The Psychological Effects of War It is well known that war is a highly controversial and extremely difficult topic to delineate. Capturing the essence of war is an enormous challenge for authors because the horror is often too hard to be described with words. Writers also have to be tremendously meticulous when writing their story to ensure that their work is an accurate portrayal of what war really is. One of the most successful authors able to perform such a feat is Tim O’Brien, who wrote The Things They Carried, which is a compilation of fictional short stories relating to the Vietnam War that are all based upon the author’s own experience from serving in this war. In these stories, the protagonist is a fictional version of the author
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Throughout the story, readers are able to understand how many of the characters have evolved because of the war. First of all, Norman Bowker is one of the participants of war and his mindset undergoes a severely negative change due to that traumatic experience. Additionally, Mary Anne Bell is another character whose interests and beliefs change drastically as a result of the war. Lastly, Rat Kiley experiences the most significant psychological transformation because of his involvement in the war. As can be seen, the primary theme of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is that war can greatly alter one’s idiosyncratic qualities. To begin, Norman Bowker is one of the characters whose thoughts and personality shift due to the war. For one, he experiences a severe case of survivor’s guilt after the death of his beloved comrade, Kiowa—a kind Native American soldier who is assigned to the Alpha Company. On one night, when the platoon is attacked by the Viet Cong while they are camped on a field riddled with feces, Norman hears Kiowa’s desperate cry for help, runs out in search of him, and finds the poor American Indian helplessly sinking into the ground; Bowker fails to pull his friend out of the muck, leaving him feeling an immense amount of guilt for not being able to save his …show more content…
One example is when Kiley takes his anger and frustration out on a defenseless baby buffalo after the death of Curt Lemon; before the death of Lemon, Rat Kiley had a fairly cheerful and positive personality. He and Curt were close friends and Kiley even states that Curt was “...his best friend in the world,” which makes the lost even more devastating (O’Brien 72). The both of them would goof around by playing catch with a smoke grenade and one day, Curt Lemon accidentally steps on a landmine in the midst of the recreational activity; thus, Lemon immediately dies as a result of the fatal blow while leaving Kiley traumatized and distraught. A while later, Rat Kiley shoots at a helpless, young water buffalo that the platoon runs into, and after the buffalo succumbs to its injuries, suffering a painful death, Kiley begins to cry and walks away; here, it is evident that Kiley’s once optimistic disposition has transformed into an extremely pessimistic one, indicated when he goes so far as to torture an innocent buffalo as a way of relieving himself of all his pent up emotions. Furthermore, it becomes clearer that Rat Kiley’s mindset has changed when he starts to imagine that all of the bugs in Vietnam have set out to hunt him down and kill him. Many days prior, Kiley did not utter a single word, but all of a sudden, he would ramble about killer bugs that are,
Throughout the story, readers are able to understand how many of the characters have evolved because of the war. First of all, Norman Bowker is one of the participants of war and his mindset undergoes a severely negative change due to that traumatic experience. Additionally, Mary Anne Bell is another character whose interests and beliefs change drastically as a result of the war. Lastly, Rat Kiley experiences the most significant psychological transformation because of his involvement in the war. As can be seen, the primary theme of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is that war can greatly alter one’s idiosyncratic qualities. To begin, Norman Bowker is one of the characters whose thoughts and personality shift due to the war. For one, he experiences a severe case of survivor’s guilt after the death of his beloved comrade, Kiowa—a kind Native American soldier who is assigned to the Alpha Company. On one night, when the platoon is attacked by the Viet Cong while they are camped on a field riddled with feces, Norman hears Kiowa’s desperate cry for help, runs out in search of him, and finds the poor American Indian helplessly sinking into the ground; Bowker fails to pull his friend out of the muck, leaving him feeling an immense amount of guilt for not being able to save his …show more content…
One example is when Kiley takes his anger and frustration out on a defenseless baby buffalo after the death of Curt Lemon; before the death of Lemon, Rat Kiley had a fairly cheerful and positive personality. He and Curt were close friends and Kiley even states that Curt was “...his best friend in the world,” which makes the lost even more devastating (O’Brien 72). The both of them would goof around by playing catch with a smoke grenade and one day, Curt Lemon accidentally steps on a landmine in the midst of the recreational activity; thus, Lemon immediately dies as a result of the fatal blow while leaving Kiley traumatized and distraught. A while later, Rat Kiley shoots at a helpless, young water buffalo that the platoon runs into, and after the buffalo succumbs to its injuries, suffering a painful death, Kiley begins to cry and walks away; here, it is evident that Kiley’s once optimistic disposition has transformed into an extremely pessimistic one, indicated when he goes so far as to torture an innocent buffalo as a way of relieving himself of all his pent up emotions. Furthermore, it becomes clearer that Rat Kiley’s mindset has changed when he starts to imagine that all of the bugs in Vietnam have set out to hunt him down and kill him. Many days prior, Kiley did not utter a single word, but all of a sudden, he would ramble about killer bugs that are,