In the chapter, On the Rainy River, of Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, the main character, is considered a coward. Mainly because he first wants to dodge the draft, and his responsibility to his country by going to Canada. He then chickens out and does not follow through with his plan. On the Rainy River chronicles his struggle to decide what he will do. Both the Declaration of Independence and Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God relate in different ways to his perspective on the war and his choices.…
“The Things They Carried” demonstrates the effects of war to someone both physically and mentally. The story takes place with O’Brien and Alpha company during the Vietnam war. He goes through and tell the reader what each character is carrying and also helps shed some light on each character's conscious thought. Some characters who dealt with these mental struggles really show to the reader some of Freud and Jung’s theories. These examples are Freud’s theory on a person's shadow, and Jung’s maiden and child archetype.…
Therapy of the Vietnam War In the book “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien describes his and others experiences during and after the Vietnam War. (1) O’Brien tells this story to explain the different ways that troops were able to cope with the killing, death, and changes that went on during the war so that they could continue fighting. (2) O’Brien included many first hand accounts of the different ways the troops coped with the experiences they had during the war and when they returned to life back home in America after their time of duty. (3) Some people in the war were able to cope or were not able to cope depending on how you look at it.…
Several times in the book, O’Brien lists out things that each soldier carried along with him while in Vietnam, always starting each sentence with “They carried.” Every time O’Brien creates one of these lists entailing things each soldier has on him, he is doing much more than simply telling the readers what they have. He is also addressing the mental and emotional weight of those things they carry. One of the most important quotes in the entire book is found on page seven when O’Brien lists the many weapons each man carries as well as their weight. The list is the most important list because in it, not only is the physical weight of the weapons each man has to carry described, but as is the mental toll that carrying these weapons takes.…
Soldiers of the Vietnam War viewed it as a complicated and unwanted conflict, as illustrated in Tim O’Brien’s historical novel The Things They Carried. The soldiers in the book faced fear, pain, and death for a war they didn’t believe in; they killed and died because society taught them to place strength above all else. The Vietnam War introduced a pressure to aspire for masculinity and twisted love into obsession which shaped the beliefs, ideas, actions, and feelings of the soldiers in an irreversibly harmful way. O’Brien uses masculinity as a driving force for the actions of all the soldiers. The desire for masculinity and fear of ridicule pushed many young men into the war, and resulted in a generation of men that "died and killed because…
In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien, purposely places the stories out of chronological order in order for readers to fully feel the impact and importance of the stories and make them come to life. He begins by writing tales as if they were real and later admits they were simply stories made up to keep the dead alive. A particular story that stood out was the piece surrounding Curt Lemon. Towards the beginning, there is a story of how Bob Kiley wrote a letter to Curt Lemon’s sister after his death and mentions how the man painted himself up and went trick-or-treating on Halloween in a village in “just boots and balls and an M-16”. By inserting this story in the beginning the readers automatically associate Curt Lemon…
This endangered the men and exposed them to extensive danger in the field. O’Briens memories from war help him create a true experience for the reader, “Like most of the literature of the Vietnam war, “The Things They Carried” is shaped by the personal combat experiences of the author” (“The Things They Carried” 320). He can make connections through the characters others would not be able to make, revealing true emotion. Readers praise O’Brien for his ability to blend facts with fiction in his war stories. One major motif in the book is the burdens carried by soldiers, O’Brien reveals all the feelings these men experience throughout different periods of the war process.…
Tim O’Brien has outstandingly portrayed what the life of a soldier in and out of the Army during the Vietnam War is in his own distinctive way of fictional writing. O’Brien is especially known for this book because of the way he switched from a narrative to a conversational writing style. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien constantly uses multiple literary devices to make his remarkable war stories seem as if the reader were actually there to experience the situation for themselves. Throughout the story, O’Brien tends to use symbolism to explain his short stories. Also, scattered through the stories dark satire can be found, which makes these stories a bit more intriguing.…
There are copious burdens passed onto each soldier through the hardships of the Vietnam war. These men fighting are young with their whole lives ahead of them, and have to carry these grievances. The stress O’Brien puts on these physical and emotional burdens shows how important it is not to forget what these men fought for and how much they…
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a reoccurring issue throughout the book The Things They Carried. The author, Tim O’Brien, tells war stories of several different men from the same Alpha Company in Vietnam. The harsh reality of the effects of the Vietnam War is described through the feelings and long-lasting impact it had on soldiers. The emotional and physiological problems faced by war veterans is addressed throughout this whole novel. Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is something people develop after witnessing or experiencing a terrifying event.…
The pressures were enormous”(15), what Tim is telling us is that the constant threat of death weighed heavily on the men’s shoulders, as they try to survive during the war. All these men carried emotions, from love to longing, to grief and fear that had great effects on their in war. In the end the soldiers at war carried many things either tangible or intangible that represent them and their struggles in Vietnam. The tangible things being the heavy weapons they carried showed how dangerous their everyday lives were at war.…
O’Brien uses these objects in order to explain the emotional burden that each soldier carry. Majority of soldiers that went to the Vietnam War were young. One of the many burdens that these soldiers have to deal with was being able to separate reality from fantasy. Cross was one of those soldiers, he was focus on Martha so much that he forgot his mission was to lead his man. He was obsess with Martha and all he could do was think about her.…
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a fictional novel about American soldiers’ lives during and after the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien illustrates in his novel the physical and emotional burdens that the soldiers carry with them during and after their deployments. One of these emotional burdens, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is written about in particular depth compared to the more physical burdens the men carry. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a mental health disorder caused by a traumatic event. Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.…
In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien shares numerous war stories to illustrate the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War. Throughout the book, the narrator, Tim O’Brien, shares stories about the soldiers in his platoon during the war. He shares what each soldier carried and its significance. He also discusses the effects of the war on the soldiers’ life, including his own, by using themes. O’Brien utilizes several themes in his stories, such as love and guilt.…
War never changes, it only causes change in the lives of the people affected by its outcome. War brings expected physical weight upon soldiers, but physical weight is not the only burden that soldiers carry. Soldiers carry unexpected emotional burdens that can cause them to become distracted from the real danger which is war. Emotional burdens can also outweigh the weight of physical burdens. In The things they Carried, O’Brien illustrates how emotional burdens are a weight that cannot be escaped in life, demonstrated through the use of imagery, strong emotion symbolism, and the voice of the speaker.…