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Spin O Brien Quotes And Analysis

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“Spin,” the third chapter of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien begins by saying that the war “wasn’t all terror and violence.” O’Brien then proceeds to tell many brief stories that present good moments from the war. One of the short stories O’Brien narrates is about the soldiers' experience with an elderly Vietnamese man they referred to as a “poppa-san” who was hired to lead them through a field of landmines on the Batangan Peninsula for five days. The text says, “We enlisted an old poppa-san to guide us through the mine fields out on the Batangan Peninsula. The old guy walked with a limp, slow and stooped over, but he knew where the safe spots were and where you had to be careful and where even if you were careful you could end up like popcorn.”(32). …show more content…

The imagery also shows readers how skilled the old man was to know what spots contained mines. The excerpt about the poppa-san also shows the good of war with the way the old Vietnamese man guided them through the minefields safely. A metaphor is shown when the text says, “He had a tightrope walker’s feel for the land beneath him--its surface tension, the give and take of things.”(32). O’Brien compares the elder to a tightrope walker. Like tightrope walking, navigating through a field of landmines is a dangerous and difficult task, but the poppa-san was an expert at it. The soldiers enjoyed their time with the older, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The text says, “We all learned to love the old man. It was a sad scene when the choppers came to take us away. Jimmy Cross gave the old poppa-san a hug. Mitchell Sanders and Lee Strunk loaded him up with boxes of C

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