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Analysis Of If I Die In A Combat Zone, Box Me Home By Tim O Brien

1380 Words6 Pages

“If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home” is a novel written by Tim O’Brien, featuring himself as the lead character. In this book, the reader is walked through his time serving as a foot solider in the Army during the Vietnam War. O’Brien uses a style of storytelling that includes multiple flashbacks to build a strong sense of character throughout the novel. The main theme throughout this novel is courage, and how everyone views it slightly different. Our main character is faced with the harsh realities of war and must decide for himself what he thinks courage truly is throughout his time serving. The beginning of the story jumps right into the front lines of battle and the reader is introduced to O’Brien while chatting with …show more content…

Although, throughout the novel, the reader can still sense that O’Brien is not comfortable with the idea of war—as he isn’t completely positive as to why they are fighting there. He knows the mission, and he understands the things that are needed and required from him as a soldier. He doesn’t quite understand, morally, why some of the men there thrive off of it. This feeling is showcased when we see on page 127 that he discusses the war as such: “It is not a war fought for territory, nor for pieces of land that will be won and held. It is not a war to win the hearts of the Vietnamese nationals… land is not one and hearts are at best left indifferent.” Fast forward and the reader is introduced to many characters along the way that build the story line well. O’Brien sets an interesting tone when he discusses the different kinds of bombs used by the Vietnamese in this war. He talks about them so nonchalantly, “with a funny laugh, flippantly, with a chuckle” (O’Brien, 127). In doing this, he shows the reader just how they had to view it. They had to make light of it, or they would have been too terrified. Sometimes, it was necessary for them to psych themselves out. This attitude is present throughout the whole novel. O’Brien also adds a bit of comic relief in some of the heavier scenes in this storyline. Towards the end of the book, when O’Brien is wanting to get a “rear” …show more content…

The book refers to them often dealing with land mines and hidden booby-traps. Booby-trap is defined as a “hidden bomb or mine so placed that it will be set off by an unsuspecting person through such means as moving an apparently harmless object” (“Booby-Trap). These types of warfare were dangerous and took many lives of American and Vietnamese

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June 23 The book opens up with a story about First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and the infatuation he has with a young woman named Martha. As the chapter continued I start to realize the only reason he is so taken with Martha is because he needs someone, something, even an idea to hold onto to get mind off of the war.

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Being their first hand, O’Brien is able to show people how it is. What the soldiers go through on a day to day basics. Being able to show the world how war was, helped the world to understand it. By openly writing about war, more people were able to help the soldiers. The transition from war to civilian life is a hard one.

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In this book, Tim O'brien uncovers all his encounters in insight about the war; and also stories about his kindred warriors, and makes a genuine, yet over the top about them. He clarifies how he feels through stories that are hard to unmistakably distinguish as "genuine." This book has a great deal of subjects, demise and brutality is one of the real topics. A major topic and point in Tim O'Brien's novel is what number of circumstances hurt the warriors' lives.

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He and Erik shared the same beliefs about the war, and they often wrote to each other while they were in Vietnam. Towards the end of the book, O’Brien wrote to Erik that all he had seen was “evil” and no good (186). This description of the war helps paint the picture of O’Brien’s own mind and belief that the war was nothing but pure immorality. Near their first meeting, Erik even described his own wish to escape the war and move to Europe to become an author (34). O’Brien also admitted to the readers that their coalition was mainly against the war and was created to try and preserve themselves (35).

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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.

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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.

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This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

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Vietnam occupied a complex system of deadly weapons such as the booby trap and mines capable of even killing the last man standing (pg.125). These apparatuses were skillfully concealed in any area around villages so it can be invisible for the opponent to see (pg.165). The extreme mortal weapons had the ability to create terror to newcomers together with the commander of the Alpha Company by generating thoughts of alertness for every step they took (pg.123). The equipment used to injure and take the lives of soldiers, caused them to go AWOL from the perturbation of getting sent home into bodily portions (pg.123). These hazardous devices were effective at sending the newly-arrived commander home injured, just like more than half of the company (pg.171).

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Josh Hochgesang, a student at Stanford University, discusses the topic of uncertainty in war in “The Psychological Effects of the Vietnam War” when he states that “due to a lack of a strong moral and political avocation for the war…it was difficult for the soldier to control and predict the events occurring around him” (Hochgesang). The inability to control circumstances caused many soldiers to begin questioning everything that occurred to them in combat. Steven Kaplan’s “Undying Uncertainty” addresses the notion that the uncertainty of war, specifically the Vietnam War, caused many soldiers to only focus on survival. He states that, in “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien “introduces the reader to some of the things, both imaginary and concrete, emotional and physical, that the average foot soldier had to carry through the jungles of Vietnam” (Kaplan 579). O’Brien’s incorporation of both concrete and figurative details in his work emphasize the general feeling of soldiers who served in

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In "The Things They Carried" by Tim O’Brien, coping mechanisms are central to the experiences of the soldiers in the Vietnam War. O’Brien’s work explores the various ways in which soldiers cope with the physical, emotional, and psychological traumas of war. Coping, in this context, represents the soldiers' attempts to manage the stress of combat and maintain their sanity in an environment of constant fear and danger. Through the characters and their stories, O’Brien demonstrates the importance of coping mechanisms in times of extreme stress.

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The Truth Exposed Abandonment of ignorance is insight to the truths one was once unable to recognize. Rhetorical strategies are modes of discourse capable of unveiling these truths when constructed properly. They are meant to be analyzed with an open mind and the intent to discover the author’s purpose. The following pieces are two completely different stories that were written by two completely different people, yet carry the same purpose. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal use variant rhetorical devices in order to achieve a common purpose of being able to depict truth to their reader.

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In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

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The Power of fiction in The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien is a veteran of The Vietnam War and his experience has provided the literary world with a book called The Things They Carried. This book was written with a special focus on the truths and untruths of the war and the stories that follow. These truths tied into untruths are continually highlighted throughout most of the short stories integrated into this book by multiple uses of hyperbole showing the stories as lies, this is an attempt to tell a story for meaning, displaying the feelings of the soldiers as a means of experience for the readers. This confusion forces the readers to stray from reality causing a further understanding of the real feelings that the perilous war created, showing

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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.

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The knowledge of ethos, logos, and pathos develops and improves yourself as an analytical reader by recognizing the appeals the author uses throughout their text for the readers. It helps reveal the author’s approach in their writing, such as appealing to the reader’s emotions, setting themselves as an credible and reliable source, or uses facts and data to back up their approach. It develops a deeper understanding of the text and the author’s way of addressing the audience. The things they carry are both physical and emotional burdens that weigh them down. O’Brien repeats the weight of each physical item they carry: “for a total weight of nearly 18 pounds...the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds...starlight scope, which weighed 6.3 pounds…” (page

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