ipl-logo

Mortality And Death In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1066 Words5 Pages

“We who have seen war never stop seeing it” by unknown. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the main characters, Tim and his platoon are drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. This book is a collection of memories being told out of order, twenty years later. The book begins in Vietnam and goes through the experience of each soldier. It gives the cold hard truth about the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien intended audience was civilians and he discussed mortality/death and morality.
In the chapter “ The Ghost soldiers”, the theme mortality and death was shown. Azar and Tim both have this dark cloud hovering over them, waiting for the perfect time to strike them. In time the cloud consumes them turning them into a new person that has a …show more content…

Jenson and Strunk fought over a stolen knife. Jenson won the fight and broke his own nose to make things fair, in the chapter “ Enemies”. In the chapter “ Friends”, Jenson and Strunk made a pact to put each other out of their misery if one were to get hurt. Strunk loses his leg and Jenson did not kill him. “Strunk frowned at the sky. He passed out again, then woke up and said ‘Don’t kill me.’ ‘I won’t.’ Jenson said” (O’Brien 63). This shows the beginning of a strong friendship that will last lifetime. They made a pact to kill each other if they became close to death, but when Struck came close to facing death, Jenson spared his friends life. This shows that you never truly can be prepared to …show more content…

When Mary Anne first gets to Vietnam, she’s this sweet, innocent girl that comes comes into a war zone. She completely changes after being there just a couple of weeks. Now she's distant, not innocent, and is seen in a whole new character. Her values from before and after change herself to where she is a different person. “Too wide in the shoulders, maybe, but she had terrific legs, a bubbly personality, and a happy smile” (O’Brien 90). Mary Anne is this cute girl that comes to this war zone in Vietnam. By coming to Vietnam she did not know the dangers that were hidden in the jungle. Before she felt it was right to go and help with what she can, but after she felt that she had to do more and was losing herself along the way. “She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill” (O’Brien 110). Being in Vietnam, in the middle of a war zone, something triggered in Mary Anne that changed her. With this drastic change in herself, her values in life change from being the perfect housewife to doing whatever it takes to survive the harsh reality of the

Show More
Related

  • What Does The Sweetheart Of The Song Tra Bong Symbolize

    430 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ultimately transforming into a ruthless and skilled soldier. Tim O'Brien uses Mary Anne's transformation to symbolize the profound impact war can have on a person's identity and sense of self. In addition to symbolism, O'Brien use of powerful imagery throughout the chapter to convey the emotional and psychological toll of war. He describes the landscape of Vietnam with "jungle, swamp, and paddy," and "smoke and mist and silence.

    Read More

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

    1152 Words  | 5 Pages

    Death is something that occurs often in a war due to the violence and dangerous areas. Everyone takes on the thought of someone dying in different ways, whether they maintained a close relationship with the person or not guilt could become an instant reaction of the persons' death because of a feeling of maybe being responsible for the death that occurred. The thought of maybe being responsible for one of the soldiers that you have spent day night serving with could leave an enormous amount of guilt in one person. When witnessing a death or anything traumatic it is easy to blame someone else or even yourself for the tragic accident. Multiple characters in the book The Things They Carried demonstrated the guilt and responsibility of another

    Read More

  • Mental Cost Of War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    598 Words  | 3 Pages

    She ended up going with the Green Berets on an ambush, “Just after sunrise she came trooping in through the wire, tired-looking but cheerful as she dropped her gear” (98). She was becoming more and more like a Green Beret getting farther and farther from her boyfriend, “It was nearly three weeks before she returned. But in a sense she never returned. Not entirely, not all of her” (100) and; “There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it” (105). After awhile she was becoming more risky doing things the Green Berets would not do, “ When they were taken under fire, Mary Anne would stand quietly and watch the tracer rounds snap by, a little smile at her lips”

    Read More

  • Hong Kong Mary O Brien Analysis

    967 Words  | 4 Pages

    1. The only experience that I have had so far that relates to what had happened to Mary Anne Bell was when I had gone to a concert with a few of my friends. At first I was really reluctant because it was my first time going to a concert and I don’t like listening to loud music. But as soon as the music started playing, the bass reverberated through me and the crowd, and everyone was just swept away by the music. Which is some sort of correlation to what had happened to Mary Anne Bell, since she was “fresh out of Cleveland Heights Senior High”, and how “Her pretty blue eyes seemed to glow” (O’ Brien 68), just as I was new to concerts, so was she to the war, and it had completely swept her.

    Read More

  • Mortality In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1010 Words  | 5 Pages

    At some point, all people must accept the harsh truth of mortality. When people realize it for the first time, they can go through a change in character. The young medic Rat Kiley, a character in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, exemplifies this. His reaction to the sudden death of his best friend Curt Lemon, as portrayed in “How to Tell a True War Story,” depicts the shift of character that accompanies loss. Moreover, it reflects the inability of soldiers to return to normalcy after experiencing the traumas of grief.

    Read More

  • Guilt In The Things They Carry By Tim O Brien

    982 Words  | 4 Pages

    Plato once said, “ Only the dead have seen the end of the war”. Tim O’Brien is the protagonist of the novel The Things They Carry. He describes the events that occurred in the middle of his Vietnam experience. The book was written to share his memories and O'Brien's own stories. In those stories we discover characters like Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Kiowa,Dave Jensen and many others whom he served with in the war.

    Read More

  • Inside Out And Back Again By Thanhha Lai

    2108 Words  | 9 Pages

    Ha started to become someone who let others walk all over her. She didn’t stand up for herself, and she was struggling with learning English. Ha was being bullied at school by one of her classmates. She called him Pink boy. The Ha that was in Vietnam would have never let him get away with all the names he called her, or how he harmed her.

    Read More

  • Essay On Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

    1035 Words  | 5 Pages

    Your perspective is reality, true or not it is. However, when something happens and you your perspective is lost is it true that you lose your sense of reality? Or perhaps you don 't lose reality but rather gain perspective, which can be confusing in a whole other light. Author Tim O’Brien, through his narrative, The Things They Carried, emphasises the idea the perhaps there is no way to lose perspective; instead you are constantly gaining it causes more confusion while you 're still writing your story. But perhaps when you take a step back after you’ve made it through the mess the pieces (the memorable moments good and bad) seem to fall into place creating a glance “across the surface of my [your] history” (233).

    Read More

  • Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

    1292 Words  | 6 Pages

    Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

    Read More

  • Why The Challenges At War In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    757 Words  | 4 Pages

    O’Briens intended audience is people who have an interest in war, and uses mortality and death, along with morality to help the audience get a deeper understanding of what could possibly occur at war. First, O’Brien discusses how mortality and death greatly affected many of the men around him. In the chapter ” In the Field” Kiowa is gone and there is nothing they could do to save him. The

    Read More

  • Burdens In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    849 Words  | 4 Pages

    Teenagers now have arguably experienced more than any other generation. Teens today are walking, unwritten books. Each teen writing their own stores filled with there memories and the thing they are burdened with everyday. In the book “The Things they Carried” by Tim O'Brien a recurring theme were the items they carried. Tim went into explicit detail about what the soldiers carried from both physical equipment to the memories they held on to.

    Read More

  • Mental Changes In The Things They Carried

    1646 Words  | 7 Pages

    In another chapter from The Things They Carried titled “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong”, Mark Fossie is inviting his girlfriend Mary Anne to visit him for some time in Vietnam during the war. At first, Mary Anne is embodying a feminine persona, wearing pink, jewelry, and makeup. As time passes on, Mary Anne expresses more interest in the war and even starts participating in war-like activities. A passage in “Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” writes, “Once or twice, gently, Mark Fossie suggested that it might be time to think about heading home, but Mary Anne laughed and told him to forget it. ‘Everything I want,’ she said, ‘is right here’” (O’Brien 95).

    Read More

  • The Paradox Of War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    705 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

    Read More

  • Mary Anne Bell In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    896 Words  | 4 Pages

    She feels that it is beginning to feel more like home. Some of the soldiers observe “There was a new confidence in her voice, a new authority in the way she carried herself. In many ways she remained naïve and immature, still a kid, but Cleveland Heights now seemed very far away” (O’Brien 94). As Mark suggests Mary Anne should head home she made proof of that new authority in her voice. She firmly states “Everything I want, she said, is right here” (O’Brien 94).

    Read More

  • Allegory In The Things They Carried

    767 Words  | 4 Pages

    O 'Brien use the symbolism the dancing Vietnamese and Mary Anne to show that war can destroy your humanity and innocence. It also use the allegory of the letters of Martha, and Linda, are used to show the past can either hurt or help you someone in war. The destruction of humanity and innocence it 's something terrifying, war can transform you completely into someone else that at the end you will no be able to recognize yourself. And in war you will need to take decisions that you may not like, you will need to get ride of things that you don 't want to let go of the past so you can be able to survive, and your decisions can hurt or help

    Read More

More about Mortality And Death In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Open Document