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Vietnam In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

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Everyone has gone somewhere or seen something for a second time that they hadn’t before. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried “Field Trip” chapter it is sort of like Deja Vu- going somewhere that you’ve been before although not having the same experience with it. O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried to help readers get a taste of what it was like to fight in the Vietnam war and the aftermath of it. In the chapter "Field Trip", O'Brien uses imagery and compares the experience of returning to Vietnam between him and his daughter to show the significance that the war had on his life.
Throughout the book, O’Brien uses each chapter as an essay to tell the different stories about the war with everything from him thinking about fleeing to Canada to escape the war to Kiowa’s death. In “Field Trip”, O’Brien returns to Vietnam 10 years after the war is over with his daughter Kathleen. O’Brien and Kathleen spend the first part of the chapter going to all of the …show more content…

Kathleen is only ten years old and is treating being in Vietnam as a “vacation” whereas although enjoying the touristy sites, O’Brien wants to revisit some of the places he saw during the war to get a sense of closure on them such as Kiowa’s death. On page 177, O’Brien has a conversation with Kathleen after taking some pictures and she asks, “can we go now” to which O’Brien replies, “in a minute. Just relax”. This quote is an example of the difference in significance of Vietnam between the two of them. O’Brien doesn’t want to rush and takes his time remembering what happened and getting a sense of closure whereas Kathleen is ready to go and move on to the next thing because that spot holds no significance to her. By comparing his daughter’s experience and his own, O’Brien shows that although he was reliving the memories of the war that it was ten years later and he was with different people on “vacation”, not fighting a

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