ipl-logo

Things They Carried Guilt

1093 Words5 Pages

Imagine being drafted to move thousands of miles away from the life you love to fight a war you hated. This is the unfortunate reality for Tim O’Brien In The Things They Carried. O’Brien explains his experiences of war in Vietnam, what it took to get him there, and his relationships with the other men in his platoon. He portrays guilt and pride through storytelling and intertwines the two by showing how the men often feel guilty for the actions they pursue or decisions they make based on their pride. In the chapter “On the Rainy River”, pride drives O’Brien to make a decision that will change his life forever. He is deciding between fleeing to Canada or accepting the fact that he was drafted for Vietnam and go to war. He decided to go to the border of the United States and Canada, staying with a man named Elroy. Elroy becomes a silent stigma in Tim’s life, and his cabin helps Tim realize he has to go to war because there is too much pride in his heart not to. He explains, “I would go to war--I would kill and maybe die--because I was too embarrassed not to” (O’Brien 57). This quote means he would …show more content…

He tells stories about when he fled to the border of Canada due to his pride, feels guilty for letting his family and friends down, and then comes back. This trend of guilt felt due to decisions that were made based on pride is also shown when Jimmy Cross has too much pride to tell his higher ups that the place in the field isn’t safe for the troop to settle down, so he feels guilty when Kiowa is lost in the muck. The situations that O’Brien and his comrades are put in because of their pride can lead them to do things out of character and lead to a deep sense of guilt later. These themes in The Things They Carried give the readers a better idea of how soldiers made tough choices in Vietnam and how it affected them

Show More
Related
392 Words | 2 Pages

At this point in the book O’Brien has decided he is going to the war. Not really for himself but for the people in his town. He doesn’t want the embarrassment of not going, he doesn 't want people looking down on him. He ultimately does it for everybody but himself. It comes from the story “On the rainy river”.

Read More
445 Words | 2 Pages

This quote is from O’Brien the author himself admitting that he couldn’t be brave enough to leave his country and that he was embarrassed of what he was trying to do. So, he told himself that he would go to war, kill and maybe die because of the embarrassment idea he made. The idea of this quote is to explain what he feeling/confusion between what he’d do. Should he go to war? Or should he leave his loved ones and country behind.?

Read More
1272 Words | 6 Pages

This is important because it outlines how he deals with emotional distraught on his own and how he wants to keep to himself relating with internal problems. An example form The Things They Carried is in the quote, “...I headed straight west along the Rainy River...” (P. 45). This quote refers to when O’Brien received his draft notice for the military during the Vietnam War. He became very upset and responds to it by driving on his own towards Canada in hopes of avoiding the draft and isolating himself from his family and friends.

Read More
1292 Words | 6 Pages

Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

Read More
423 Words | 2 Pages

1.Guilt is one of the worst things accompanied by death. Guilt plays a huge role throughout the novel. In war, men are constantly dying and these men all become best friends with one another. For example, Norman Bowker felt a tremendous amount of quilt towards the death of Kiowa.

Read More
775 Words | 4 Pages

I couldn’t tolerate it. I couldn't endure the mockery or the disgrace or the patriotic ridicule” (O’Brien 57). O’Brien in this quote goes to war because he was to embarrassed not to. If I were in a similar position to O’Brien; I wouldn't be able to live with people calling me a coward. My family would disown me if I fled from the draft, and my friends and neighbors wouldn't respect me and think of me as a coward or a traitor to my country.

Read More
484 Words | 2 Pages

I went to the war. ”(pg.187) mostly because he went through a lot mentally to make the decision to go to war, and it's clear from the story that his decision to enter the war was made by factors more than cowardice.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.

Read More
757 Words | 4 Pages

Challenges at War Robert E. Lee once said, “What a cruel thing war is… to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors”. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien takes place in Vietnam. He and a handful of other men experience things only one can image and hope they will never have to experience again. They learn how death among them can greatly affect them, and many others. War is not an easy task to get through and these men all had different coping methods.

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien tells the readers about him reflecting back twenty years ago, he wonders if running away from the war were just events that happened in another dimension, he pictures himself writing a letter to his parents: “I’m finishing up a letter to my Parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and how sorry I am that I’d never found the courage to talk to them about it”(O’Brien 80). Even twenty years after his running from the war, O’Brien still feels sorry for not finding the courage to tell his parents about his decision of escaping to Canada to start a new life. O’Brien presented his outlook that even if someone was not directly involved in the war, this event had impacted them indirectly, for instance, how a person’s reaction to the war can create regret for important friends and

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

At first Mr. O’ Brien wants to flee to Canada even though he knows that he won’t be able to see his family again or that he won’t be able to come back to the states. However, when he is only twenty yards away from the border, he can’t risk the embarrassment from his hometown and the whole universe, so he goes to the war. During the war, Mr. O’ Brien figures out that the only reason that any of his fellow soldiers are at the war was so their prestige wouldn’t go down. He goes so far as to say, “Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to… They died so as not to die of embarrassment.

Read More
679 Words | 3 Pages

Courage The dictionary definition of courage is “strength in the face of pain of grief.” Throughout the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the common idea of courage is expressed with different meanings as each character interprets courage differently.

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

War was so much more than just war to O’Brien and he able to share this through his writing. " But this is true: stories can save us. ... in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (page

Read More
1071 Words | 5 Pages

Originally published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of war stories that took place during the Vietnam War. Due to its accurate and honest depiction of war, it has been banned for crude language, violence, drug use, and sexual innuendo. The author, Tim O’Brien, was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1946. Due to his service in the United States military during the Vietnam War, O’Brien is able to depict the war in a more graphic, and realistic manner.

Read More
845 Words | 4 Pages

This is evident when Mr. O’Brien says, “I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to,” (pg. 57.) In the end the author realized what he must do and went back home, so he could fight in the Vietnam

Read More

More about Things They Carried Guilt

Open Document