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Through out the book titled The Things They Carried, many characters are brought upon us, who are portrayed differently from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. The author shows or portrays what can truly happen to humans as they go through time in war. War will change their character’s thoughts and appearance to the reader just by the way they are shown in the book. An example of a character that has changed throughout the book is Norman Bowker. At the beginning of the story, Norman Bowker was a young soldier who seems to be like anyone who has not experienced war themselves.
The lives of soldiers, Norman Bowker and Curt Lemon, illustrate how the war pressures the human spirit to a standard it can’t resemble. The pressure and responsibilities of lost friends and lost acts of courage heavily weigh Norman Bowker down,
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.
All characters cope with different situations in their own ways. In Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, his character cope with the effects of the Vietnam War differently. O’Brien’s character Mary Anne and Norman Bowker deal with the war the only ways they know how to. Various characters in O’Brien’s novel deal with the war and its repercussions that occur.
Ghosts Follow Did memories from the war follow and destroy him like a demon, or was it from the living demons in his society? Written by Tim O'brien, The Things They Carried prevailed as a powerful writing according to the Milwaukee Journal. In this novel, O'brien dedicated a couple chapters to a soldier who was once named Norman Bowker. This man’s memories drove him to death.
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.
The town refuses to hear the horror stories, nonetheless they continue to celebrate America. In the chapter on Bowker's twelfth circulation, the fireworks start to go off. It's Independence Day and there's a huge show celebrating America and its victory in war, shiny lights in the sky like shiny medals on a uniform, but Bowker is still alone, with no one listening to his unspeakable thoughts. Thus he has a hard time coping with his bagage and ends up losing his battle with society. In the article “The Psychological Effects of Vietnam War” expresses the Veteran attitudes toward life at home.
Therefore, many soldiers deeply hesitated on going to Vietnam and were mainly not accepted when they returned. In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes about the themes of growth and emotional burdens as he displays his character’s stories of the effects of the Vietnam war. The chapter, “On the Rainy River”, is where O’Brien expresses his biggest growing moment when he is still a minor, battling dodging the draft,
Everyone carried at least something with them such as: burdens, ghosts, cruel images, and unscrupulous experiences. (“The Things They Carried” Critical Survey of Short Fiction 1790-1793). In Tim’s novel, They Things They Carried, he carried courage, innocent, guilt, and love: those were his personal memories. Nonetheless, in the novel, it seems like every veteran carries griefs and experiences. Each person will have different griefs: to Tim, his griefs will be dead of his friends, Lavender and Kiowa.
The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.
Shamus Colson Ms. Robinson Junior Humanities English 13 June 2023 Vietnam and the trauma carried by a soldier from a war fought in vane Throughout Tim O'brien's book The Things They Carried we are introduced to several young men who had been deployed to the Vietnam countryside to fight a war where there was no clear good guy or bad guy and no real objective other than to kill the spread of Communism. Unfortunately rather than addressing the horrible things these young men saw and experienced our government and some of our people shunned away these young men and the trauma they carry from a war fought in vane, where instead of valuing the lives and emotional well-being of America's sons, our government valued money and capitalism. The young man that arguably carries the most trauma throughout the book is Norman Bowker.
The character also gives life or lifelike features and texture to how war not at the physical sense but the emotional sense feels. He makes physical connection to fog, something most everyone has experienced and understands to something ambiguous to most- what it is like to be a soldier. You get the feeling of being trapped and stuck in storm. Full of constant chaos and so much motion that one can stop to think and collect themselves.
How he can 't wait to see my goddamn medals. " During this conversation he is getting frustrated that medals is all that is expected of him. Before this went on and on about how important it was to earn medals, but this statement he made shows he only thought it was important because he sought approval from his father. In the end Bowker committed suicide because he felt that he had no purpose, and his life was a waste. The medals didn’t matter to him after the war, they didn’t give him purpose and they didn’t save him.
“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.