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The Themes In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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There is no doubt people grow with each new experience. In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the character Tim O’Brien faces many trials after running away from the draft, deciding to go, and then experiencing many different dilemmas he has never experienced before. It is through emotional and physical turmoil, he learns to grow morally and developmentally. Being drafted forced Tim O’Brien into alienation from his former country, however this leads him to enrich his mind through a greater understand of human nature, proving understanding comes with experience. Tim O’Brien is thrown into a group of strangers to go to a foreign country to do foreign things. He is cast away from his family, friends, and normal life for something …show more content…

After a dramatic milestone event, people grow a little more in their understandings of life, whether it is by gaining a better concept of the event or growing developmentally both cognitively and physically. Through watching the realities of war, Tim started to understand more about the world around him. After some time, it is indubitable that he carried these themes with him. He understands war changes people just like it did to him. This can relate in the way of how humans are alike to one another; we feel the same feelings and think the similar thoughts. The author specifically shows this theme through a story about a girl, named Mary-Anne, who visits her boyfriend on the frontlines. “Fossie took a half step forward and hesitated. It was as though he had trouble recognizing her,” (O’Brien 98). The war changed her is such a way that she was completely different. Not only did she symbolize the innocence of people when they enter the war, but she also represents the how your mind fully cannot leave the war. While before she was beautiful and naive, now she was tainted by the cruel reality of war. Therefore, war gives soldiers a new perspective in life, and it is common for some to be stuck dwelling in the war past, unable to move past their gruesome

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