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A Brief Review Of Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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During World War II Winston Churchill once said “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” The soldiers in World War II suffered many psychological and physical tolls during the war and even after the war ended. When Winston sent his troops he offered their blood, sweat and tears of the men. Sometimes the memories never leave. Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried shows many physical and psychological effects that soldiers went through during the Vietnam War. The soldiers in World War II went through physical and mental situations regarding war, and the things they saw were very similar to the experiences depicted in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Ted Dzeipak, a soldier during World War II, went through many …show more content…

While the soldiers were in basic training the majority of the soldiers went through a process called “emotional numbing” which helped the men learn to suppress the feelings they generate. The men lived in fear, which is the most common emotion associated with war. While the soldiers were fighting they were surrounded by death and fear because leaves knowing that they could die or their friends could die at any second really took a toll on them. War just didn’t end when they physically left, war never the mind of the men. When the soldiers returned home many suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event, either experiencing it or witnessing it. Some of the most common symptoms of PTSD include recurring memories or nightmares of the event(s), sleeplessness, loss of interest, or feeling numb, anger, and irritability, but there are many ways PTSD can impact your everyday life. Sometimes these symptoms don’t surface for months or years after the event or returning from deployment. They may also come and go, which makes it really hard for the soldiers to adjust mentally. This Disorder made it hard for many soldiers to find work and be able to just live a normal daily …show more content…

Every day and night they we’re getting shot and bombed at, sometimes not even knowing where it was coming from. The soldiers could never let their guard down or get distracted because in a second your life or someone else’s could be gone just like that. Hugh Gorman, a soldier in World War II suffered a horrendous injury his 12th day at combat. While Gorman was on his stomach using a Browning automatic rifle he was shot in right side of his head. "I felt a sharp thud to the right side of my head and I thought that my gun had accidentally fired and the butt had hit me in the jaw. I put my hand up to my face and I could touch my teeth. The right side of my cheek was hanging down on my neck. My shoulder and chest felt real warm from the blood.” It took Gorman 14 surgeries and 2 years at the hospital to get his jaw to properly work again. Despite the injury he continued to stay positive because that’s what kept him alive. As Gorman said, "I learned to have a lot of consideration for other people, and learned it was important to survive as best you could under tough circumstances. “I feel like I did my part," Gorman said. "I went through a lot that a lot of guys didn't go through, with the serious injury. But I have no regrets. Many people who were injured ended up physically and mentally scarred for

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In the 1990 book “The Things They Carried” By Tim O’Brien gives both the victims and survivors of the Vietnam war a voice. The soldiers, alive and dead, experienced horrific events too terrible to speak of. No one could express their emotions, causing many mental illnesses such as PTSD. How could they express how they felt if they couldn’t speak of the horrors that occurred? Tim O’Brien gave them a voice.

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In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian, the author discusses distinct items the soldiers carry with them during the Vietnam war. He explores weapons and equipment, but also talks about emotions and feelings the men frequently are approached by. The title of the novel is used to highlight the heavy emotional burden the soldiers had to carry during and after the war. In many cases, a soldier felt responsible for the death of one of his closest comrades.

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The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, focuses on the author’s experiences in the Vietnam war. This book confronts the truth about death and the wave of agony that hits after the fact. The story highlights the ways that Tim and his fellow soldiers find ways to cope with the immense amount of pain that comes with war. Throughout the book, Tim O’Brien explores the power of storytelling and how it allows those who are physically dead to remain alive in the memories of other. There are many ways in which O’Brien has found storytelling to help him confront the death that he has faced.

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PTSD Affecting Soldiers He stood there, frozen, shocked, not knowing what to do when he saw a gun pointed at him. Thankfully, the trigger didn’t work, but he had to witness a scarring event, in which he had shot his enemy in the head. It is not surprising that soldiers returning from a stressful war often suffer from a psychological condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For instance, in the book Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, the principle character Perry unmistakably demonstrates how war troopers can be damaged and experience the ill effects of PTSD.

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The short story, “The Things They Carried,” written by Tim O’Brien (1990), appears to be an unpretentious narration that list the tangible items carried by the soldiers while fighting in the Vietnam War. Upon further review it becomes clear that the lists of “things” have a much deeper meaning and carry an abundance amount of emotional weight. Not only is their load a physical burden that consist of hefty equipment that is necessary for survival, but they also bear the burden of internal conflict. The internal conflicts identified in the story center around the disturbing afflictions carried by the soldiers revealing that the men long for an escape from their dreadful surroundings, feel responsible for the lives of their fellow soldiers,

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War isn’t a topic talked of lightly, especially for those who served in the war. In Tim O’Brien’s book titled The Things They Carried, soldiers encountered countless lifeless bodies, witnessed gallons of bloodshed, and questioned their own morals knowing that each battle could prove to be their last. In fact, the soldiers long to escape the daily fear and, in Vietnam especially, resort to whatever easily offers itself as a way to momentarily break with harsh reality whether alcohol, drugs, etc. However, the ones who did experience that trauma almost miss it. The adrenaline in combat, the lack of connection in society after the war, and the brotherhood they created are all factors that contribute to their saudade.

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In the novel “The Things They Carried” author and also ex-veteran Tim O’brien writes a collection of linked short stories about a platoon of American soldiers fighting during the vietnam war. The Vietnam war was a long, unpopular and costly war and once U.S citizens began to see the harsh realities of the war their support for it quickly diminished. Approximately 20 years after the war had started, due to the fear of communism spreading, it finally came to an end leaving at least 58,000 American soldiers, out of 3 million casualties, dead and the remaining scarred for life with emotional and physical burdens. Throughout each short story we learn the significance in which the the title of the novel holds, it expresses that the soldiers not

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This is one of the examples of what the soldiers would have to go through everyday. This could have affected their mental health because they were constantly getting attacked and they would get accustomed to this and change their perspective on what is

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Men & War The way soldiers respond to the dread, uncertainty, and mortality surrounding war may vary; it might be shockingly compassionate, irreverently humorous, or horrifyingly cruel. By examining their responses to specific situations they are faced with, we gain the ability to draw conclusions about both the men themselves as well as war. In the novel The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, we are told many war stories about the soldiers from Tim’s troop during the Vietnam War. The detailed description of a soldier’s perspective of the world, stories of death and sorrow, and how certain soldiers respond to terrible circumstances are all featured in the award-winning novel.

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These men have to watch their fellow soldiers die in front of them and carry away their bodies and then overcome sadness as a feeling in order to move forward. War can be mentally draining and it changes a person who has witnessed it and in the face of a battle that have to overcome these mental challenges to complete the order at

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"They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men" (85). Throughout people's lives, different experiences impact and change their bodies and minds. One of the most dramatic changes can happen to a person when in combat. War causes people to do and see horrific things, and death becomes commonplace.

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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.

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Douglas MacArthur once said, “The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war” (“Douglas MacArthur Quotes”). The wounds and scars that soldiers are left with are not all visible to the naked eye. War can impact the human mind more than most people realize. War changes how a person acts, how they think, and who they are. While someone who has not experienced the nightmares of war might see the physical effects of war as the greatest threat, it is actually the psychological effects of war that leave the deepest scars.

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In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, O’Brien explains the weight of items as well as the psychological weight the men carried during the war. A few of the men had women back home that they held onto so that they had some kind of strive to make it back home alive. He examines how war changes the men psychologically by what is seen and done during war. O’Brien describes his experiences of death and fear that him and his friends faced during the Vietnam war.

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