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Emotions Of War Character Analysis

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Many Emotions of War In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the collection of short stories gives the reader a better understanding of the Vietnam War and how it made the soldiers feel. At this time, there was a draft in order to get more soldiers into battle. Many men entered war at a young age and were not prepared to face the horrors that war brings. As O’Brien re-lives the war in his stories, he tends to exaggerate and change things to entertain, but also prove how the war gets in the heads of soldiers. The many emotions felt during times of war tend to take a toll on soldiers and their actions; O’Brien successfully portrays these emotions as they are proven based on medical diagnosis given to veterans. First, O 'Brien …show more content…

Lastly, young men at war cannot handle their emotions properly so they get caught up in actions that go against their morals. O 'Brien describes war as being hell and every soldier deals with it differently. The emotions used by O 'Brien give the reader a better understanding of what war was like for men that haven’t even fully grown up yet. During times of war “men often resorted to black or gallows humor, (...) as a means of dealing with everyday reality” (British Library). As the soldiers face daily fears of being killed, war takes a toll on their mental state. Tim O’Brien uses a specific example to stick this in the reader 's head, when Rat Kiley “stepped back and shot (the water buffalo) through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear” (O’Brien 78). Rat kiley ends up killing a baby buffalo in rage after his dear friend Curt Lemon was killed. Soldiers end up committing cruel actions that go against their morals as a way of dealing with war. Tim O’Brien describes how distraught Rat was after his friend was killed which led him to take his emotions out on the buffalo. O’Brien could have exaggerated this story just like others, however the emotions that Rat Kiley feels are genuine because young soldiers resort to dark actions as they

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