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Guilty In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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“Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you” (Veronica Roth). The book The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien centers on the Vietnam War and a platoon of soldiers. Although the novel is concentrated on war, it also focuses on O’Brien’s storytelling and the soldiers experiences over time. Dave Jensen and Norman Bowker are two soldiers that reveal guilt and shame through battle, as they end up feeling sorry for themselves due to the actions they take place in. Jensen and Bowker exhibit guilt and shame through their experiences as soldiers during war, and as these traits advance in the soldier's mind, O’Brien demonstrates it negatively through his writing. Dave Jensen exhibits guiltiness through his actions in …show more content…

O’Brien conveys to the audience how the platoon made a pact with one another. The pact is if anyone of them got severely injured, to the point of the being in a wheelchair, to let someone automatically find a way to end their life. Moreover, when Lee strunk steps into a rigged mortar round, the mortar round severed his leg and knee after the round exploded. Resulting in a debilitated wound, Strunk pleads with Jensen for his life, “But you got to promise… Swear it to me—swear you won’t kill me” (63). Strunk and Jensen learn to “trust each other” as they share foxholes and team up on “ambushes” as they were not instant friends at first. Strunk sees his value of life as he is on the verge of giving up and dying through his new acquaintance with Jensen. Although Jensen felt guilty not completing the pact, he knew that it would not matter because he was saving a friend. He feels instant relief for knowing he would not be carrying the guilt of this incident. Jensen also knows that living with guilt can kill anyone faster in these places and O’Brien knowing, a slight relief can help him stay alive longer at war. Having a guilty conscious can lead into actions the mind wants you to complete, but having “friends” can lead you to push away your feelings and help another person that is not …show more content…

The platoon set up camp in a sewage field meanwhile, rain and heat are mixing together, the earth bubbles with the excess heat and moisture. The author describes, rounds of mortar fell on the camp, and the field seemed to boil and explode. Bowker sees Kiowa sink into the muck and grabs him by the foot to try and pull him out of the muck. Since Kiowa seems lost, Bowker let him go in order to save himself from sinking deeper into the dirt. Bowker blames himself for what happened as he has a conversation with Max Arnold, "...' The truth,' Norman Bowker said, 'is I let the guy go.' 'Maybe he was already gone' ...' No, I could feel it. He wasn't. Some things you can feel” (147). As readers who are confronted with the truth of Bowker's story; he feels remorse for Kiowa. When he mentions, "the truth is I let [Kiowa] go" symbolizes his remorse for not being brave enough to save his friend. His deep regret overpowers him as he feels he should've tried harder on saving Kiowas life. Even if this signifies that he chose his life over his friend's, he now has to live with his repentance over this incident. Bowker’s extreme action of completing suicide is the way d O’Brien could tell his story. The pessimistic ending that O’Brien writes was the only way it can impact the readers to see what guilt and shame can lead to. As for Bowker, suicide

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62. O’Brien was essentially furiated with Jorgenson, as Jorgenson selfishly hesitated to provide medical attention when O’Brien was shot during a battle. O’Brien was traumatized from event as he briefly met the brink of his demise, while he demonstrated immense sorrow from his anguishing pains and the thought to death. O’Brien distinctly remembers this fatal incident and blames Jorgenson for his traumatizing experience. O’Brien’s wound also caused him immense pain after the incident, as he could barely apply pressure to his bottom.

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If he’d saved Kiowa’s life he’d accomplish his goal. The guilt will forever be ingrained in Bowker, he honestly believed he

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In the chapter O’Brien gets shot twice in the butt and O’Brien feels upset because Jorgenson does not cover his back. Tim O’Brien wants to find anyway to get revenge for what happened to him, and he wants Jorgenson to feel the same way he did. When Jorgenson tries to explain to O’Brien that he is sorry for what happened O’Brien tells him, “ It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way or bringing you fully awake. Tim O’Brien felt shame/ guilt because what he did to Bobby Jorgenson. O’Brien felt guilt because he wanted to play a prank on Jorgenson so he feels the way Tim did.

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While O'Brien is introspective and reflective, Bowker is more outwardly focused and struggles to find meaning in his experiences. Bowker is haunted by the death of his friend Kiowa, and he feels guilty for not being able to save him. He

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As Kiley begins, O’Brien notes that his goal is “not to kill, [but] to hurt” (O’Brien, 79). O’Brien clarifies Kiley’s intentions to emphasize the contrast between him being a medic and a torturer. Additionally, O’Brien elucidates the death of Kiley’s psyche by equating him with his victim. He remarks that, while crying, Kiley “[tries] to say something, but then [cradles] his rifle and [goes] off by himself” (79). Similarly, he states that the buffalo was silent, excluding a light bubbling sound where its nose had been (79).

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Furthermore, as reported by O’Brien, after Lee had lost his leg when he detonated a rigged mortar, the team “heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight” (O’Brien 63). An analysis of this quote and previous interactions between Dave and Lee reveals that Dave will not have to kill Lee like what they promised each other if either of them obtained a disability.. In other words, Dave is relieved about Lee’s because he did not wish to be the demise of his friend. Similarly, right before Curt’s death, Lieutenant Cross states, “At one point, I remember Mitchell Sanders turned and looked at me, not quite nodding, as if to warn me about something” (O’Brien 67). The details of Curt’s

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This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.

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In addition, Bowker is seen talking to a drive through worker in military language, which the drive through worker understands, showing that only ones in the war can understand. The others, who did not go to war, do not even bother to listen to his stories. However, all these stories are fictional. None of them happened, yet the reader can understand better with the made up details. The reader, while not getting an accurate representation of the events, gets a better, deeper understanding of the emotions and deeper aspects of the Vietnam War: the real

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Heroes are meant to be strong, powerful, and unbreakable. O’Brien shows us the opposite of that when he begins to breakdown after killing the boy with the grenade. He not only regrets it, but begins to imagine a life he had before his death. He couldn’t stop looking at his deformed face and even thought of him later in life when he figured the boy coming towards him as he once did before his death. Heroes aren’t supposed to regret what they’ve done or even be traumatized, they’re supposed to rise above that and show their spirit.

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Throughout the entire story, the narrator explains how close the men become to each other. You become brothers and you trust each other with your lives. In the chapter, The Ghost Soldiers, Tim O’Brien sees the men he was on the platoon with and is

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Sergeant Barnes, one of their leaders, goes on to integrate a man about the stores of food, and when his wife becomes upset, he shoots her point blank. She had done nothing wrong, other than defend her husband. Such brutality is the sign of a man who has lost all care for morals or ethics, and is deemed by Sergeant Elias as a war crime. Even Chris Taylor, the main character in “Platoon”, must defend the young girls of the village after he finds the soldiers attempting to rape them, “She’s a fucking human

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When Lyman was looking at the picture it dawned on him, unlike the car, Henry cannot be repaired. The dark truth behind the mental image of Henry’s brother shows that his soul did not return back from Vietnam. Lyman’s avoidance of the photograph shows the murkiness behind the photograph. His detail of the photograph creates a mental image of Henry’s suffering and distance from reality he could never overcome. He hides this photograph in his closet because he would never get to understand what his brother went through while being imprisoned.

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Survivor's guilt took play in Tim O'Brien and also many of his buddies. They had especially felt guilt for the men that they had killed. In the chapter “The Man I Killed”, Tim expresses his feelings of guilt for the man he had thrown a grenade at while he had exposed himself on the open trail. Tim O'Brien expressed how much the man that he had killed had to live for. In his head, he created a future for a man he did not even known.

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This quote from the passage tells of the moral of the platoon. It was low, these men wanting no more to do with the war and only wanting to return home. These soldiers were inexperienced and not by choice, had been drafted into the war. It was their experience with Lieutenant Cross that they will not forget, the shared experience is one they all must carry after the war. The remaining survivors had no choice except to carry the burdens of grief, guilt, and pain.

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In “Enemies,” he assumes that he has broken a social code by hurting Strunk badly and must therefore feel awful, so he reconciles it in a way he deems fair according to his code. Then also in “Friends,” he feels he has broken a social code by not honoring the terms of his pact with Strunk, even though Strunk is the one who waves off the pact. The when he finds out that Strunk died, he is relieved because now the terms of the pact have been honored, instead of just voided. Now in normal circumstances, this would be seen as contrary to what society would deem a normal social code of friendship. But because it is war, Jensen’s actions in breaking the social code are

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