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Shame And Guilt In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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Prewriting: Introduction: Often revered as a battle to defend Vietnamese ideologies, the Vietnam War is personified by many as a horrendous, unnecessary war that yielded to many detrimental after-effects, specifically on soldiers. In O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, initially it seems to take the same old generic personification, but after further reading, it is evident that Tim O’Brien’s desire to take on a different representation. Rather than taking on the violent, bloody interpretation of war, O’Brien focuses more on the relationships developed between the soldier and the severities experienced whilst in war. Throughout the novel, the themes of shame and guilt are manifested through the post war stories of the veterans, demonstrating that no soldier is able to escape this perpetual chasm of culpability. Thesis: …show more content…

Body Paragraph 1: Similar to Khaled Hosseini, O’Brien expresses the idea of the haunting aftereffects of an unatoned sin. In O’Brien’s story, “Speaking of Courage,” it depicts Norman Bowker’s “triumphant” return to Iowa, however upon returning to his hometown, no one really understands the meaning of his stories. Bowker continually makes loop around a seven-mile long lake as he ponders the hypotheticals. In one hypothetical situation, he expresses to his father that, "The truth," Norman Bowker would've said, "is I let the guy go." (O’Brien 147) Although Bowker won seven medals, he feels that is meniscal because he let his comrade, Kiowa drown in the Song Tra Bong. Bowker wasn’t able to hold on to Kiowa due to the horrendous smell of the river. It is this

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In the book The Things They Carried Tim- O’Brien experiences many altercations that either happens to him or happens to his infantry group of soldiers. This was a nonlinear novel because the chapters jump from one subject to another. O’Brien experienced tragic lifetime events in his battle career when it came to him deciding if he was going to publish a novel or not with his twenty years of active duty. O'Brien's two themes shame/guilt and storytelling/memory was being used. The themes relate to him because these are the things he uses and experiences.

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The Things They Carried is a fascinating and illuminating novel written by Tim O'Brien. Published in 1990, it is a collection of interconnected short stories that depicts the experiences of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. In his novel The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien employs Juxtaposition to create the effect of long-term effects of trauma and an abrupt, violent loss of innocence. The chapters “The Man I Killed”, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, and “How to Tell a True War Story” work together to produce this effect.

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The Challenge of Bravery and Courage are unexpected obstacles for everyone who was drafted into the Vietnam War, especially for Tim O’Brien who is the narrator and the Author of “The Things They Carried”. Before O’Brien gets drafted into the Vietnam War, he highlights the consumption of tone and juxtaposition on the effects of war while his allies are trying to empathize to his feelings. The theme also relates to Khaled Hosseini’s story “Kite Runner” where as a kid, Amir struggled with bravery and courage when he wasn’t there for Hassan. In Order for O’Brien to seek truth behind War, he’ll need to experience the environment in-action which is why he was forced to see everything later on in the story.

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In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brian, the death of Kiowa helps develop the motifs of guilt and shame consequently affecting the meaning of the book to surviving the war. Kiowa proved a genuine friend to O’Brian and the rest of the platoon not simply through his words, but his dignity and actions. When he died, it was brutal and dehumanizing, ultimately causing much guilt and blame throughout the entirety of the book. O’Brian even claimed “when a man died, there had to be blame. " This blame and guilt affected the novel and shifted the tone entirely.

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Spencer Christensen Amanda Aldridge ENG 102 02 May 2024. Preferential Perspectives in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: The morality and events of the Vietnam War will always be a contentious and solemn topic. Over the decades, countless forms of media have discussed or portrayed it, with varying degrees of truthfulness and respect. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is ambiguous in the former and perhaps overindulgent in the latter. The novel comprises multiple connected short stories concerning events O’Brien may or may not have gone through during the Vietnam War, and it examines the war and the men involved through a philosophical, moral, and emotional lens.

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Throughout “The Things They Carried” O’Brien focuses on guilt through Lieutenant Cross’s reaction to Ted Lavender’s death. Lieutenant Cross’s guilt stems from the fact that he “love[s] Martha more than his men” (621). Cross allows himself to be distracted by daydreams of Martha, rather than focusing on keeping his men alive. Even in the line of duty, Martha occupies his thoughts. His love for Martha resulted in Lavender’s death.

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O’Brien’s works received numerous positive reviews for his ability to relate what soldiers went through during the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, contains a complex plot and is composed of chapters that contain individual war stories. The chapters vary in length from as little as two pages to as many as 20 or more. In the chapters, characters

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In The Things Things they carried by Tim O'brien, many soldiers are forced to deal with guilt for their entire lives. Many of these men were drafted into war and witnessed their fellow soldiers die for unnecessary reasons. As an example, Tim O’brien feels a great guilt for the man who he said he killed with a grenade and this is a major lifelong burden for him. This guilt is something that Tim is forced to carry for his life which relates back to the title, The Things They Carried. In Norman Bowker’s case, his guilt eventually lead him to hang himself not too long after the war.

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After Bowker returned home from Vietnam, he had the most trouble, out of all the soldiers, re-adjusting to everyday life. According to O’Brien, Bowker is someone who believes the success of men is measured by the amount of awards and/or medals they receive. As a result of the relationship between Bowker and his father, a former veteran, Norman feels the need to tell people about his experiences in order to get approval from his father. However, because of the horrors he witnessed in Vietnam, he felt it was better if people did not know. For example, the text states, “It [the town] did not know shit about shit, and did not care to know.”

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In Tim O' Brien's novel, "The Things They Carried", the guilt about the man he killed has the author so distressed and perturbed, that he seems to give his role as the protagonist away to the dead body. Since O'Brien doesn’t use the first person perspective to express his culpability and confusion, he tries to explain to readers with his mind by creating a life for his victim over and over again. Since O’Brien talks about his victim from the perspective of the protagonist rather than the narrator’s point of view, there is no comment from the narrator on the main character’s action, and we can only conclude what and how O’Brien feels. He projects an inherent quiet and calm around the death in My Khe.

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Life goes on as Bowker watches. He was deeply impacted by the war, feeling like an outsider in his hometown. The imagery that O’Brien uses strengthens this message and lets the reader feel what it’s like to be a

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The Vietnam War was a war of divisiveness, antagonism, and death. In the novel “The Things They Carried“, writer Tim O’Brien reflects on those aspects of war and takes the reader on a multifaceted journey. Throughout the novel, the author emphasizes the desensitization necessitated by the brutality of battle as well as the shame and guilt that the soldiers carried with them. O’Brien juxtaposes the burden of a soldier’s obligation alongside recurrent glimpses of youth and innocence. The weight of war upon humanity is a theme O’Brien develops through powerful symbolism of contradictory characters who resemble the loss of innocence and parallels with the soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

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Right in front of his eyes he saw him die. He is having a rough time forgiving himself. (125) Norman Bowker hangs himself at the YMCA in the later chapter “Notes.” He has so much guilt from the battlefield that he felt trapped. Vietnam robbed the life from him.

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The platoon set up camp in a sewage field meanwhile, rain and heat are mixing together, the earth bubbles with the excess heat and moisture. The author describes, rounds of mortar fell on the camp, and the field seemed to boil and explode. Bowker sees Kiowa sink into the muck and grabs him by the foot to try and pull him out of the muck. Since Kiowa seems lost, Bowker let him go in order to save himself from sinking deeper into the dirt. Bowker blames himself for what happened as he has a conversation with Max Arnold, "...'

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“Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker... - slog through the emptiness and dangers of their Vietnam tour in this haunting and acclaimed collection …” (Tim O’Brien). By just reading the synopsis of The Thing They Carried on the back of the cover, it is presumably believed that the book is about a platoon of heroic and glorious American soldiers, who fought in the Vietnam War. However, there is no mention of any primary Vietnamese characters except for the chapters “The Man I Killed,” and “Style.” On the whole, the perceptions and experiences of American soldiers are reflected throughout the book. The absence of the Vietnamese characters from the rest of the text raises essential questions about the main purpose of the narrative for writing and distinction

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