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Essay On Empathy In The Things They Carried

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Stories often use tragedy to evoke an empathetic response in readers. Empathy is important in story telling because without it the reader isn’t emotionally invested. Many of the stories we have covered in class use tragedy and death to enhance the empathy and identification the reader feels. Themes of tribulation often make the reader feel distressing emotions more than a story that uses less serious situations.
“The Things They Carried” by Tm O’Brien uses war, death, and emotional conflict to create empathy between the narrator and the reader. The author uses very harsh and vivid descriptions of war and death to express the severity of what’s taking place. “Ted Lavender was shot in the head… He lay with his mouth open. The teeth were broken… …show more content…
The way it is written feels very blunt and just tells what happens without going into any emotional detail. The passage lacks emotional phrases but still conveys emotion through the reader’s empathy with the soldiers. The reader isn’t being told what to feel, the story just shows what events occurred and lets the reader interpret how to respond emotionally. The story also uses empathy when it describes the emotional conflict between the soldiers and their individual methods of distancing their minds from the tragedy they face in war. Jimmy Cross used his preoccupation with Martha to mentally escape from the pressure and responsibility of leading his troops through Vietnam and keeping them safe under dyer circumstances. The emotional conflict that Jimmy goes through is understandable …show more content…
The ending twist of her husband appearing at home and Louise’s sudden death is unexpected and jarring. The tragic ending makes the story more attention-grabbing. The last sentence of the story gets the reader to wonder whether or not Louise ready “…died of heart disease-of joy that kills” or if she died from the realization that she is not going to be free like she told herself earlier. From the outside perspective of the characters who didn’t know her true thoughts she must have died from joy of seeing her husband again. From the readers perspective it’s possible to say that she died from the shock and disappointment of her husband’s return. The author uses empathy to get the reader thinking about Louise’s feelings and letting the reader come to their own conclusion as to how she died by having the reader think about how they would feel if they had just lost the freedom they had gotten excited and hopeful for. The story is effectively using empathy to leave the reader thinking more deeply about what events

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