Analyzing O Brien's The Things They Carried

“But the strain I am under, the uncertainty, the hunger, the danger, these hours with the dead man have made me desperate…”

Truth is the information and ideas that matter. Although war cannot be generalized, truth is a generalization of the feelings, lessons, and effects of an event. If someone was not present for an event, and they’re not going to ever witness it through a video, then the details of a story don’t matter. Only the lasting feelings and thoughts matter. In O’Brien’s piece, he talks about a man named Mitchell Sanders telling a story of 6 soldiers in the mountain. He later admits to lying about some details in the story. These lies don’t matter because there is no end to the story, making it true. In life when something happens, for example someone dying, death doesn’t end the story. The story goes on and on with other people experiencing aftershocks of emotions, grievance, depression, and other things could happen with it. A story never ends with one event, it goes on and on affecting life for years to come. There

Stress is one of the key factors that determines how a person understands reality. Paul, the narrator of this book, is under an excessive amount of stress. First of all, his body is physically trying to survive. He is food deprived and he’s constantly in and out of self-defense mode because of the enemy and consistent weapon fire. Additionally, his mind is under an excessive amount of stress. Paul is in the middle of a war, his mother is dying, his friends are dying, death surrounds him, and he has firsthand killed a man to protect himself and his hiding place. Mentally, he has experienced more stress and trauma than most of the people his age. His transition from reckless teenage years