ipl-logo

In The Lake Of The Woods By Tim O Brien

1391 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effects of vietnam war on american culture

In Tim O’Brien’s novel “In the Lake of the Woods” the protagonist John Wade a Vietnam war veteran struggles through life after retiring from the army. Through textual evidence within the novel one of John’s struggles is battling his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is attributed to traumatic events such as war that soldiers deal with when coming back from war into civilian life throughout his senior years. This disease is diagnosed after analyzing scholars work upon these mental illness that soldiers have. These sources are “Traumatic Encounters: Reading Tim O’Brien” as well as “PLAUSIBILITY OF DENIAL: Tim O'Brien, My Lai, and America” both scholarly sources discuss the traumatic experiences that John had which led to his PTSD. …show more content…

Flashbacks, nightmares, and hallucinations. This trifecta of mental phenomenons attributed to PTSD patients as symptoms is described as “Debilitating symptoms that largely involve unwillingly repeating the traumatic event.”( McWilliams 5) John Wade throughout the novel recounts his experience during the Vietnam war which he saw horrendous actions imposed on the innocent by blood thirsty comrades of his. However the most repetitive story he recounts is about the killing of PFC Weatherby; “After he’d shot PFC Weatherby- which was an accident in the purest of reflex- he tricked himself into believing it hadn’t happened the way it happened.” (O’Brien 68) Foremost this shows the suppression of memory that John uses to cloud the reality of what happened when he murdered the PFC. In addition to that John brings this event up many times throughout the book, not only recounting many events in different chapter during the war but always bringing the PFC back into his story tellings. Lastly John wakes up “Twice during the night…sweating”(O’Brien) This shows flashbacks that have begun taking over his life from accounting war experiences to his nightmares which resulted from the PTSD which he must now live

Show More
Related

Book Report On Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand

932 Words | 4 Pages

PTSD and being an alcoholic follows him around and constantly haunts him. In the novel, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, it shows a true story of a soldier’s life of positives and negatives while being stranded out at sea, being a prisoner of war, and having post

Read More

Summary Of The Last True Story I Ll Ever Tell

1158 Words | 5 Pages

In his dream, “A crashing boom broke the night air and I jumped up on my cot with a start. It took me a moment to realize where I was. Pearson and Hightower were already up, throwing on body armor and grabbing weapons to defend the perimeter” (Crawford 1638). This dream showed that John relived the trauma of the Iraq War.

Read More

Marine Corps Issue By Johnny Bowen

390 Words | 2 Pages

War breaks the person, and traumatizes the mind. In the story “Marine Corps Issue '' by David McLean, the narrator Johnny Bowen learns about how damaged his dad was by the Vietnam War. Johnny learns that his father was in The Marine Corps, he earned a Purple Heart, and experienced Vietnamese torture techniques Throughout the story Johnny learned how damaged his father was. One way Johnny learns that his father was damaged by the Vietnam War was when Johnny discovers the Purple Heart.

Read More

The Long Walk To Water By Linda Sue Park

786 Words | 4 Pages

In south sudan a civil war broke out that shut down refugee camps killed thousands and one of them killed by being tied to a tree and shot. The main character in the long walk to water by Linda Sue Park is a young boy named salva. Salva is a young boy that gets separated from his family and is picked at random to go start a life in the U.S. in his journey for safety he crosses through lion country, fast rivers, and the Akobo desert all with only the support of his uncle. Salva manages to overcome many dangerous animals, dangerous territories, and the lose of many loved ones through his journey to safety.

Read More

Above The Waterfall By Ron Rash

1102 Words | 5 Pages

Economics and Psychology in Appalachia, An Analysis of the Novel: Above the Waterfall In the novel Above the Waterfall, Ron Rash decides to focus on the main theme of Loss. The culture within the beautiful ecosystem of Appalachia is encased with family ties that are hard to deny. Rash writes, “In a county this rural, everyone’s connected, if not by blood, then in some other way” from the relationship between Darby and Gerald to the friendship between Les and Becky, their relationships show a true loyalty to the ones they have grown up with and show that Appalachia is a tight knit community (Rash 90). The characters within the novel: Above the Waterfall demonstrate signs of loss of self, domestic violence, as well as poverty.

Read More

A Long Walk To Water By Linda Sue Park

1276 Words | 6 Pages

In the historical fiction novel A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, a boy named Salva escaped from his village after the rebels attacked. Before the rebels took over Salva’s village he went to school everyday. Each day after school his mother would always be waiting for him at home with a bowl of warm milk. In the historical fiction novel The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis, a girl named Parvana lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Taliban rule. Before the Taliban took over Parvana’s town, it was a very beautiful city with restaurants, movie theaters, and shops.

Read More

Soldiers In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1088 Words | 5 Pages

One often recalls the pounds and pounds of gear soldiers in war must carry: rifle, knife, helmet, body armor, grenades, and many more. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien begins the novel with a detailed description of the physical gear soldiers carried in Vietnam; with each listed item, the total weight of a soldier’s equipment slowly grew into a massive number. One would assume the equipment would prove to be a soldier’s largest burden in the battlefield. Although the soldiers in Vietnam certainly carry backbreaking amounts of equipment, their emotional and psychological burdens far outweigh their physical gear. “Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had

Read More

Effects Of War In Tim O Brien's In The Lake Of The Woods

1152 Words | 5 Pages

The Effects of War in In the Lake of The Woods The theme for In the Lake of The Woods is the effects of war a soldier must face when they come home from battle by the novel focusing on the protagonist John Wade and his internal struggles. The author uses imagery, symbolism, and diction as John Wade as he struggles to live alone with his wife on a cabin on a lake in the woods with both his past and future haunting him. In Tim O'Brien's novel, there are many instances of imagery when John is having to go through his memories of what happened in Vietnam, especially when he is in a trench and saw everyone around him kill all that moved or breathed..

Read More

Into The Wild, By Chris Mccandless And Henry David Thoreau

489 Words | 2 Pages

Chris McCandless and Henry David Thoreau are followers of the 19th century philosophy Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the belief that everyone has the wisdom in them to be one with God without having to go through a priest or be in a church. Transcendentalists base this philosophy on self-wisdom, nature, and social reform. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild shows Chris McCandless’ choices and parallels to Henry David Thoreau’s transcendental beliefs from Walden. One transcendental belief that Chris McCandless follows is living deliberately.

Read More

A Long Walk To Water By Linda Sue Park

1100 Words | 5 Pages

The food availability, safe water access, and medical treatment in Sudan is much different than what is available in the United States. Currently in South Sudan, around forty eight percent of children are underweight, and only twenty seven percent of all people in Sudan have access to safe drinking water. In the book A Long Walk To Water written by Linda Sue Park, the main characters Salva and Nya struggle to survive. However, Salva and Nya both show hope as they carry on through Sudan's water crises, food shortages, and medical emergencies. Sudan has had many wars over the last few decades, resulting in around two million people to be displaced from their families.

Read More

PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

607 Words | 3 Pages

INTRODUCTION Hook: The horrors of war can leave deep scars on those who experience it, for many soldiers the wounds of battle can linger long after the fighting has ended. Tim O'Brien portrays the shock of PTSD, a condition that can follow troops for years, in a moving and dramatic way. Context:PTSD is a mental health disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Thesis:

Read More

Ptsd In The Things They Carried

988 Words | 4 Pages

The Vietnam War was very different from the past wars. There were a lot more cases of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among soldiers than any other wars http://historyofptsd.umwblogs.org/vietnam/ . In ‘The Things They Carried’, a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien, using the psychological lense can help us understand how wars can change a person’s mental state dramatically. It can show us what soldiers had to carry during the war, including intangibles, like fear and guilt. These men had to fight a war that the U.S. did not have to be involved in and it changed their whole life.

Read More

PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1768 Words | 8 Pages

Dangerous and intense situations typically lead to certain devastating consequences to a persons both emotional and physical health. As result of these experiences, there is often not only exterior injuries, but also the non visual psychological damage that is just as hard, if not harder, to resolve. One commonality throughout all wars is this unseen casualty known as PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder. Tim O’Brien, veteran of the Vietnam war, demonstrates how PTSD affects soldiers in countless ways in his novel The Things They Carried. He uses fictional but lovable characters that readers can easily relate to, intensifying their emotional engagement in the book.

Read More

Psychological Warfare In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

772 Words | 4 Pages

The tribulation the soldiers have to endure with all the violence in O'Brien's novel brings a tremendous slap of psychological trauma in their lives. This psychological trauma has been

Read More

A Long Walk To Water By Linda Sue Park

1077 Words | 5 Pages

In the book “A Long Walk to Water,” by Linda Sue Park, there are two stories that take place in Southern Sudan. Both stories overlap each other at the end. One of the stories is a fictional story and takes place in 2008 with a character named Nya. The other story is the true story of a boy named Salva and it takes place in 1980. Nya’s and Salva’s story both have social and cultural issues that they must face.

Read More

More about In The Lake Of The Woods By Tim O Brien

Open Document