The Vietnam Conflict introduced many side effects that were detrimental to the soldiers that participated. These effects range from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), general disdain from the public, and even loss of innocence. As seen by William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, loss of innocence is a topic associated with traumatic events that authors utilize to portray how inimical they are to humans. Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, exemplifies this in his writing. He applies vivid characterization and metaphors in order to convey the loss of innocence.
The Things They Carried carefully tracks its many characters and their augmentation throughout the novel using characterization. Mary Anne Bell, the “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, and her transformation clarifies how the conflict impacts those that weren’t drafted into combat. She was only in Vietnam for about a month until her multiple metamorphoses had concluded. The final product was a girl …show more content…
At this point, the author institutes using a flawed perception of the truth by using specific description about the dead soldier in question. The dead soldier “was not a fighter...liked books...He hoped his heart would never be tested...He hoped the Americans would go away” (O’Brien 125). It initiates a sense of skepticism in the reader. Temple Cone of the U.S. Naval Academy, however, argues that this dead soldier “is a metaphor for O’Brien’s own loss of innocence”(6). The overall characterization of the “soldier” describes him as innocent in respect to their personality, and when he lost his life, his innocence did as well, which is most likely why Cone forms this argument. O’Brien’s use of the metaphor of the soldier enabled him to tell the story of how he lost his innocence in a way that the audience would understand: by comparing it to the killing of a
The Things They Carried carefully tracks its many characters and their augmentation throughout the novel using characterization. Mary Anne Bell, the “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, and her transformation clarifies how the conflict impacts those that weren’t drafted into combat. She was only in Vietnam for about a month until her multiple metamorphoses had concluded. The final product was a girl …show more content…
At this point, the author institutes using a flawed perception of the truth by using specific description about the dead soldier in question. The dead soldier “was not a fighter...liked books...He hoped his heart would never be tested...He hoped the Americans would go away” (O’Brien 125). It initiates a sense of skepticism in the reader. Temple Cone of the U.S. Naval Academy, however, argues that this dead soldier “is a metaphor for O’Brien’s own loss of innocence”(6). The overall characterization of the “soldier” describes him as innocent in respect to their personality, and when he lost his life, his innocence did as well, which is most likely why Cone forms this argument. O’Brien’s use of the metaphor of the soldier enabled him to tell the story of how he lost his innocence in a way that the audience would understand: by comparing it to the killing of a