ipl-logo

Masculinity In The Things They Carried By O Brien

1970 Words8 Pages

Due to unclear reasons, the government gave the American population about the war, the Vietnam War was overly-polarized, costing the soldiers their mental and physical deterioration. While the draft was forcing soldiers to fight with unclear motives, the government was hiding the true reasons for fighting. When interviewed by the Copley Press, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke about a type of government that has mostly been frowned upon in the world ever since WWII. “Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world”( President Dwight Eisenhower). President Eisenhower denounced the dictatorial government of Ho Chi Minh and how it was forming into a communist government similar …show more content…

To counteract that previous statement, O’Brien states that the true reason people go to war is because they will be seen as cowards if they do not go to war.O’Brien alludes to the killing of a Vietnamese man and by alluding to this murder he’s indicating that men in wars do unspeakable things in part due to immense amount of peer pressure from their fellow soldiers. O’Brien also alludes that a soldier's greatest fear is not death but just simple embarrassment. In the story “The Man I Killed” Tim O’Brien explains in graphic detail about a man that he killed and Alazar expresses his excitement for O’Brien.“ ‘Oh man, you fuckin’ trashed the fucker’ Azar said. ‘ You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like Sredded fuckin’ Wheat.’ ‘Go away,’ Kiowa said. ‘I’m just saying the truth. Like oatmeal.’ ‘Go’ Kiowa said'' (O’Brien 119). Toxic masculinity, or the dominant and violent reaction of men to feel superior and powerful, has a negative impact on the soldiers and can be seen by Kiowa’s response to Azar. Azar’s use of diction and persuasive tone illustrates how excited and proud he is of O’Brien for his bloody murder. Azar uses a simile to compare the Vietnamese dead soldier to a common food. This comparison is completely atrocious because comparing a …show more content…

Ysef Komunyakaa, a former soldier turned poet, suffered many defeats in the war and spoke of the Mental Toll he faced in the war “My Black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn’t, dammit: No tears. I’m stone. I’m flesh… I turn that way- I’m inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial… I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke.” (Komunyakaa - Facing It). Yusef Komunyakaa felt as if the Vietnam War had stripped him of his humanity. Yusef Komunyakaa felt as if some part of him is trapped in a mental cage that he can not get out of due to the mental toll that the war caused on veterans of the Vietnam

Show More
Related

Rhetorical Analysis: The Military Draft

799 Words | 4 Pages

The military draft was a very controversial topic during these times. Some people believed it violated a person’s inalienable rights while others argued it was a part of being an American to be honored to show your patriotism; however, if you refused to serve, you were shunned and beaten by local villagers (Greenberg). President at the time, “Lyndon Johnson, called the draft "a part of America, a part of the process of our democracy"” arguing that the draft was an honorable and patriotic sacrifice for young men to make for their country (Greenberg). With the major cultural difference between the the 1960’s and today, less young men are enlisting to serve in the military. According to the National Public Radio, an estimated 8.7 million men served during The Vietnam War while only 2.2 million men serve in today’s military.

Read More

Yusef Komunyakaa's Facing It

323 Words | 2 Pages

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It”, he uses a regretful tone to successfully express the speaker’s memories of the Vietnam War. The poem starts out with the speaker looking at the memorial “My black face fades, hiding inside the granite.” (1), which helps visualize for the audience that the speaker is African American. However, this line is meaningful because it shows how he saw all the casualties that came out of the war, on the memorial, and visualizes the speakers hatred for the war. Later it becomes more evident that he was part of the war and how this caused the speaker’s ambivalence to surviving.

Read More

Facing It By Yusef Komunyakaa

1374 Words | 6 Pages

A quote from the article states: “We must challenge the taboo topic of the aftermath of war, which we have avoided for so long” (Penk and Robinwitz 3). The previous quote shows that the society soldiers came back to after war was one that disregarded them as people with feelings. Society made it seem as though their trauma did not matter and the author points out that it is time to pay attention of be aware. A quote from the poem presents this same idea: “I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke” (Komunyakaa 12-14). My interpretation of this line is that he almost died and that is why he has so much trauma.

Read More

Figurative Language In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

772 Words | 4 Pages

The grueling Vietnam War, disrupting the lives of soldiers and their families, un-packs its complexities through the journey of the soldiers. After the death of Curt Lemon, a fellow soldier, O’Brien exclaims, “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” (80). O’Brien’s metaphor conveys his perception of the Vietnam War while setting a strong precedent of what the war really was like. Furthermore, it is evident that the complexities of war are hard to navigate as soldiers, tearing away at their mental health, revealing soldier’s experiences at war that corrode their overall well-being. Furthermore, this toll on overall-well being can be self-inflicted when soldiers assign blame to themselves as guilt culminates into lifelong burdens.

Read More

Vietnam War Exposed In Fallen Angels By Walter Dean Myers

1513 Words | 7 Pages

With unforgiving terrain and the seemingly never ending destruction, the environment of war can be the biggest challenge faced. The constant presence of death and the savage actions of men, the jungle and villages of Vietnam that was home to many families can become a nightmare within days. The book says, “I walked away. People were not supposed to be made like that. People were not supposed to be twisted bone and tubes that popped out at crazy kid’s-toys angles.

Read More

Comparison Between 'Facing It And Spin By Tim O' Brien

671 Words | 3 Pages

O'Brien emphasizes the difference between the troops' actual experiences and how those experiences are portrayed in the society and by the government throughout the entire story. He discusses how soldiers are taught to "spin" their perspectives in order to make them more appealing to the American public, frequently by praising their own bravery and understating the atrocities of war. He explains how soldiers can eventually have feelings of remorse and shame due to their sensitivity to violence and

Read More

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Literary Analysis

793 Words | 4 Pages

Madelyn Smith Ms.Reid English 11 Law 25 April, 2023 The Vietnam War was a horrifyingly gruesome and deadly altercation in which America sent hundreds of thousands of kids to fight in a grown man's war. Close to 60,000 American soldiers and 250,000 Vietnamese soldiers were killed in this fight of nonsense, in which the lives of innocent civilians and soldiers alike were taken, all while making no political progress. In the historical fiction, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien presents stories that show how the soldiers cope with the war, in order to depict the trauma and horror they experienced, ultimately illustrating that the soldiers who went to Vietnam lived through horrid battles and show their fear of uncertainties through their

Read More

Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

1292 Words | 6 Pages

In the short story, “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien focuses on this to show that everyone fighting in a war has a story. He spends the story describing the man he killed and searching for justification of his actions. He carries around guilt with him because of it, and his fellow soldiers try to help him justify and come to terms with his action by saying things like, “You want to trade places with him? Turn it all upside down= you want that? I mean, be honest,” (126) and “Tim, it’s a war.

Read More

Spin By Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis

791 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

Guilt In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

539 Words | 3 Pages

The title of this group of stories is not solely based on the physical burdens the men had to carry through Vietnam but the mental and emotional issues they are stuck with after the war.

Read More

PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1504 Words | 7 Pages

This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

Read More

Examples Of If I Die In A Combat Zone

1179 Words | 5 Pages

This quote stated by O’Brien shares how himself and other soldiers felt about the war, and how they felt like their fight and war tactact was overall useless for the United States. O’Brien also mentions that he feels frustrated that the government would let thousands of Americans' lives to end just for a war that had no benefit or meaning for the country. O’Brien is a great representative for American soldiers who served in the Vietnam War because of the emotion and frustration he felt about the war and the war’s

Read More

Moral Confusion In The Things They Carried

645 Words | 3 Pages

Answering the call to serve causes enough moral conflict and killing for the war only adds to it. Tim O’Brien struggles to make sense of his thoughts after killing a Vietnamese man while outside of My Khe. O’Brien writes “The Man I Killed” detailing how the man’s disfigured appearance looks repetitively, and dreaming about what the man’s life must of been like before his death. Afterwards O’Brien reflects saying, “It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy…”

Read More

Theme Of Masculinity In The Things They Carried

1945 Words | 8 Pages

In Tim O’brien’s book, The Things They Carried, we see the detrimental causes and effects of the enforced stereotype of male masculinity. Tim uses many factors including the setting, characters, symbolism and other components like these to conveys his feelings and emotions. Many of those feelings and emotions derive from his personal experience in the war. The Things They Carried accurately shows what it is to struggle with the stereotypical image of a man in how it presents itself in everyday life along with its adverse and restricting effects.

Read More

The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen Analysis

1079 Words | 5 Pages

Young or old, male or female, the war was told differently by every person who was involved in the battle, no matter how small their role. Despite the cacophony of standpoints vying to tell the definitive tale of what happened in Vietnam, the perspective of

Read More

More about Masculinity In The Things They Carried By O Brien

Related Topics

Open Document