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The effects of world war 2 on american society
American society aftet WWII
The effects of world war 2 on american society
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In his short story, TIm O’Brien intentionally chooses words and phrases that evoke emotion in the reader. The author’s word choices give the reader a complete view of O’Brien’s perspective of his dilemma. “All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heros of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit.” TIm O’Brien uses this quote from his short story to generate a feeling of uncertainty in the reader. It prompts the reader to question his/her own ability to be brave and strong in a time of crisis.
Men went through so many tasks during the Vietnam War physically and mentally. The beginning chapters focus on training for war and being prepared for the worst. For example, when there is a sergeant in a room with the marines. The sergeant walks to the chalk board and writes “AMBUSHES ARE MURDER AND MURDER IS FUN” (36-37). The
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.
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.
(page 68). This is why Tim O’Brien writes the way he does. He wants the reader to believe his story and get a sense of what war is truly
The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, illustrates the experiences of a man and his comrades throughout the war in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien actually served in the war, so he had a phenomenal background when it came to telling the true story about the war. In his novel, Tim O’Brien uses imagery to portray every necessary detail about the war and provide the reader with a true depiction of the war in Vietnam. O’Brien starts out the book by describing everything he and his comrades carry around with them during the war. Immediately once the book starts, so does his use of imagery.
Rather, the significance of O’Brien’s work is his utilization of a metafictional novel as a representative vehicle for the Vietnam War. Within The Things They Carried
Regret is a powerful emotion that has the ability to scar someone for the rest of their life. Moments of regret can come from relationships, self-made decisions and life changing events. The idea of regret also applies to “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh and “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien. Although these two literary pieces are very different in many ways, both authors describe the experience of the Vietnam War as a time of regretful decisions that negatively impacted people of both the American side and the Vietnamese side. Both authors tell a story about a character that recalls of flashbacks of the war, where they grieve over the past decisions that have affected them for the rest of their life.
In the book “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien admits to killing only one man during his war career, and relays it in the chapter “The Man I Killed”. In this chapter, O’Brien surveys the mangled body of the Vietnamese man he has just murdered, and desperately attempts to humanize the dead man as a coping method for his guilt. The chapter embodies a unique, and extremely detailed repetitive writing style which serves as a symbol of O’Brien’s scrutiny over his irrevocable action. The chapter begins with an exceptionally detailed description of the Vietnamese soldier’s body, as O’Brien surveys his destruction.
The environment that surrounds one will have a big affect on him or her; in a good environment, people will gradually improve, but in a harsh environment, people will be influenced negatively. O’Brien introduce the reality of the soldiers in the Vietnam War and brings to life the setting of the entire novel. The soldiers were primarily teenagers and young men in their early twenties who had not yet had the chance to experience life. O’ Brien states, “war is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love, War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.
Towards the end of the book, O 'Brien talks about the mental change the war creates in your mind that never lets you completely bounce back to civilization. On page 208 and 226, the author explains two strategies the soldiers use to keep themselves sane in Vietnam. They use language tricks, turning miles of marching in the pitch dark was called the “night life”, a burnt body became a “crunchie munchie” or a “crispy critter”; “If it isn’t human, it doesn’t matter much if it’s dead.” On page 215, Tim is new to the war and he hasn’t developed the humor the rest of the guys have, like shaking hands with dead bodies to make the deaths seem less real. The author’s friend, Kiowa, says, “Well, you’re new here.
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.
How it was shaped: Tim allowed the draft of the Vietnam war and societal pressures get to the best of him and he slowly tore himself apart, he started off as a confident incorrigible man. His morals later then became corrupted, he gave into the pressures, his self proclaimed Lone Ranger status had been infected and debunked by his end decision of serving in the Vietnam war. Thesis: In the story, On the Rainy River, the author, Tim O’Brien demonstrates that an individual allows societal pressures and expectations to override their core values, morals, and beliefs; peer pressure forces individuals to put their beliefs aside so they can fit in with everyone else. The narrator, Tim O’Brien faces a similar situation when he get’s drafted for the Vietnam War.
In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the soldiers have to carry a lot of things physically and mentally. One of the biggest things the soldiers have to carry is conflict, but not just between other people, inside of themselves as well. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien the author has an internal conflict of whether to go fight in the war in Vietnam or to run away to Canada which he tells through the story “On the Rainy River.” An internal conflict is a conflict inside of a character in a story.
The soldiers in the Vietnams war were there for different reasons, some soldiers were forced against their will and some were there by choice. Because of that, each soldier has their own thoughts about the war, O’Brien has interpreted that “The twenty –six men were very quiet: some of them excited by the adventure, some of them afraid”. This clearly shows how the men
