Emotional Burdens In The Things They Carried

People everywhere including soldiers carry physical or emotional things with them all the time. However, the things one carries along defines one as a person, exposing one’s flaws and great qualities. For example, in the novel, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the novels view on the Vietnam War illustrates the lives of the soldiers who fought and died there. Additionally, O’Brien establishes what each character carried in a literal and mental form such as, by exposing guilt, innocence, and emotional burdens in each solider, which gives one an insight of how those men were during the war. Thus, the title of the novel goes further than the literal as it exposes not only the physical things the soldiers carried, but also things such

Jimmy Cross dealing with his emotional burden allows one to imply that the title of the novel goes much further than the literal as it also represents the invisible things the soldiers would carry. Also the title of the novel has great significance because it exposes the truth that people suffered from emotional burdens in the daily life of war. O’Brien also conveys the emotional burdens of Curt Lemon when he states, “No way... Count me out… Nobody messes with these teeth… Now and then we could hear him cussing, bawling himself out…Lemon kept insisting…yanked out a perfectly good tooth (O’Brien 65).” O’Brien illustrates the story of Curt Lemon, and the dentist in a calm situation. There is no danger, but Curt Lemon is filled with fear. Lemon in this situation shows his emotional burdens of fear by remembering his childhood fears about dentists. His fears take him to the point that he does not even reject seeing the dentist, but instead he faints. On the other hand, worse than his fears and memories of dentists, Curt Lemon was more afraid of losing his character as being viewed as courageous. Because he carries the emotional burden of fear of shame, he

For instance, “Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don't,” suggests that O’Brien still lives with the guilt of killing the young man at ambush (O’Brien 95). The guilt over killing the young man on the trail that night of ambush is what lead O’Brien to become a writer. He in fact, gives the young man a background exposing how O’Brien, years after, still has not been able to free himself from the guilt. Furthermore, the night of ambush when O’Brien was in the situation where he had to protect his fellow soldiers, he acted on instinct and threw the grenade. On the contrary, right after he realized that he had killed the man, he felt instant guilt. O’Brien reinforces this idea when he states, “There was no real peril …Even now I haven't finished sorting it out (O’Brien 95).”Because they all had the mindset to be courageous and brave at all times, O’Brien shows that he was at complete shock as he reacted instantly. In addition, Tim O’Brien suffers internally with his guilt when he claims that there was no actual danger, but because he threw the grenade ending that young man’s life, he now has to carry the guilt for the rest of his life. O’Brien makes it clear that the young man wasn’t a threat, but he still decided to end the man’s life who he predicts would have possibly have had a bright future ahead of him. Knowing the fact that the man was an innocent victim, the man exposes the