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Guilt In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, shame and guilt is developed. This is so by O’Brien having flashbacks while the Vietnam War is on the rise. O’Brien develops shame as he remember a particular story that he has told no one, “This is a story I've never told before” (O’brien 39). He thought it would only bring shame and embarrassment for him and his family, “To get into it, I’ve always thought, would only cause embarrassment for all of us” (39).Soldiers felt obligated to go to war for fear of embarrassing themselves, their families, and their towns if they did not . This shamefacedness is bolstered by the criticism of cry unrefined "masculine" enough—not beastlike brave, heroic, and patriotic enough. O'Brien reflects on howsoever the
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In the book The Things They Carried Tim- O’Brien experiences many altercations that either happens to him or happens to his infantry group of soldiers. This was a nonlinear novel because the chapters jump from one subject to another. O’Brien experienced tragic lifetime events in his battle career when it came to him deciding if he was going to publish a novel or not with his twenty years of active duty. O'Brien's two themes shame/guilt and storytelling/memory was being used. The themes relate to him because these are the things he uses and experiences.

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In “The Things They Carried,” protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is faced with the death like every solider was during the Vietnam war. In reaction to the death of a platoon mate, Ted Lavender, Lieutenant Cross is grief stricken. He continually blames himself: “He felt shame. He hated himself” (p. 412). He blames himself for the death of a friend.

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-Introduction- The novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, is a narrative composed in a non-linear structure which consists of short stories all drawn from O’Brien's experiences during the war. Each of these short stories are linked together to portray the emotional aspects and burdens young men suffered during this time. For context, The Vietnam War was a conflict between South Vietnam and North Vietnam, with the U.S. as the South's ally. It resulted in over 300,000 American injuries and 58,000 deaths, with the average age of soldiers being only 19. This left many vulnerable to psychological and emotional difficulties at an early age.

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In the short story, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, one of the many significant themes that O’Brien uses are that the soldiers had to hold what was within them and it was the guilt. One of the examples in the novel is that, O’Brien specifically puts in detail how most of the soldiers had something haunting them. The back of their mind they were thinking and looking for someone to blame for something they have caused. They were so guilty of the many deaths of the war that it had physically traumatized them. All they could think of was the deaths of the comrades and the deaths of the North Vietnamese soldiers.

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Tim O’Brien short story The Things They Carried embodies the conflict, emotions and burdens soldiers carry in the time of war. O’Brien uses list to describe items soldiers carry and how those items, whether military items or personal items, influences physical strengthen, weak-ness, emotions and symbolic attributes. Tim O’Brien’s character’s carry “Things” that are both literal and fugitive in nature. Each soldier carries or “hump” O’Brien (1990) heavy physical military items. Lt. Jimmy Cross carries “A compass, maps, code book, binoculars, .45 caliber pistol, a strobe light and the re-sponsibility of his men…” (O’Brien, 1990)

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655 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the story of The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, many different themes are expressed. The fear of shame is specifically shown throughout the story through the soldiers. These soldiers were constantly feeling the fear of shame and embarrassment if they were to flee from the war. They felt the fear of embarrassing not only themselves, but also their families and their communities if they were to flee from the war. No matter what is happening in the story of The Things They Carried, you will always be able to find the soldiers feeling the fear of embarrassment that the soldiers are carrying along with them through this tragic time.

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In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien explores how war affects the mental state of those involved. O’Brien uses the things the soldiers carried with them through the war as symbols of how they dealt with their grief and guilt. The author focuses on Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his attachment to his high school crush, using this obsession to showcase how some people cope with guilt by detaching themselves from their present situation. In addition, O'Brien uses shocking and detailed imagery to illustrate how the soldiers distracted themselves from their circumstances. O’Brien explores the theme that people carry guilt differently through his use of imagery and symbolism.

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The book “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, shows the lives of men in his platoon and their stories and experiences of the war. O’Brien, a soldier himself, had a difficult time coming to a decision about the war. Although he opposed the war, he decided to comply with the draft and went to fight in Vietnam anyways. His reason behind joining the war stemmed from embarrassment he would have received from others when he wrote “They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

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2315 Words | 10 Pages

The decision to go to war is not a decision that is taken lightly. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien faces cultural, social and political factors that end up leading him to forgo his plan to dodge the draft, and to report as instructed, a mere yards away from his destination of Canada (57). In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Rocky and Tayo, two young Native American men, experience cultural, social and political factors that draw them into the Army, fighting the Second World War for a country that considers them less than human. The stories of these characters are not unique, they are stories that are representative of the stories of young American men at the time, who faced cultural, social, and political factors during both conflicts.

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Tim O'Brien's short story, "The Things They Carried", is a personal narrative of the time he served in the military during the Vietnam War. His experience in the war along with his platoon shows how soldiers have to conform to the specific image of a tough, brave, and emotionless warrior courageously fighting in the heat of battle. However, the story shows young soldiers who try to follow this image, but end up showing individuality by being their true selves. In the nature of war, most soldiers will try to conform to this image, however showing individuality isn't always a negative thing. At first, the group of very young soldiers who have just been drafted try to show their masculinity by hiding their true emotions such as fear.

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Shame is felt differently by all, throughout different times and for different reasons. In the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he illustrates this clearly utilizing stories from the Vietnam War or of moments after. Tim O’Brien himself is a clear example of this, as the experiences he went through and wrote about within various settings in his book capture the theme of shame and what comes with it. Shame has extremely detrimental effects which are displayed many times throughout the story when talking about his experiences before the war, inside of the frontlines, and from a support role within the backlines. O’Brien’s real first instance of shame within the book is displayed before he even joined the war.

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975 Words | 4 Pages

People, especially soldiers, deal with guilt in many different, sometimes harsh, ways. Though the ways the men in the book and people in real life deal with the feeling of responsibility may seem unhealthy, in some cases it is what is needed to heal. In The Things They Carried, Azar, Tim, and Norman Bowker all deal with guilt in different ways. Thinking too much, taking the blame, and making a joke out of a situation can all be unhealthy, but if the soldiers were using their coping methods in a more uplifting way, it could have solved several problems that arose later on.

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Guilt is an emotion that O’Brien wanted to bluntly throw at the reader because the guilt is something a lot of soldiers faced in and out of war. There are multiple examples of the guilt in this book of all the trauma and all the love,the guilt starts to find its way into the characters. Continuing this, O’Brien runs with the psychological theme of guilt, and he does this masterfully. "They carried shame for almost dodging the draft. The weights they carried couldn’t be left behind and for some of the soldiers in O’Brien’s unit, they carried these intangible weights for more than twenty years after returning home from war"(Clark).

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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.

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"I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam — the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers," quotes O’Brien. "More importantly," he continues, "I carry the weight of responsibility, and a sense of abiding guilt." (npr.org). His intended audience for the book was adults,

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