Tim O Brien Themes

The book “The Things They carried” by Tim O’Brien was about the Vietnam war. One of the things that is in the book is that there is more than what is just on the surface of the war. It puts a personal spin on the dry material that is usually read about wars. Tim O’Brien was in the Vietnam war when he was a young man, and he uses these experiences to write both fictional stories and nonfictional stories about this war. When a person is about to start reading this book they must go into it prepared. This isn’t like other books that sugarcoat subjects that people find hard to talk about. Tim O’Brien shows the true beast of the Vietnam war. He shows the true grit, grime, and gore that was prevalent all around the people who were sent over there. …show more content…
At times it shows the tortured soul of one who had to go through all of those terrible events. One of the ending morals of the story includes how it never exactly ends.“In a war, you’re up against not just your own mortality, but you’re up against a lifetime of memory. Wars don’t end when you sign a peace treaty. They go on and on in memory.” (Hicks 38) The things that are seen, or experienced during a war like the Vietnam War are always remembered. Those gruesome memories are in parts of the mind that tend to spring out at you at unexpected moments. The memory is a living breathing animal in people’s head, when something traumatizing like war, or extreme violence, happens it turns that animal into a monster. This isn’t something that can be ran away from, even though many try. This follows after you in your everyday life, and these people had to learn how to live with it jumping out at you all the time with no help. “I don’t believe you heal from horror and evil. You deal with it, cope with it, pledge to do better. You try to learn and try to be more morally courageous. Healing is an inappropriate word. Some sores are best left open so that we don’t forget, so that we learn and remember.” (Hicks