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Essay On O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

1388 Words6 Pages

“I survived, but it’s not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to war” (61). A main theme in The Things They Carried is how a man must find a way to overcome fear. The characters learn that they must have enough courage so they are able to overcome their fears. Years after the war, O’Brien reflects on his decision to fight in the Vietnam War. When he was drafted, O’Brien was pressured to go to war by the people of his hometown of Worthington. They would not let O’Brien make his own conscious decision to either fight or flee. Although he did believe in parts of the mission of the war, O’Brien was taking a stance against it while he was still in college. When he fled, O’Brien was undecided on going to war. He could not figure out whether it was worth it to let down his town, or follow his own moral beliefs. O’Brien believes it was his own choice to run from the war. At the time, O’Brien thought it was in his best interests to avoid the war. O’Brien did not completely support it, and even though he would let down his hometown, he felt it in the end it was his own choice. O’Brien thought he was being the real man that he is when he flees because he stands up for what he believes in. When he opposes the war, O’Brien feels justified by his own morals. O’Brien works hard at the lodge in which he resides so he can earn the money to …show more content…

Many people care too much about how others view them. Whether someone else approves of their thoughts and actions affects what anybody does. Many other stories describe soldiers that fight in the war for the pride of the country, or because they wish to die honorably. In The Things They Carried, the men do not want honor, but do not want the embarrassment of avoiding the war. Fighting in the war and dying honorably gives a man a great sense of pride and accomplishment. However, these men do not care about their own self pride. They only work for the approval of

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For Veterans, war has impacted a majority of their life due to the traumatic events that they encounter, so they are left them with the last decision, which it could be drugs or suicide. In the book, The Things They Carried, Tim Obrien writes several short stories on the Vietnam War. A fictional book based on real events and how he describes the Vietnam War as the most significant event in his life because of the things he and his friends had to face. It studies the nature of young men in a time of war, and what made them do tough decisions in and after the war. The thing that is noticeable at first is how characters go into development, and how they listed the things the men had carried with the profound irony being that is not the physical thing they carried but the nonphysical thing they carried, the emotion, the experience and the guilt they encounter in Vietnam.

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In Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker we are brought into the world of the FBI’s serial crime unit where John Douglas spent his twenty-five year career. In this autobiographical novel the readers are shown in chilling details the behind the scenes of some of Douglas's most influential and gruesome cases. Which brings new light to the most recognized serial killers of our time such as Charles Manson, and Ed Gein. Douglas shows the hard truths about life as a FBI agent and the hard reality of meeting and getting to know psychotic people to their very core. Throughout Mindhunter, John Douglas showed his writing skills, teaching, and the overall compelling factor of his novel.

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This quote is from O’Brien the author himself admitting that he couldn’t be brave enough to leave his country and that he was embarrassed of what he was trying to do. So, he told himself that he would go to war, kill and maybe die because of the embarrassment idea he made. The idea of this quote is to explain what he feeling/confusion between what he’d do. Should he go to war? Or should he leave his loved ones and country behind.?

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He didn’t want to die trying to be a nice guy to the enemies. The author also wanted to deliberately expose the arrogant people who fought in the war and the war itself (93). He felt that this war wasn’t something the people should be a part of and he would attempt anything to get rid of it. O’Brien was determined to show how the war was evil and expose the idiotic people involved with it. In the entirety of the book, O’Brien’s readers understand that although he didn’t justify his decisions, he still sustained the events of the process he was going through, and overcome the desires to run away (138).

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O’Brien starts to explain about the waits that the soldiers goes through and explains that it was boring. He feels guilty about writing war stories and his daughter tells him that he is obsessed with the war.

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At this moment, O’Brien is going through remorse for himself. He does not think that he should be forced to fight in this war when he does not believe in what they are fighting for. O’Brien believes that the war was unjust because “certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (1002).O’Brien

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In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien expresses to the reader why the men went to the war and continued to fight it. In the first chapter, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather they were too frightened to be cowards.” The soldiers went to war not because they were courageous and ready to fight, but because they felt the need to go. They were afraid and coped with their lack of courage by telling stories (to themselves or aloud) and applied humor to the situations they encountered.

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In the book, many of the soldiers do things in order to not be made fun of, to survive, and to not regret decisions. The fear of humiliation may have been a leading cause as to why many of the soldiers survived. After O’Brian receives a draft notice he thinks about leaving and heading to the Canadian border. In the Chapter On the Rainy River, O'Brien has the chance to leave behind his life, family, and friends in order to refrain from going to war. While he has the chance at creating a new road to a different life he decides to stay in order to avoid being shamed by his family, friends, and community.

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O’Brien is trying to present young warriors in war as fragile living creatures who are blood and bone, not fantasy fighters who bring glory to the cause, “This idea of the deified nation, a replacement god of abstract principle that can be honored and worshipped through war, has been gradually ousted from its place as the center of the American story” (Ooms 42) That is what the many sides of the story are in conflict while purporting to be the one true version of what happened. No one’s account is really reliable. All of the accounts are based on individual impressions including those of solidarity among the soldiers. O 'Brien demands that outdated stories of grit and valor be put aside to make room for a new kind of war story.

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O’Brien tells the readers about him reflecting back twenty years ago, he wonders if running away from the war were just events that happened in another dimension, he pictures himself writing a letter to his parents: “I’m finishing up a letter to my Parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and how sorry I am that I’d never found the courage to talk to them about it”(O’Brien 80). Even twenty years after his running from the war, O’Brien still feels sorry for not finding the courage to tell his parents about his decision of escaping to Canada to start a new life. O’Brien presented his outlook that even if someone was not directly involved in the war, this event had impacted them indirectly, for instance, how a person’s reaction to the war can create regret for important friends and

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Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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This decision stemmed from the military draft, which occurred during the month of June. Thinking the war in Vietnam was a war in which “certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (O’Brien 38), his first instinct was to leave the United States and avoid the draft all together. On the other hand, if he were to go to war, he would be fighting a war of which he hated. Canada became his safe-haven for escaping the draft. O’Brien stayed at the Tip Top Lodge on the border of Canada and Minnesota, contemplating whether to leave his old life behind or be forced into war.

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He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

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The Things They Carried is an interesting novel not like many others in that it is not one continuous story on a single plot line, but rather the novel is a collection of fictional short stories from a young soldier’s time stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The stories do not follow a specific order either, and they often are set in different time periods, like how Chapters 1 (The Things They Carried), 2 (Love), and 3 (Spin) are set in the time period when the main character, Tim O’Brien, is deployed in Vietnam, while Chapter 4 (On the Rainy River) is set before the war started right after Tim was drafted, and tells the story of him trying to escape the war. The stories tell the reader the story of the differing backgrounds of many

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This is evident when Mr. O’Brien says, “I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to,” (pg. 57.) In the end the author realized what he must do and went back home, so he could fight in the Vietnam

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