Americans have been participating in various wars since the beginning of time. From the Revolutionary War to both World Wars to Iraq, about 42 million people have served in wars, and over 650,000 have died on the battlefield, according to the UCSB Scienceline. It has been studied for a long time that going to battle renders many psychological effects on the individual. From looking at themselves differently to looking at their families differently, there are all sorts of effects the battlefield has on the individual. War has many impacts on the individual by changing the soldier’s self-image, altering the soldier’s connections with family and friends, and leaving long-lasting psychological effects, thus destroying the person that the soldier …show more content…
Just as teenagers like to have relaxing time to think over life, soldiers on the battlefield need to have that time to themselves. Sometimes, they like to just sit around and drink some beers and reflect on life. The book Yellow Birds, written by Kevin Powers, is a realistic fictional depiction of the life of a soldier the reader knows as Private Bartle. The story takes the reader through Bartle’s point of view in the war, along with looking at his friend Private Murph, through Murph’s death and Bartle’s imprisonment. During one section, Private Bartle describes getting a care package from home, and in this care package he had some whiskey. He and the other soldiers proceed to drink the whiskey and reflect on their lives for a minute. (Powers 83). This calms down the drastic changes in life for a minute and reminds the soldiers who they really are. This gets the reader to realize that the soldiers, though changed, are the same people who want to sit with their friends for a bit. In The Things They Carried, a nonfiction book on the Vietnam War, author Tim O’Brien also showcases soldiers’ reactions to certain events, whether enjoyable or not. O’Brien had a friend named Bob Kiley, also referred to as Rat. Rat was very close with a friend named Kurt Lemon, who died in Vietnam, so he writes a letter to the friend’s sister explaining what happened and what a fun soldier he was to be around. Rat …show more content…
They may have to hide certain things from their family. In The Yellow Birds, the soldier’s translator was named Malik, and he was from Iraq. (Powers 9). He could not tell his family where he was or give them any update on his status, simply because it would put them and himself in danger. The reader can be sure that his family is concerned about him and his whereabouts, but he cannot reveal anything. In addition, soldiers may feel that they lose certain friendships or relationships because they were gone for so long. In the 2012 song “Some Nights” by artist Fun, there are mentions of war themes. The speaker questions his motives for anything in life, saying, “So this is it. I sold my soul for this? Washed my hands for this?/ I miss my mom and dad for this?” (Fun, lns. 31-33). The speaker is unsure of what he did, and if it was for the right reasons. The listener is unsure if the speaker actually went to war or is comparing that action to something else, but it feels of the same caliber to the speaker. Going to war is difficult and straining on the relationships between the soldier and their loved ones at home. As many find long-distance relationships hard, these relationships are just more difficult and more
How do you think war impacts soldiers? I believe that there are two different effects war can have on a soldier, a psychological and a physical one. One disorder involved with war is Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, in All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, the narrator, tells of his experiences in World War I and the term associated with soldiers who have been corrupted by the war is “shell-shocked”. In my essay I will talk about the impact war has had on Paul, and how it 's affecting soldiers today.
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.
In Soldier from the War Returning, Thomas Childers writes that “a curious silence lingers over what for many was the last great battle of the war.” This final battle was the soldier’s return home. After World War II, veterans came back to the United States and struggled with stigmatized mental illnesses as well as financial and social issues. During the war, many soldiers struggled with mental health issues that persisted after they came home.
When faced with war soldiers change, for better or for worse. Modern culture celebrates the glory of patriotic sacrifice. However, this celebration often leaves out the gritty details and trauma of violence behind war and the way it affects people. Homer’s The Odyssey and William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives clearly discuss these details. Both debate the long-awaited return of warriors that went off to fight a war and the way the experience changes the protagonists.
In Jane Brody’s alarming article, “War Wounds That Time Alone Can’t Heal” Brody describes the intense and devastating pain some soldiers go through on a daily basis. These soldiers come home from a tragic time during war or, have vivid memories of unimaginable sufferings they began to experience in the battle field. As a result these soldiers suffer from, “emotional agony and self-destructive aftermath of moral injury…” (Brody). Moral injury has caused much emotional and physical pain for men and women from the war.
The Things They Carried is an interesting novel not like many others in that it is not one continuous story on a single plot line, but rather the novel is a collection of fictional short stories from a young soldier’s time stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The stories do not follow a specific order either, and they often are set in different time periods, like how Chapters 1 (The Things They Carried), 2 (Love), and 3 (Spin) are set in the time period when the main character, Tim O’Brien, is deployed in Vietnam, while Chapter 4 (On the Rainy River) is set before the war started right after Tim was drafted, and tells the story of him trying to escape the war. The stories tell the reader the story of the differing backgrounds of many
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
In “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell”, John Crawford shows how war can drastically change soldiers by having psychological effects on them and when soldiers come back from war they can feel like they are alone. Some psychological effects are post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, depression,
Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way
War is one of the most complex yet completely understood subjects to read or write about. Tim O’Brien has captured the true essence of being drafted into a war. “The Things They Carried” is a novel composed of multiple short stories; Each taking the reader through the perspective of the narrator showing his multiple landscapes, situations, and changing feelings from being drafted into the Vietnam War to surviving it. These stories really help one understand the effects of war on someone’s mind as well as body. Tim O’Brien is the main character and protagonist in this novel.
War and its affinities have various emotional effects on different individuals, whether facing adversity within the war or when experiencing the psychological aftermath. Some people cave under the pressure when put in a situation where there is minimal hope or optimism. Two characters that experience
In war, there is a winning side and a losing side, but both suffer casualties. Afflictions are not always dealt in death and physical pain, but also emotional damage. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes war’s capabilities to change people. When Mary Anne, a sweet, innocent, all-American girl, arrives in Vietnam to be with her soldier boyfriend, change is inevitable, and she will eventually lose her naiveté. O’Brien utilizes personification, jarring imagery, hyperbole, and pathos to convey that war shatters all innocence, no matter how hard one may try to avoid the change.
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.
Psychological Warfare in The Things They Carried Unless you have been in war or have read The Things They Carried, you can't fully understand the psychological toll on a person's mind and body, you can't understand the psychological hardship soldiers go through in war. However, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is written to where it shows the overall psychological effects of war on soldiers in and out of Vietnam; as shown throughout the story, the recurring themes of trauma, love, and guilt give the clear psychological implications of war.
Humans do not control war, rather, war controls humans. In less then ten words, the reader understands that The Yellow Birds is not a glorified memoir of a soldier’s accounts in Iraq. Bartley is not a hero, and Powers never destines him to be one. As Bartley, the main character of the novel, confesses, the American soldiers “were not destined at all” (Powers, ch. 1). Bartley is the war’s prey.