In our life, everyone carries different kinds of baggage which have different emotions, guilt, religion, pictures and also some special as well as sad memory. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien describes American soldiers who bear to take a physical and mental pain during the Vietnam war. Some soldiers have to carry emotional baggage after someone’s loss and some soldiers carry pictures of their loved ones, family or friends who die during the war. They also take different types of weapons such as guns and knives. As the Orlando Sentinel quoted, “The Things They Carried carries not only the soldiers’ intangible burdens-grief, terror, love, longing- but also the weight of memory, the terrible gravity of guilt. It carries them,
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In “Stockings” Tim O’Brien discusses Henry Dobbins, who carries his girlfriend stockings as a lucky charm in a war. He believes that stockings give him the ability to fight in a war and saves his life. So he kept carrying stockings even after he broke-up with his girlfriend, which shows love between them. Tim narrates that, “I can see him, wrapping his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush” (111). Then O’Brien talks about Kiowa’s death. He explains that “At one point, the boy remembered, he'd been showing Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend. He remembered switching on his flashlight” (163) and “The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result, his friend Kiowa was dead” (163). It shows a memory movement that Tim remembers Kiowa’s death scene and he feels like he is carrying a burden of Kiowa’s death because he blames himself for his death as well he carries some pictures of him as a memory of them. He also says that every time flashlight reminds him of Kiowa’s death and he felt guilty about it. Then he also talks about some gender role. In the novel, there is a certain type of burden that every man and woman in the society have to carry. Like the woman can’t go to war and they have to stay home taking care of the home as well as their children. Also, they are not courageous not as comparable …show more content…
They have to carry emotional, fear, love, guilt, friendship, responsibility of the family as well as fellow soldiers, reputation, and religion baggage. As Tim narrates in the beginning of the novel that, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations” (20). As well as in the novel every character has to carry the different baggage of burden with different weight of it. He also used fiction story to get it connecting with audiences and pull in some death characters alive or reborn them for happy ending so for soldier it becomes lessened
In “Stockings” Tim O’Brien discusses Henry Dobbins, who carries his girlfriend stockings as a lucky charm in a war. He believes that stockings give him the ability to fight in a war and saves his life. So he kept carrying stockings even after he broke-up with his girlfriend, which shows love between them. Tim narrates that, “I can see him, wrapping his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush” (111). Then O’Brien talks about Kiowa’s death. He explains that “At one point, the boy remembered, he'd been showing Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend. He remembered switching on his flashlight” (163) and “The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result, his friend Kiowa was dead” (163). It shows a memory movement that Tim remembers Kiowa’s death scene and he feels like he is carrying a burden of Kiowa’s death because he blames himself for his death as well he carries some pictures of him as a memory of them. He also says that every time flashlight reminds him of Kiowa’s death and he felt guilty about it. Then he also talks about some gender role. In the novel, there is a certain type of burden that every man and woman in the society have to carry. Like the woman can’t go to war and they have to stay home taking care of the home as well as their children. Also, they are not courageous not as comparable …show more content…
They have to carry emotional, fear, love, guilt, friendship, responsibility of the family as well as fellow soldiers, reputation, and religion baggage. As Tim narrates in the beginning of the novel that, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations” (20). As well as in the novel every character has to carry the different baggage of burden with different weight of it. He also used fiction story to get it connecting with audiences and pull in some death characters alive or reborn them for happy ending so for soldier it becomes lessened