Everyone knows what war is, but not everyone knows the effects of war on the soldiers who serve. In the fictional novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the nature of the Vietnam war is described through a series of flashbacks and stories. O’Brien uses storytelling to emphasize how the negative effects of the Vietnam war not only affects soldiers during the war, but afterwards as well. Mary Anne Bell, Norman Bowker and Tim O’Brien are three examples of how the gruesome nature of the war corrupts and individual over a period of time. Although women were not drafted into the Vietnam war, O’Brien uses Mary Anne Bell as an example of how the war not only changes men but women as well. The war submerges the once innocent and childish
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Throughout the course of the war, Tim develops a bitter personality that is the opposite of who he was prior to serving. When the new medic, Bobby Jorgensen, fails to treat Tim’s gun shot wound correctly and almost kills him, Tim is infuriated and seeks revenge. For example, Tim is laying in bed while he thinks of “ways to make Bobby Jorgenson feel exactly what [he] felt” (193) which shows the reader that Tim not only wants revenge, but he wants “to hurt him” (193). Although Tim does not want to literally kill Bobby, he wants a way to make things even between them because he is no longer able to fight alongside his old friends due to his injury. The bitterness and resentment Tim is experiencing causes him to realize that he has changed since the war began. However, Tim enjoys getting revenge on Bobby with the help of another soldier and says, “‘I was part of the night. I was the land itself . I was the atrocity. I was the beast on their lips--I was Nam--the horror, the war’” (209). In that moment, Tim felt that he was no longer himself, but he was the war itself. The horror and atrocity of the war is no longer solely emotional but it has become a part of who he is and he is not able to change it. Just like most of the soldiers, the war has evolved to identify who Tim is as a
Throughout the course of the war, Tim develops a bitter personality that is the opposite of who he was prior to serving. When the new medic, Bobby Jorgensen, fails to treat Tim’s gun shot wound correctly and almost kills him, Tim is infuriated and seeks revenge. For example, Tim is laying in bed while he thinks of “ways to make Bobby Jorgenson feel exactly what [he] felt” (193) which shows the reader that Tim not only wants revenge, but he wants “to hurt him” (193). Although Tim does not want to literally kill Bobby, he wants a way to make things even between them because he is no longer able to fight alongside his old friends due to his injury. The bitterness and resentment Tim is experiencing causes him to realize that he has changed since the war began. However, Tim enjoys getting revenge on Bobby with the help of another soldier and says, “‘I was part of the night. I was the land itself . I was the atrocity. I was the beast on their lips--I was Nam--the horror, the war’” (209). In that moment, Tim felt that he was no longer himself, but he was the war itself. The horror and atrocity of the war is no longer solely emotional but it has become a part of who he is and he is not able to change it. Just like most of the soldiers, the war has evolved to identify who Tim is as a