ipl-logo

Azar And Dobbins In The Things They Carried

841 Words4 Pages

In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien we are introduced to the characters Azar and Henry Dobbins. These characters have many differences, especially in personality traits. O’ Brien didn’t necessarily include them in the text to show us some big secret that we didn’t notice, but for the purpose of this report, he did. The characters Azar and Henry Dobbins can be seen as representations of the different ways a person might react during a war or some other traumatic experience. Azar is a character who could be seen as the cruel, unforgiving, and truly animalistic side of the population as a race. During the war, many things happen to O’Brien including almost dying of shock after getting shot in the butt. The medic at the time was a boy named …show more content…

Dobbins is the person who cares and who tries to keep his head on his shoulders even though it’s hard, while Azar uses mockery and disrespect to stay calm, “That night, after we'd marched away from the smoking village, Azar mocked the girl's dancing. He did funny jumps and spins. He put the palms of his hands against his ears and danced sideways for a while, and then backwards, and then did an erotic thing with his hips,” (86). Azar did this dance because he didn’t understand, he mocked a girl who danced for her dead relatives because he didn’t understand. Sadly, he’s not the only one who uses mockery to make himself understand, to make himself feel better about a situation, a lot of people do this as well. Dobbins appreciated the girl’s dance enough to stand up for her and threaten Azar, “Dobbins, who moved gracefully for such a big man, took Azar from behind and lifted him up high and carried him over to a deep well and asked if he wanted to be dumped in. Azar said no. ‘All right, then,’ Henry Dobbins said, ‘dance right.’” (86). Dobbins is compassionate enough to understand grieving, but this doesn’t make him a pacifist he’s also stressed about this war, but instead of letting the idiocy of a comrade get to him, he keeps his temper in check and threatens the guy instead. Dealing with a stressful is challenging but possible in any way you can. Dobbins and Azar are representations of the different ways people can deal with stress and O’Brien demonstrates this

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    928 Words  | 4 Pages

    O’Brien again created a vignette story where the reader would question what is real and what is not. Especially after reading that “Dobbins was invulnerable. Never wounded, never a scratch” (112). Even after their breakup, he continues to wear it, thinking it still has the power to protect him. The author shows how American soldiers can not think rationally anymore, but think based on superstition.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1000 Words  | 4 Pages

    Moreover, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror love longing… They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing,” (O’brien 20). With this in mind, O’brien creates a plot in the beginning of what these men in war had to experience and mentally prepare for to see others hurt

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Novel Analysis

    1469 Words  | 6 Pages

    In his book, O’Brien has three separate experience with the deaths of the enemy. Two instances involved military personal but one, a civilian in Vietnam. Within in four days of fighting in Vietnam, O’Brien sees his first dead body. But death does not shock him, but the disrespect the other men show towards the dead man. They “shook the old man’s hand… one by one the other did it too.

    Read More

  • Tim O Brien Quotes And Analysis

    599 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this book, Tim O'brien uncovers all his encounters in insight about the war; and also stories about his kindred warriors, and makes a genuine, yet over the top about them. He clarifies how he feels through stories that are hard to unmistakably distinguish as "genuine." This book has a great deal of subjects, demise and brutality is one of the real topics. A major topic and point in Tim O'Brien's novel is what number of circumstances hurt the warriors' lives.

    Read More

  • Interpreting Connections In The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

    521 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien was shot in the butt during the war and was sent to a base camp to recover. He says, “I felt something shift inside me. It was anger, partly, but it was also a sense of pure and total loss. I didn’t fit anymore. They were soldiers, I wasn’t.”

    Read More

  • War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    643 Words  | 3 Pages

    O’Brien states, “I survived, but it’s not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war” Tim O’Brien stays back and goes to war, not because he wanted to be a hero for his country but the fear of

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis

    644 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the character, O’Brien, is shot during combat. The medic on duty, being a rooky, is unsure of how to help O’Brien. He is later hospitalized and unable to fight anymore. When he finally returns to combat duty, he feels out of place and no longer at home with the other soldiers. He becomes obsessed with exacting his revenge on the medic.

    Read More

  • How Does Mitchell Sanders Characterize Henry Dobbin

    286 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even so, O’Brien casts Dobbins in a good light, especially compared to Ted Lavender. A strong

    Read More

  • The Ghost Soldiers Tim O Brien Character Analysis Essay

    844 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tim dealt through the war by blaming himself, blaming others, and by taking revenge against those who hurt him in some way or form. Azar on the other hand, Azar never blamed himself when he did something wrong, he always blame everyone but himself and that was his way of dealing with the war. Azar’s war of coping with the through making jokes about serious matter like in the chapter “Style” when the girl lost her home and her entire family, she was dancing in the rain as a coping mechanism but Azar was making fun of the girl and asking why she was dancing under the rain day and night without eating. In a way Azar felt and behaved like a kid throughout the book because he did stupid stuff like when he blew away Ted Lavender’s puppy and he was trying to defend himself with the logic that he is just a kid and shouldn’t be in the war in the first place. Throughout the book, Azar still carries this kid-like mentality with him like when he joined Tim on the revenge mission to scare Bobby during his night watch war was still comparing it to a game of war that little children play at their homes “----That’s all this is.

    Read More

  • Damage In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    438 Words  | 2 Pages

    This was a result of what they went through and how they reacted to it at the moment. “But, Henry Dobbins who moved gracefully for a big man took Azar from behind and lifted him up high and carried him over to a deep well and asked if he wanted to be dumped in. Azar said. “Alright then,” Henry Dobbins said, “Dance right.” In this section, you see the two perspectives of how soldiers felt.

    Read More

  • The Happiest Refugee

    797 Words  | 4 Pages

    Do writes with great wisdom and courage, when facing problems throughout his memoir. For example, Do has a comedy gig, and the bouncer doesn 't let him in a first. However Do stands up for himself, saying “You go in and tell the manager that Anh Do, the comedian is here. Tell him to come out and get me. And if he doesn 't come out in five minutes, I 'm going home,” (Pg 213).

    Read More

  • Emotional Burdens In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1509 Words  | 7 Pages

    The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.

    Read More

  • PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1504 Words  | 7 Pages

    Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).

    Read More

  • What Is The Theme Of Violence In 'My Papa's Waltz'

    664 Words  | 3 Pages

    This portrays emotional abuse that explores the possibilities of a toxic father-son dynamic. The line “But I hung on like death” then continues to imply that the father’s careless attitude is hurting the little boy internally. These images give insightful pictures to an unhealthy relationship caused by psychological violence. The speaker then adds a more positive image of dancing with, “Such waltzing was not easy” and “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,”. Although most associate Waltzing as an enjoyable dance, it is in reality a metaphor that represents the relationship he has with his father.

    Read More

  • Literature Review On Stress

    4793 Words  | 20 Pages

    3. Review of literature 3.1 Stress and its types: Stress is an essential mediator of human behaviour. Immediate physiological response to any type of stressor facilitates survival of the species at its maximum. Despite of normal homeostatic regulatory mechanism, the stress responses can become maladaptive. Chronic stress, for example immobilization, exposure to noise, irradiations, psychological stress can leads to a host of adverse health consequences, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegeneration, obesity, depression and early ageing (McEwen et al, 2004).

    Read More

More about Azar And Dobbins In The Things They Carried

Open Document