiers. This problem is presented, as one of the issues the soldiers have to deal with, in a war novel “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien. He presents few cases where characters had to deal with this problem. The characters of the novel start as members of community, as a part of a civilization, but the war distances them from their homes, their community. They get sent to a completely strange …show more content…
The absence of the situation usual for them causes them to form a community between each other similar to the one they are used to. But this “community” is unstable and temporary, they are just held together by the situation and as soon as the situation changes and they split up, they realize that they aren’t a part of anything anymore, the community they grew up in evolved without them, making it unable for them to fit in again. They get stuck and it is impossible for them to get back into the normal flow. One of the most long term and destructive effects war has on the soldiers is that it excludes them from the rest of the world.

The dramatic change in one’s environment and lifestyle, being split from the situation one’s used to can cause the loss of identity. This is the case with one of O’Brien’s most dynamic characters, Mary Anne. She is introduced in the middle of the novel as the girlfriend of one of the soldiers, Mark Fossie. He