Burdens In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The Burdens They Carried: whether physical, emotional, or psychological, they affect the lives of many. Throughout the human experience, burdens have been something individuals carry with them, often acquired in times of adversity. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, the novel focuses heavily on depicting the weight of these burdens in the setting of the Vietnam War. O’Brien utilizes literary elements such as imagery, symbolism, and selective writing techniques to portray the theme of burdens. Not only the physical encumbrances of equipment, but also the psychological bearings of death and violence. This is all utilized by the author to deepen the audience's knowledge of war’s impact on those who went through it. Imagery is a literary

Another impactful literary device used by author Tim O’Brien in the text was symbolism. Many works of literature utilize symbolism as a way to weave deeper ideas into a textual facade; in this novel, the author does so mainly through objects and characters. To start, many of the characters in the text symbolized a deeper meaning of burdens, but one of the more impressive uses of symbolism in characters was Norman Bowker. In the vignette titled Speaking of Courage on page 143, the author states, “Circling the lake, Norman Bowker remembered how his friend Kiowa had disappeared under the waste and water.” This quote recalls Norman Bowker's experience after the war and how he dealt with the guilt and grief of Kiowa’s death. He symbolizes the way that parts of a burden such as guilt can consume you, and later on in the text, they eventually did when Norman Bowker killed himself. Another usage of symbolism in The Things They Carried was in regards to an object rather than a character, as shown on page 2, where the text states, “They carried the standard fatigue jackets and trousers. Very few carry

Scholl’s foot powder as a precaution against trench foot.” This piece of text symbolizes the soldier's care for their well-being, being one of the only pieces of their past lives that they still had relating to the burden of their past and how it affected their war experiences. In conclusion, the utilization of symbolism adds to the overarching theme of burdens by looking past the general facade of the text. Lastly, Tim O’Brien used his writing style as a literary catalyst to fully develop the idea of burdens. The writing style that Tim uses is fragmented paragraphs and vignettes to portray the fragmentation of soldiers' stories and how that connects to their burdens. For example, in the final vignette Lives of the Dead on page 232, Tim Obrien states, “I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come, I can still see her as if through ice, as if I'm gazing into some other world, a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all. I can see Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon, and sometimes I can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow