Have you ever heard of Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Well if you haven 't, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “PTSD is a serious potentially debilitating condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a natural disaster, serious accident, terrorist incident, sudden death of a loved one, war, violent personal assault such as rape, or other life-threatening events. Research has recently shown that PTSD among military personnel may be a physical brain injury, specifically of damaged tissue, caused by blasts during combat.” Throughout The Things They Carried by Tim Obrien, Many American soldiers during the Vietnam war face emotional and psychological conditions. The story gives the readers
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In "The Lives of the Dead" O 'Brien tells a story that holds so much meaning. Spring of 1965, a nine-year-old named Linda stole O 'Brien 's heart. The story behind the love was the red cap Linda wore every day until a classmate pulled it off revealing her poor bald head. Lind has a brain tumor that will sooner or put her to rest. Later on in the chapter, Linda passes away which put O 'Brien in love with going to bed a night so he could dream about the love of his life. What 's the point of this story? O 'Brien gives us the point that it didn 't matter that Linda was dead. He states, the things about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that other might dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head" (218). Stories are just another way to keep the dead alive, the soldiers told stories and half the time they didn 't have to be true, it just helped them believe that the dead are still with them. "Notes" is also another showing of soldier’s life after the war. In particular, "Notes" Is hand in hand with the chapter "Speaking of Courage" which is the story of Kiowa 's death and how Norman Bowker thinks about it. "Notes" explain the death of Norman Bowker after he went home after the war. Bowker Hung himself in a locker room of a YMCA at his hometown. Life after war was useless to him, Bowker wrote a letter to O 'Brien explaining the reason why living after war was pointless to him. Bowker worked at many jobs but didn 't last more than ten weeks. He also tried to go back to college but it just didn 't work out. His family was very supportive when he came home but he spent his days in bed. Bowker wrote, "there 's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general,. My life, I mean. It 's almost like I got killed over in Nam…Hard to describe" (150). This letter haunted O 'Brien for months, knowing that
In "The Lives of the Dead" O 'Brien tells a story that holds so much meaning. Spring of 1965, a nine-year-old named Linda stole O 'Brien 's heart. The story behind the love was the red cap Linda wore every day until a classmate pulled it off revealing her poor bald head. Lind has a brain tumor that will sooner or put her to rest. Later on in the chapter, Linda passes away which put O 'Brien in love with going to bed a night so he could dream about the love of his life. What 's the point of this story? O 'Brien gives us the point that it didn 't matter that Linda was dead. He states, the things about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that other might dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head" (218). Stories are just another way to keep the dead alive, the soldiers told stories and half the time they didn 't have to be true, it just helped them believe that the dead are still with them. "Notes" is also another showing of soldier’s life after the war. In particular, "Notes" Is hand in hand with the chapter "Speaking of Courage" which is the story of Kiowa 's death and how Norman Bowker thinks about it. "Notes" explain the death of Norman Bowker after he went home after the war. Bowker Hung himself in a locker room of a YMCA at his hometown. Life after war was useless to him, Bowker wrote a letter to O 'Brien explaining the reason why living after war was pointless to him. Bowker worked at many jobs but didn 't last more than ten weeks. He also tried to go back to college but it just didn 't work out. His family was very supportive when he came home but he spent his days in bed. Bowker wrote, "there 's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general,. My life, I mean. It 's almost like I got killed over in Nam…Hard to describe" (150). This letter haunted O 'Brien for months, knowing that