Combat is one of those incidents, where the best and the worst of people will be shown. The effects from combat could last minutes to a lifetime and will define people for the rest of their lives. To overcome the effects, people must have coping mechanisms. In the book, The Things They Carried, a platoon of soldiers is followed in their quest to survive the Vietnam War. The soldiers developed coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they can function normally and survive the war. Also, coping mechanisms had life changing effects on Lt. Jimmy Cross, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and Tim O’Brien (The Narrator) and they were either saved or it led to their destruction. To understand how coping mechanisms work a person must have to be in a stressful problem. …show more content…
The person had to deal with death and the reality of war under the worst case scenario. Bob “Rat” Kiley was that soldier and one of the many soldiers that left something in the war. He had lost his friend Curt Lemon and that’s the first sign that the war has been turning to be painful for him. This coping mechanism for the death was to write letters to lemon’s sister and he shot a baby Water Buffalo. This coping mechanism is seen in the chapter “How to tell a true war story”, shows how he has been affected and explained the toll the war had taken on him. One paragraph stated the following “Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs... Rat went to automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it...All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been. It lay very still...Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then cradled his rifle and went off by himself.” (75) This event had caused Kiley to …show more content…
His coping mechanism that he uses is through his writing about the Vietnam War. He is writing because he is trying to deal or understand what happened in the war. In the chapter “The Lives of the living Dead”, explains that through O’Brien’s writings, he able to come to peace at what he observed and did in combat. He may not understand why events had happened because he has not remembered the most traumatic experiences clearly. Even if his friends are dead, he will be able to remember them and his surviving platoon, through his stories to immortalize them. The main point is how he has to deal with death from a young age to the combat zones. In a way he blames himself for the deaths of his friends or failing to save them, but he failed to understand that it is not his fault. He just needs to find a way to understand since he is forty three years old and has to find closure, O’Brien at the conclusion of his book said “I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story.” (233) He realized through his writing that he was carrying things with him that needed to be explained to him or it was going to hurt him mentally and physically. He had been thinking that he had to save his
What if you were chosen in the next draft for a war between your country and a distant nation, but you had an indifference to the conflict? This becomes a reality for the narrator Tim O'Brien, as he is drafted into the Vietnam war. In the novel, The Things They Carried, written by the narrator Tim O'Brien, the reader is taken through a series of stories ranging from before O'Brien enters the war, when he is stationed in Vietnam during the war, and years after he returns home from the war. These stories are arranged in no particular order, and they all reflect the influence the Vietnam war has on O'Brien's personal experiences of the harsh realities he faces accompanied by his fellow comrades. In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author
However, Rat did not inflict grievous wounds to the buffalo out of vileness, but abandons his humanity and consciousness to find enjoyment as a sadistic person to cope with the death of his best friend, Curt. Delving deeper into the darkness, when the soldiers burned a little girl’s house down and dragged her family out, “the girl kept dancing” and “she put the palms of her hands against her ears” (O’Brien 129). From this behavior, the reader can assume that the child purposely made herself ignorant of her surroundings by blocking out noises and occupying herself with her passion of dancing. The essence of an innocent girl avoiding the catastrophe that has struck her
War and the experiences encountered within it create countless stories, both heroic and horrific. A few of these war stories are shared throughout the book, The Things they Carried, by Tim O’Brien. The men involved in these war stories respond to the uncertainty, fear, and death that surrounds them in their own distinct ways. During a time of war, the soldiers in combat respond to their stimulative surroundings through their own coping mechanisms.
but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world” (p.78-79). Rat Kiley killed the baby water buffalo in order transfer his emotions. Rat Kiley
The Things They Carried Essay The Things They Carried by Tim O´Brien is a story that can be hard to swallow. O´Brien describes the Vietnam war in a way that both glorifies and critiques it, honors and blames it, but most of all makes the reader feel like they are right there with him. O´Brien uses the narrative elements of setting and atmosphere, framing it all in his point of view, to advance the many themes in his novel.
For many soldiers returning home from war, the truth about what happened can be a hard and confusing thing. The book The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, and published in 1990, describes his time in the war. O’Brien struggles the whole time with differentiating his emotional memories with events that actually happened, and tries to impress upon the reader what it was actually like to be over in Vietnam. O’brien believes that war stories do not always accurately portray what war was like, and that is why story-truth can be truer than the happening-truth.
Without the ability to forget and persevere, they could not find the means to distance themselves from a life of war like the character Tim O’Brien. Instead, through the use of coping mechanisms, they try to escape their painful worlds. Gaining a sense of humor and lightheartedness about the war, finding courage, and writing everything down on paper helps each of the soldiers survive. These skills allow the soldiers to handle the devastating aftermath of war. With the lasting effects of the Vietnam War weighing on their lives overseas and home, the soldiers attempt to distance themselves from reality in order to survive each day mentally and physically during and after the war.
Obrien perfectly describes the duality of war saying, “war is nasty; war is fun” and “war makes you a man; war makes you dead” (76). War has many positives for some men, and it gives them a chance to honor their country. War is also horrible and leads to the death of countless young men with bright futures ahead. O’Brien uses the story of the water buffalo to describe all the emotions described in the description of war. The shooting of the water buffalo shows how desensitized soldiers become due to the mindless killing of Vietnam.
In the The Things They Carried, the emotions are more than just a mental problem, they become life changing conflicts. The author of this book is Tim O’Brien. Tim O’Brien is the main character throughout the whole book. In the beginning of the book, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien goes in depth describing what each of the men carried with them. He started with actual things having to deal with war, then talking about the emotional burdens the men carried.
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien highlights his conflict between escaping to Canada or staying to fight through the contrast of his initial and latter beliefs to demonstrate how society can keep people from staying with their individual convictions. For O’Brien, it is far more important to live by his principles than to follow his duty to his family and the law. He says that he wants to “choose a life for myself” (53), speaking to his desire to run off to Canada. O’Brien initially thought that “life” means to be free from the draft and to survive. However, when his wishes conflict with what society expects, for him to be brave and sacrifice for his country, he vacillates between continuing onto shore or staying to fight.
He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.
“At night I sometimes drank too much. I’d remember getting shot and yelling out for a medic and then waiting and waiting and waiting, passing out once, then waking up and screaming some more, and how the screaming seemed to make new pain, the awful stink of myself, the sweat and fear, Bobby Jorgenson’s clumsy fingers when he finally got around to working on me. I kept going over it all, every detail.” (O’Brien, 191) Though this quote may be quite long, but it is very crucial in the example of how this book really portrays PTSD.
What causes a veteran to feel pain? What causes a veteran to become violent? What causes a veteran to develop a drug addiction to cope with their emotional stress? Veterans experience traumatic events during their service years and the result of their experiences are astonishing. Experiencing these events can be burned into their minds and create various forms of pain for the rest of their lives.
Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world.” This quotation seems to capture the feeling of war, and grasps the concept of what goes through a soldier's mind.
The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.