PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Combat is one of those incidents, where the best and the worst of people will be shown. The effects from combat could last minutes to a lifetime and will define people for the rest of their lives. To overcome the effects, people must have coping mechanisms. In the book, The Things They Carried, a platoon of soldiers is followed in their quest to survive the Vietnam War. The soldiers developed coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they can function normally and survive the war. Also, coping mechanisms had life changing effects on Lt. Jimmy Cross, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and Tim O’Brien (The Narrator) and they were either saved or it led to their destruction. To understand how coping mechanisms work a person must have to be in a stressful problem.

Those involved in war must pay a physical, emotional, and psychological tax. In the Vietnam War, this tax was greater than ever and weighed more once the war was over. The impact is not easily forgotten and though attempts are made to heal, war haunts the psyche of those who survive it. In the case of Tim O’Brien and Yusuf Komunyakaa, it took nearly two decades to put pen to paper and write about the experience. Luckily, their time in Vietnam eventually lead to powerful work such as O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Komunyakaa’s “Facing It”.

War. War never changes. Since the dawn of time humanity has been at war whether it be with other humans, nature, or themselves. War is never moral, and it takes a toll on the people fighting it. “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity” (O’Brien, 2). What was never intended was for the brave men and women fighting our wars to carry problems back home. Sadly, they do. Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is very common problem in America currently, largely due to our lack of understanding for diagnosis and treatment. Let me tell you about the history of PTSD, how it relates to a book by Tim O’Brien called The Things They Carried, and my personal connection to PTSD.

In the book The Things They Carried, people experienced serious mental trauma. Not only did some, if not all, of them come back home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but they also came back to a nation full of hate and uneasiness towards the veterans. These veterans came back home riddled with guilt and visions flashing before their eyes every time they closed them, people’s worst nightmares put into real life, and yet these veterans are dishonorably discharged, with statements saying that they must not have been good enough for the war. Tim O’Brien, the author of this book, decided to tell us all of the war stories he will never be able to forget, in order to help us picture the unimaginable horrors that all of these veterans went through.

Madness lies deep in everybody's subconscious; it's like an animal stalking it's pray waiting for the right moment and strikes when it is least expected. Insanity isn't something you will notice instantly, it grows and flourishes slowly and for a lot of people it will haunt them for the rest of their life. Many soldiers and veterans are tormented and will have to simply live with their now disturbed and demented psyche. In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried he portrays the soldiers of all having their different quarrels with insanity because, it is a way that they comprehend what they have done in the battlefield. The characters that best display madness are Jimmy Cross, Mitchell Sanders, and then Norman Bowker.

People often reminisce about the decisive victories and suffering defeats of war, but the overwhelming horrors and tragedies of the actual soldiers are often overlooked. Because of this harsh truth, Tim O’Brien sheds light on the physical and psychological burdens on the life of a common soldier through his autobiography, The Things They Carried. Despite all the atrocities found in the Vietnam War, O’Brien still manages to appreciate life and all the people around him. Through all of this, everyone who reads this book can learn something new about the world around them in addition to something about themselves. Ultimately, The Things They Carried should stay in the curriculum because it truly shows the terrors and hardships of war, exemplifies

Although sophisticated advancements have certainly changed the game of warfare, it has never been easy to carry, in any sense, for soldiers. Tim O’Brien evaluates the real burdens, both emotional and physical, of the Vietnam War in The Things They Carried. While the men of Alpha Platoon certainly are heavily weighed down in a physical sense, the mental burdens of war remain ever heavier -- as reflected in O’Brien’s title, The Things They Carried. Throughout The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien vividly represents the Vietnam War’s tangible and intangible impacts through the journeys of three characters: Jimmy Cross, Kiowa, and Norman Bowker.

The soldiers of the Vietnam War were mostly innocent young men that were forced to face overwhelming emotional distress like the fear of their own deaths, guilt associated with taking the life of another soldier, and sorrow after witnessing their fellow comrades’ deaths. In The Things They Carried, author, Tim O’Brien, uses fictional stories to display the immense emotional burdens that the soldier Tim and his fellow members of Alpha Company experienced before, during, and after their unforgettably haunting time in Vietnam, and how each handled this “baggage” they carried. O’Brien’s sympathy belongs to the soldiers in the novel, knowing full and well that none of them belonged in the middle of the unjust war.

In the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a collection of short stories about a group of soldiers marching in the Vietnam war including the author himself in and after war. Each soldier is described by their stories and what each individual carried that kept them alive like the emotional burdens of memories, stories, fear and guilt. The book centers around the bonds the soldiers made and the connection of the world they left behind as well as the one they formed in the Vietnam war.

During the turbulent times of the Vietnam War, thousands of young men entered the warzone and came face-to-face with unimaginable scenes of death, destruction, and turmoil. While some perished in the dense Asian jungles, others returned to American soil and were forced to confront their lingering combat trauma. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides distinct instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and reveals the psychological trauma felt by soldiers in the Vietnam War.

Stories one way or another always have a little bit of fiction, whether it be a color of shoes or a time of day, stories don’t always hold all of the truth. In the novel, The Things They Carried, O’Brien explains his life and experience in the Vietnam War. Being the narrator in the novel, he depicts the relationship between fiction and reality itself. Calloway’s definition of metafiction fits Tim O’Brien’s novel because O’Brien himself is the main character. He is a veteran describing his experiences during the Vietnam War, but he’s also a writer who is explaining the truth behind writing stories.

Death and destruction caused by war can become permanently embedded in the minds of those who actively participated in combat long after the conflict has officially come to an end. Their memories, decisions, and personality can be influenced by what they experienced while serving in combat. The burdens that were placed upon them by horrible circumstances have the ability to become a permanent fixture, never leaving a person for as long as they exist. Tim O’Brien explores the origin of these burdens throughout one of his most famous works. Through a psychological analysis, it can be determined that O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” connects the temporary physical burdens with the permanent emotional burdens experienced by soldiers during

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.

In If I Die in a Combat Zone, the author Tim O’Brien argues his disagreement with the Vietnam War through his beliefs of the injustice of war by depicting the arrogance of the war itself and his experiences of brutality as a soldier in Vietnam.

The Things They Carried by Tim O´Brien is a story that can be hard to swallow. O´Brien