ipl-logo

The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1567 Words7 Pages

The Vietnam War was a war of divisiveness, antagonism, and death. In the novel “The Things They Carried“, writer Tim O’Brien reflects on those aspects of war and takes the reader on a multifaceted journey. Throughout the novel, the author emphasizes the desensitization necessitated by the brutality of battle as well as the shame and guilt that the soldiers carried with them. O’Brien juxtaposes the burden of a soldier’s obligation alongside recurrent glimpses of youth and innocence. The weight of war upon humanity is a theme O’Brien develops through powerful symbolism of contradictory characters who resemble the loss of innocence and parallels with the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. At the beginning of the novel, names of soldiers and the …show more content…

The actions, duty, and personal involvement of war brought him shame. He was forced to kill when he never wanted to kill, he didn’t even want to be there. “I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of mortality or politics or military duty…None of it mattered. The war seemed far too complicated. All I could do was gape at the fact of the young man's body”(128). He couldn’t even contemplate what he had done and he didn’t want to. He had no feelings or hatred for this man, he was mentally numb because this is never what he had imagined for himself. As O’Brien was trying to mourn the loss of this unknown man, the insensitivity of his fellow peers overwhelmed him. “‘Oh man you fuckin’ trashed that fucker’ Azar said. ‘You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like shredded fuckin’ wheat…I’m just sayin’ the truth. Like oatmeal’”(119). The text reiterates the message that with murder and killing came pride with some soldiers. This encouraged soldiers to adopt the mindset behind it was to do the most damage and cause the most hurt, remorse, and sorrow. Soldiers are required to end someone's life without even knowing who they were. The author O’Brien purposefully uses metafiction to create a perplexing and complex blending of what is fiction and what is reality. ADD Readers empathize for this character O’Brien, they feel for the man that he killed, they resent Azar for saying those inconsiderate remarks, but also get caught off guard believing this story. The reader is never able to know what parts are true and what parts author Tim O’Brien is creating to get his point across which is both genius and complicated. Tim O’Brien created these desensitized characters

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    495 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is a novel dedicated to recounting the lives and existence of the soldiers during the Vietnam War. The author writes his novel in the form of a personal narrative written from the point of view of an infantryman during the war, with the purpose of relaying emotional and long-term impact both the tangible and intangible things had on the soldiers. By appealing to the reader’s emotions through the use of narrative, O’Brien is able to convey his purpose. In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien utilizes multiple perspectives and events during the Vietnam War to illustrate the permanence of memories and emotional baggage the soldiers had to and still do carry with them. O’Brien uses personal anecdotes in his narrative to illustrate the significant impact of remembrance and memories on a person's life.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien Summary

    724 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tim O’brien’s historical fiction book The Things They Carried is focused around soldiers involved in the Vietnam War. This war was a difficult time for both the Americans who were drafted to fight in the war as well as for those who were at home and disagreed with the idea of currently being in war in Vietnam. As he writes about his own fictional experiences during the war along with the stories of many other fellow troops, O’brien expresses that it is difficult to “tell a true war story”. With the use of imagination and invention, he is able to successfully convey the difficulties involving truth-telling and wartime conditions. O’brien is open with his intended audience and blatantly states that it is hard to tell a true war story.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1202 Words  | 5 Pages

    War, in whatever form it may be, significantly affects an individual’s life and postwar identity. The experiences one must endure place a tattoo, an imprint on one’s past and future. This permanent marker of the atrocities of war and of the psychological effects of violence remains with a soldier throughout his or her life. In the novel, The Things They Carried, narrator and protagonist, Tim O’ Brien, uses his gift of pen to illustrate his personal experience in the Vietnam War. His collection of stories, blurred by lines of fact and fiction, highlights the importance of the act of storytelling rather than the objective truth of a war story.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1423 Words  | 6 Pages

    He tells the audience on the title page the this book is a work of fiction. O’Brien states in “Good Form” that not all facts throughout the book are told true. In “The Man I Killed” he mentions a killing a man near My Nye, describing the pain and injuries he gave the man. He believes that if he was not the one to kill the man, he would’ve been killed by the hands of someone else anyway. Later, he states that this even is untrue.

    Read More

  • Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    542 Words  | 3 Pages

    All characters cope with different situations in their own ways. In Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, his character cope with the effects of the Vietnam War differently. O’Brien’s character Mary Anne and Norman Bowker deal with the war the only ways they know how to. Various characters in O’Brien’s novel deal with the war and its repercussions that occur.

    Read More

  • The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1339 Words  | 6 Pages

    More often than not, soldiers and people in a war zone will be affected by the war one way or another. Either that being during or after the war, one could have a negative or positive outlook on the war, but one single event could automatically change that person's behavior. During 1957-1973, the longest war in the United States history took place, the Vietnam War. Many soldiers have lost their lives in this battle, but the ones that survived have significantly changed from this event.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    544 Words  | 3 Pages

    Being that she is too young, O’Brien feels the need to preserve the innocence of his daughter from the abominations of the war. He lies to her and tells her that he has never killed anyone before, and then he writes this story to deal with his guilt. He says, “Someday, I hope, she’ll ask again. But here I want to pretend she’s a grown-up.”

    Read More

  • Vietnam In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1141 Words  | 5 Pages

    War has been a reality of the world for as long as men have inhabited it. Spectacular feats of triumph and failure preserved in a multitude of writings which have ensnared the fascinations of many the world over for decades. Tim O’Brien contributed to this phenomenon by highlighting the unique and defining aspects of the soldiers captured in his short story, “The Things They Carried.” Through his extensive use of signifigant detail, O’Brien brings to life a riveting account of a platoon’s journey through the horrors of Vietnam by immortalizing everyday items in a way that makes them essential to the being of his characters as they develop in the progression of the narrative. In doing so he instilled personalities and formed images of a distinct

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    766 Words  | 4 Pages

    This occurrence during his service as a soldier brought him back to reality that he was in. He finally feels the guilt and pain that the other men have been carrying with them about this incident and about Vietnam in

    Read More

  • The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    1006 Words  | 5 Pages

    In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien discusses his experiences in the Vietnam War through fictionalized stories. Throughout his stories, he develops the idea that as a witness or soldier experiences the Vietnam War, they develop a new outlook on life. In the stories; “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,”“Church,” and “Speaking of Courage” soldiers and other individuals involved in combat have gained a new perspective. For certain characters such as Mary Anne and Norman Bowker the Vietnam war had an extremely negative effect on them, whereas the character of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was positively affected as he was able to mature on the battlefield. The most tragic story of the novel is the transformation of Mary Anne from an innocent young

    Read More

  • Fear In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

    1208 Words  | 5 Pages

    Blushing, getting all hot inside with your cheeks getting a slight rosacea. This was an unbearable reality to men who killed and got killed for their country; and more than, that it was the reason for all the killing. No man wanted to be seen as a priss, too afraid to do a “man’s job” to defend his motherland. No man wanted to be left at home for others to assume he was not “strong enough” to do just that. But the sad truth was that no man wanted the world to know the truth.

    Read More

  • Vietnam War In The Things They Carried 'By O' Brien

    156 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the short narrative “The Things They Carried’ by O’Brien Deputy Jimmy Cross of the Alpha party describes in contingent the affair the workforce in his company carries. For example, Lavender carry drugs and narcotics to keep him calm as possible from all that was going on. Other men they carried other items which can only fit their physical description needs. However, the story also relates to the account of the Vietnam War. All the men carry the emotional loading placed upon them on their backs by the war.

    Read More

  • The Sniper Theme

    589 Words  | 3 Pages

    He is just a normal young man although he is a fighter in the civil war. The young man killed a lot of people so he gets used to it and it doesn’t even affect him anymore. In conclusion, it can be said that war is an evil obsession. War can affect the way we think and the way we act.

    Read More

  • Hero Of Fight Analysis

    1022 Words  | 5 Pages

    It also states how the authors/directors want their audience react to the text/movie. One common theme throughout these texts is portraying soldiers to have honour. Honourable means to do the ethical thing and have a high respect for others. Some of these texts may not

    Read More

  • Horrors Of War Analysis

    836 Words  | 4 Pages

    The man suffered a repugnant death and he experienced things that the human body should not have to go through. This exemplifies how war changes everything, including your

    Read More

More about The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Open Document