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PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

607 Words3 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: In The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Norman Bowker experiences PTSD after being exposed to the trauma of the war, a trauma that reveals itself later in his isolation, depression and eventual suicide. BODY 1 Supporting claim: Norman Bowkers PTSD has caused him to constantly dwell on the past and feel guilty for Kiowa's death. This has resulted in him feeling inadequate and unable to move on from the traumatic experiences he faced during the war. …show more content…

Quote: “Circling the lake , Norman Bowker remembered how his friend Kiowa had disappeared under the waste and water. I didn’t flip out …I was cool. If things had gone right, if i hadn’t been for that smell , i could’ve worn the silver star(147).” Analysis: Norman felt like was stuck reliving this past moment of his life haunted by the memory of Kiowa's death and unable to escape the trauma .These feelings of guilt and isolation are very commonly shown in PTSD as many individuals can be seen struggling with especially these soldiers who are at war. BODY

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These are all examples of how Norman Bowker had changed throughout the story. He went from being innocent, or without war on his mind ever, to having nothing else to say to anyone if it didn’t involve war. After he had came back from war, he was not able to keep a job, he was not able to keep a conversation going with anyone because no one knew what he was going through. He was also suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) which in the long run, made him feel as if no one would understand him or his story because no one else was in war when he was and no one experienced what he

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When his father, also a war veteran asked him about his war experience, Norman wanted to tell his brave story of saving a life and winning a Silver Star. After completing his eleventh circle around the lake, an inner thought appeared in his head, he imagines telling his father the truth about what happened “I let Kiowa go.” His father’s response was completely unaccepted, he still praised his son on seven other medals. This shows that his father missed the entire purpose of the story, which is his son's desperate sense of guilt. This story also contained major symbolism, the more times Bowker circled around the lake the more the thought of his never ending guilt for letting his war buddy Kiowa, die in the war.

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When Norman Bowker thinks about his last memory of Kiowa, he has a heavy strain on his shoulders which caused him to kill himself. This also applies to when Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, committed suicide. As Norman Bowker drived around in circles and reminiscing about life. He thought about Kiowa which gave him a guilt feeling of killing him. He believed that “a good war story,... was not a war for war stories, nor for talk of valor,...”(143) This showed how Kiowa’s death gave Norman an excessive feeling when knowing that he was not able to save Kiowa.

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