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Tim O 'Brien's Losing A Grip On Life'

1238 Words5 Pages

Avygayle Titco
English V01B
Professor Carlander
02/07/18
Losing a Grip on Life Tim O’Brien’s short story, The Things They Carried, isn’t just any typical war story. He views the perspective of a soldiers eye and the intangible and tangible items they carry along the journey. Through the use of depicted details, it helps the readers feel like they are part of the battlefield. We feel like we’ve known these characters by the way O’Brien describes them with the personal items they carry. Through their journey we realize that no matter how prepared a soldier is, death is something that cannot be prepared, it is inevitable. Despite the needs of what a soldier has to carry in order to survive, the personal items that they had along the …show more content…

No matter how much weapons they could carry. The soldiers knew the risk of their lives being taken. Death could come right before their very eyes. Especially being in those soldier’s shoes, their life was at stake. As the story is being focused on Lt. Jimmy Cross, O’Brien talks about a character then suddenly a character dies. This shows how preparedness can’t help with a soldier’s situation. He puts into detail with what kind of weapons they had on hand. “They carried M-14s and CAR-15s and Swedish Ks and grease guns and captured AK-47s…” (Tim O’Brien 341) No matter how great the weapons were, it didn’t keep them alive. Ironically the items that they were carrying was also the death of them. It shows that they are physically prepared, but that didn’t prevent many of the soldiers …show more content…

“It’s over, I’m gone!-they were naked, they were light and free-it was all lightness, bright and fast..” (Tim O’Brien 349) As the soldiers carried “Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity.” (Tim O’Brien 348) All of what they carried was finally out of their way. The heaviness they carried suddenly became weightless in a second. The numbness of having to know that they had to continue fighting the journey and hindering all their emotions in the back of their head was suddenly

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