Shame And Guilt In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Prewriting:

Introduction:
Often revered as a battle to defend Vietnamese ideologies, the Vietnam War is personified by many as a horrendous, unnecessary war that yielded to many detrimental after-effects, specifically on soldiers. In O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, initially it seems to take the same old generic personification, but after further reading, it is evident that Tim O’Brien’s desire to take on a different representation. Rather than taking on the violent, bloody interpretation of war, O’Brien focuses more on the relationships developed between the soldier and the severities experienced whilst in war. Throughout the novel, the themes of shame and guilt are manifested through the post war stories of the veterans, demonstrating that no soldier is able to escape this perpetual chasm of culpability.

Thesis:

Body Paragraph 1:
Similar to Khaled Hosseini, O’Brien expresses the idea of the haunting aftereffects of an unatoned sin. In O’Brien’s story, “Speaking of Courage,” it depicts Norman Bowker’s “triumphant” return to Iowa, however upon returning to his hometown, no one really understands the meaning of his stories. Bowker continually makes loop around a seven-mile long lake as he ponders the hypotheticals. In one hypothetical situation, he expresses to his father that, "The truth," Norman Bowker would've said, "is I let the guy go." (O’Brien 147) Although Bowker won seven medals, he feels that is meniscal because he let his comrade, Kiowa drown in the Song Tra Bong. Bowker wasn’t able to hold on to Kiowa due to the horrendous smell of the river. It is this