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The things they carried essay tbear
The things they carried essay tbear
Literary devices in beyond vietnam
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He does not carry heavy things as his peers. In Spring of April he was shot to death. In addition, again and again of Ted Lavender’s relates to the plot by implying that there are more deaths to come in the war. His death is repeated frequently in the book “ shot in the head” from page number two and on page number three “ Ted Lavender was shot”.
The book The Things They Carried was a book about a platoon of American Soldiers in the Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien wrote the book as the Author. Published on March 28 1990, with 233 pages. In the book the men had set up camp, which later found out to be a sink hole. The moltar started coming off the camp.
In the story Lieutenant Cross carries the death of Ted Lavender not only as a burden but also as motivation (O'Brien). Moments before Ted Lavender was shot, Lieutenant Cross was thinking heavily about Martha and how much he wanted her to be a virgin (O'Brien). After Lavenders death, Lieutenant Cross tried to keep calm. It says in the story that Lieutenant Cross “with his entrenching tool, which weighed five pounds, he began digging a hole in the earth” (O’Brien). This shows that Lieutenant Cross cared deeply about Ted Lavender and Martha, and he will continue to fight for those he truly did care about most in life.
In Tim O’brien’s short story, “The Things They Carried,” O’brien explains more than just what people face at war. O’Brien gives detail of each burden, struggle, and memory each soldier carries into the war. He describes of a battle more destructive than a war filled with guns, bombs, and knives. He describes of a mind battle, one in which is the hardest any man can face. A mind battle controls your every decision.
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.
By physically showing calmness in a battle zone, Lavender is only further proving just how mentally unstable he is. While the other soldiers choose to hide their fear, his drug use exposes them for what they truly are, scared. While being scared humans natural response is to run away, freeze or hide, like how Piedmont-Marton states. But Lavender does not do that, instead he charges into the war with drugs by his side. He exposes everyone else’s fear as well, to become drug addicts like him.
Tim O’Brien writes us a wonderful fictional tale of a platoon of men in vietnam during the vietnam war, The Things They Carried shows the reader that when the men are over in this distant and strange land, not only do they carry physical objects, but emotional baggage and ideas that truly make, or break a man in war. Tim and his men show several signs of stress and turmoil while fighting the war, and while they survive they begin to understand what is really means to live, die, and what is right, and wrong. While over in vietnam the men are in a war, not a simple skirmish or fight, but a full on war against an enemy that they were not sure they are the enemy. The men would walk from location from location seeing what there is to do and trying
When soldiers return home after being actively deployed, they struggle with adapting back to the real world due to having severe ptsd and depression. On the battlefield, soldiers carry things such as pebbles, letters and photographs, they serve as symbols of memories, the loss of something or someone, and their identity. The tangible items that the soldiers carried help them withstand the traumatic experiences they had to face during the war In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, O Brien tells us all the things soldiers had to face through with their mental stability and the damage the trauma caused to the soldiers For soldiers that have experienced traumatic experiences during their deployment often find it hard to forget what they have seen You can see this as O Brien states this in his story that But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget (pg.33) It when in deployment you do and see stuff that you don't want to see but are forced to see and you will be unable to forget the things that you did to other soldiers and the things that you have seen done to other soldiers. once you experience that it will be almost impossible to forget those people and some soldiers even have nightmares of the people they have killed.
One character, in particular, is Jimmy Cross. “While Kiowa explained how Lavender died, Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling. He tried not to cry,” (16). Jimmy Cross was carrying the emotional baggage of guilt for the death of Ted Lavender. He experienced such emotional distress because he couldn't stop thinking about Martha the entire time the war started.
Emotionally dragging people down one by one, war brings sweat, tears, and blood. Although soldiers do carry many physical items, each individual also carries responsibilities which are not visible, but tend to weigh one down immensely, such as the lives of men. In the novel The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, he describes the items which the soldiers carried such as “taking up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections.
The role of story telling in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is almost as complex as figuring out a riddle. There are meanings hid within meanings of a story, which makes it hard to understand the importance of a specific story trying to be told. Stories not only play an important role in this novel, but also for many people in real life. Author Tim O’Brien believes that: “story telling has the power to give life to those that have passed on” (O’Brien). The concept in this novel tells a story, which is in the actual text of the novel, but there is also a hidden story within that story.
War is a topic most people have a strong opinion on. Most people clearly show if they are for a war or against it. Tim O`Brien the main character in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. O`Brien view of war is very similar to Henry David Thoreau, the author of “Civil Disobedience ”, view on the war. O’Brien was against the Vietnam War and in his own words says, “ I was drafted to fight a war I hated (O`Brien 40)”.
Tim O’Brien states, “Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien 16). In this quote, Tim O’Brien explains that since Jimmy Cross blames himself about Ted Lavender’s death, he will always be in lieutenant’s head. Thus, the lieutenant will always feel the guilt. With this, Tim O’Brien makes the reader think that Jimmy Cross is the person to blame since he is the head of the group and he has to pay more attention to his plans. Having questions about his love, Martha, in his mind instead of being careful about his men is the reason of him feeling guilty that “the lieutenant’s in some deep hurt” (17).
Lavender “went to heavy on tranquilizers” (O'Brien 31) to help him deal with the fear and uncertainty of combat. He is described as being "scared" and "nervous" throughout the book, and his drug use is a way for him to escape the reality of the war (O'Brien 31). However, Lavender's coping mechanism ultimately fails him, as he is killed while under the influence of drugs. His death serves as a reminder of a reminder that sometimes your coping mechanisms will not save you from the thing you are running
The bluntness of the introduction of Ted Lavender’s death shows how sudden his death was and how death was an ordinary occurrence in the Vietnam war. Ted Lavender’s death plays a significant role in the novel. He carried tranquilizers and extra ammunition as precaution and a way to calm himself; however, he was still killed. His death is ironic because the items that were meant to protect him ended up weighing him down, which made him fall quicker when he was killed. This shows how no object could prevent the soldiers from dying and how death was a worry constantly on the soldiers