ipl-logo

Examples Of Trauma In The Things They Carried

689 Words3 Pages

Shamus Colson
Ms. Robinson
Junior Humanities English
13 June 2023

Vietnam and the trauma carried by a soldier from a war fought in vane
Throughout Tim O'brien's book The Things They Carried we are introduced to several young men who had been deployed to the Vietnam countryside to fight a war where there was no clear good guy or bad guy and no real objective other than to kill the spread of Communism. Unfortunately rather than addressing the horrible things these young men saw and experienced our government and some of our people shunned away these young men and the trauma they carry from a war fought in vane, where instead of valuing the lives and emotional well-being of America's sons, our government valued money and capitalism.
The young man that arguably carries the most trauma throughout the book is Norman Bowker. Bowker’s most eye-opening and heartbreaking experience during Vietnam takes place at the platoon encampment that unknowingly was placed at the edge of a sewage field. One night it begins to rain particularly hard causing the edge of the sewage pit to turn to mud, then unexpectedly Viet Cong mortar rounds take fire on the already eroding campsite causing a fellow soldier by the name of Kiowa to fall into the sewage pit and begin to drown in human …show more content…

Though Tim Obrien never confirms the stories he shares in The Things They Carried are true he does share some very insightful anecdotes about the trauma he carried with him from Vietnam. One particular quote that highlights this is “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth”.(53) This quote means that Tim Obrien feels that to him the depravity and trauma he experienced in Vietnam is beyond difficult to fathom and little more than a lie and that he can recollect on the perhaps fictional but very similar trauma his characters carry with

Show More
Related

Tim O Brien Literary Analysis

905 Words | 4 Pages

In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried the narrator, Tim O’Brien, often blurs the lines between reality and fiction. As a young soldier, O’Brien recalls the Vietnam war including the sounds, sights, and his emotions, while 20 years later he again shares his feelings and experiences of the same event. This same event, however, is told differently in order to help him cope with the emotional pain of war. The details become blurry as the pain is too great to endure.

Read More

How Does Tim O Brien Present The Overall Attitudes In The Things They Carried

715 Words | 3 Pages

Tim O’Brien uses seemingly true events to describe his overall emotions about the Vietnam war and what he and others did there. “I want you to know what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” (O’Brien, pg. 171). This quotation is the foundation of the entire book The Things They Carried, O’Brien uses this base to tell the story of many things that he witnessed. O’Brien’s verisimilitude is used to give real world emotions to a literary work.

Read More

Rhetorical Precis For The Things They Carried

686 Words | 3 Pages

Tim showcases these feelings through this quote, ““If at the end of a war story, you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste…then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie….” (O’Brien 68). The book’s title is apparent throughout the book as the soldiers are shown having various objects that they carried through the war in Vietnam. Tim states how, “… It is safe to say that in a true war story, nothing is ever absolutely true… Sometimes war is beautiful, sometimes it is horrible…” O’Brien (82).

Read More

Irony In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

428 Words | 2 Pages

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien describes how soldiers physically and emotionally adapted to Vietnam. In the chapters “The Dentist” and “Stockings,” he uses irony to accentuate these adaptations, in order to illustrate that for those who fought in the war coping was as essential as surviving. In “The Dentist,” Curt Lemon’s desire to be perceived as strong highlights his burrowed uncertainty of his courage.

Read More

The Soldier In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

990 Words | 4 Pages

The lives of soldiers, Norman Bowker and Curt Lemon, illustrate how the war pressures the human spirit to a standard it can’t resemble. The pressure and responsibilities of lost friends and lost acts of courage heavily weigh Norman Bowker down,

Read More

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Literary Analysis

793 Words | 4 Pages

Madelyn Smith Ms.Reid English 11 Law 25 April, 2023 The Vietnam War was a horrifyingly gruesome and deadly altercation in which America sent hundreds of thousands of kids to fight in a grown man's war. Close to 60,000 American soldiers and 250,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed in this fight of nonsense, in which the lives of innocent civilians and soldiers alike were taken, all while making no political progress. In the historical fiction, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien presents stories that show how the soldiers cope with the war, in order to depict the trauma and horror they experienced, ultimately illustrating that the soldiers who went to Vietnam lived through horrid battles and show their fear of uncertainties through their

Read More

Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

1292 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More

Spin By Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

791 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

Norman Bowker's Life In The Things They Carried

912 Words | 4 Pages

Returning home from war is never an easy transition for a soldier, no soldier embodied that truth more than Norman Bowker. Bowker is a Vietnam War veteran from the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien who struggles with his life and mental health after the Vietnam War. Bowker is troubled by his memories- most specifically one memory- that he cannot forget or forgive himself for. Bowker was a man who had to fight for his life every day he was in Vietnam, there was always a chance the Viet Cong would attack. Bowker lost friends and lost fellow soldiers every day in Vietnam, he even lost his best friend to the war.

Read More

How Does Norman Change In Speaking Of Courage

1362 Words | 6 Pages

The town refuses to hear the horror stories, nonetheless they continue to celebrate America. In the chapter on Bowker's twelfth circulation, the fireworks start to go off. It's Independence Day and there's a huge show celebrating America and its victory in war, shiny lights in the sky like shiny medals on a uniform, but Bowker is still alone, with no one listening to his unspeakable thoughts. Thus he has a hard time coping with his bagage and ends up losing his battle with society. In the article “The Psychological Effects of Vietnam War” expresses the Veteran attitudes toward life at home.

Read More

PTSD In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1196 Words | 5 Pages

Noah Cohen Reid Period 3 English 11 May 9th, 2023 The Effects of PTSD on Vietnam Veterans Depicted in The Things They Carried The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a substantial perspective-shifting book about a man recalling the conflict of the Vietnam War, speaking to the reader and describing the horrors of the Vietcong conflicts with gruesome and personal detailing. The main character seems to be O’Brien himself, and his platoon buddies in ‘Alpha Company’. It’s because of these horrific events that occurred that have left the men of this story with inexplicable trauma, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read More

Truth In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

1020 Words | 5 Pages

After reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, it is astoundingly clear that truth plays an essential role in the story’s overall meaning and portrayal as an authentic Vietnam War story. In this complex narrative, the topic of truth has been interpreted in many specific and intricate ways. Many interpret his usage of truth similarly to one another, stating how “war inevitably imposes a compromised version of the interpretation of a genuine experience”, causing O’Brien to project altered truths so the experience can truly connect and express its true state (Wesley 2). This common trend seen in these authors’ coverage of truth is that they examine the synthesized, story truth that Tim O’Brien utilized in his story aimed to better emphasize

Read More

PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1504 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More

The Things They Carried 5 Paragraph Essay

480 Words | 2 Pages

The Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, written by Steven Kaplan, questions if there is any sense or meaning derived from what happened during the Vietnam War and how that could be conveyed to those who have not experienced the war. Literary critic, Philip Beider’s, writes “most of the time in Vietnam, there are some things that seemed just too terrible and strange to be true and others that were just too terrible and true to be strange. ”(American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam 4). Kaplan believes that by destroying the fine line between fact and fiction, fiction can often sound truer being, presented as meaningful.

Read More

Moral Confusion In The Things They Carried

645 Words | 3 Pages

The Vietnam War leaves a legacy of moral confusion with each and every soldier who serves. Soldiers are fighting for a cause they do not necessarily believe in, killing people who do not necessarily deserve it, and watching their brothers die beside them. Tim O’Briens’ book, The Things They Carried, illustrates the soldiers struggle to define morality throughout the confusion of the war. On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien faces what he feels is his moral obligation to answer his country’s call and fight in Vietnam, and a personal moral issue with the reason for the war.

Read More

More about Examples Of Trauma In The Things They Carried

Related Topics

Open Document