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Apocalypse Now And Vietnam Essay

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War, on a global scale, is often categorized as an economical activity. Increases in home-country manufacturing, economy, and often times patriotism, while also stomping across seemingly inferior economies occur. However, in the eyes of the grunts, the soldiers, the actual "doers", war is nothing but trauma. The Vietnam War is portrayed as not only physically traumatizing, but psychologically traumatizing in the short story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O 'Brien and the films Apocalypse Now and Letters Home from Vietnam.
More than its tangible meaning, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O 'Brien offers the concepts of trauma by describing exactly the "weight" of each soldier in both tangible and intangible items. Even the order which the …show more content…

Finally, the film Apocalypse Now suggests psychological trauma by guiding the audience through the unpredictable terrors of Vietnam and by introducing the main antagonist as a PTSD survivor. The PBR, or Patrol Boat, River, is comprised of five soldiers, all but one who eventually die. Even before evidence is shown, just the thought of depending on one another, being around one another 24/7, having to deal with one another and inevitably establishing relationships with one another, and having them killed one by one? That enough will almost invariably cause psychological trauma. However, there are more factors--take for instance the first attack on the boat. An unseen enemy nearly destroys the place you sleep and live and stay--your home, essentially. Completely by surprise, no warning; literally overnight, shelter is almost lost. And not only that, but the next day after attempting to call for help, two more people are murdered, and one goes so far as to attempt to murder his own passenger? This unpredictable, unlawful, and he blames himself and attempts to throw away his humanity. The things they carried weren 't just guns and ammo, but sentiments; Kiowa 's hatchet, Sander 's condoms, Lavender 's dope--O 'Brien portrays these men as complicated humans with experiences unmatched by anything other than war. They aren 't just machines and psychopaths with clips as the returning soldiers were made out to be. They weren 't there by choice. They were human. Lt

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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.

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The Vietnam and Iraq war killed more people mentally than physically. The Vietnam War is told through many stories from Tim O’Brien’s experiences and the other soldiers in his platoon. Like O’Brien, Phil Klay shares multiple stories from his experiences in the Iraq war, and how it affected him mentally before and after the war. The Things They Carried is a story by Tim O’Brien of his past and present experiences from the war, it also includes stories from his old platoon members, all of them telling stories of the horrible things they saw, and how it affected them, and O’Brien how he feels like he needs to write it down to prove how evil the war was on people. The Things They Carried is interrelated with Redployment because they both have multiple

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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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Have you ever been in such a stressful situation while trying to think normal? In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author describes the situations these troops are put through. Along with the situations, the author tells the audience the thoughts and feelings going on with the men. Showing that the men are affected by the situations they are exposed to. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien explains the equipment that the characters need to carry to be prepared for the worst.

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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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Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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Psychological Warfare in ​The Things They Carried Unless you have been in war or have read ​The Things They Carried​, you can't fully understand the psychological toll on a person's mind and body, you can't understand the psychological hardship soldiers go through in war. However, ​The Things They Carried​, by Tim O'Brien, is written to where it shows the overall psychological effects of war on soldiers in and out of Vietnam; as shown throughout the story, the recurring themes of trauma, love, and guilt give the clear psychological implications of war.

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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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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Literary analysis America’s war heroes all have the same stories to tell but different tales. Prescribed with the same coloring page to fill in, and use their methods and colors to bring the image to life. This is the writing style and tactic used by Tim O’Brien in his novel, “The Things They Carried”. Steven Kaplan’s short story criticism, The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, provides the audience with an understanding of O’Brien’s techniques used to share “true war” stories of the Vietnam War. Kaplan explains the multitude of stories shared in each of the individual characters, narration and concepts derived from their personal experiences while serving active combat duty during the Vietnam War,

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