Burdens In The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a story about wartime Vietnam during the 1960s. The Vietnam War is arguably one of the most controversial wars that the United States has been involved in. Many people were against the United States' involvement in Vietnam and believed it wasn’t America’s fight. While many were against the war, the men involved in fighting this war drastically change because of their traumatic experiences during the war. The characters in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien were by no means different from real soldiers and their lives change profoundly by the physical things they carried with them during the war and the emotional burdens that soldiers carried with them for many years to follow their combat.

The burdens that

It can force soldiers to live with physical burdens like injuries that can negatively affect their quality of life. The experiences that soldiers encounter during the war can also drastically affect their lives. One example of this is the character Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker dealt with a couple of emotional burdens that affected his life after the war. One of these burdens was the guilt of his friend Kiowa’s death. The book, The Things They carried, reads “He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be” (98). In this part of the book, Norman Bowker is recalling how his friend Kiowa dies. Norman Bowker remembers how Kiowa was sinking into the muck and shit-filled swamp. Norman recalls how he had acted in a

The book, The Things They Carried, is narrated by Tim O’Brien, or a story is told from the perspective of the author. While fighting in Vietnam, it is revealed that Tim O’Brien is the youngest in his platoon at just twenty-one years old. They also revealed it in the book that O’Brien is opposed to fighting in Vietnam and is scared of what would happen to him during the war. An example of how Tim O’Brien was correct in his assumption that something would happen to him in Vietnam is when the book reads, “Even now I haven't finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don't. In the ordinary hours of life, I try not to dwell on it, but now and then, when I'm reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I'll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog. I'll watch him walk toward me, his shoulders slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side, and he'll pass within a few yards of me and suddenly smile at some secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends back into the fog” (85). Earlier in the story, O’Brien expressed how he feared his innocence would be lost once he returns from war. O’Brien had thrown a grenade toward an enemy soldier and he recalls how it all seemed to happen in slow motion. He describes the grenade seeming to freeze mid-air as if someone had