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Allegory In The Things They Carried

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"They varied the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity." -O 'Brien. The Things They Carried by Tim O 'Brien, is about how war can destroy you, with an horrible end always. O 'Brien use the symbolism to show that war can destroy your humanity and innocence. And use the allegory to show that the past can either hurt or help someone in war. O 'Brien use the symbolism the dancing Vietnamese girl and Mary Anne to show that war can destroy your humanity and innocence. O 'Brien and his troops come across a girl who is dancing outside her burning house with her family inside. "They were dead and badly burned. It wasn 't a big family: an infant and an old woman and a woman whose age was hard to tell. When we dragged them out, the girl kept dancing"(Pg.129). War will destroy your humanity and innocence, and there will be no mercy. It will destroy the most innocent of people. The destruction of humanity and innocence is not something good to hear, it 's horrific and shocking, it 's a terrible thing. The destruction of humanity and innocence was also seen when a soldier, Mark Fossie, invited his girlfriend, Mary Anne, to visit. Her transformation was shocking. "This Mary Anne wasn 't no virgin but at least she was real. I saw …show more content…

O 'Brien use the symbolism the dancing Vietnamese and Mary Anne to show that war can destroy your humanity and innocence. It also use the allegory of the letters of Martha, and Linda, are used to show the past can either hurt or help you someone in war. The destruction of humanity and innocence it 's something terrifying, war can transform you completely into someone else that at the end you will no be able to recognize yourself. And in war you will need to take decisions that you may not like, you will need to get ride of things that you don 't want to let go of the past so you can be able to survive, and your decisions can hurt or help

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