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Stress In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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Have you ever been in such a stressful situation while trying to think normal? In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author describes the situations these troops are put through. Along with the situations, the author tells the audience the thoughts and feelings going on with the men. Showing that the men are affected by the situations they are exposed to. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien explains the equipment that the characters need to carry to be prepared for the worst.”When a mission took them to the mountains, they carried mosquito netting, machetes, canvas tarps, and extra bug juice.” (372) Along with the essentials for surviving in the environment that they were in. The men also had to be prepared to take on the enemy that they should face.”Henry Dobbins carried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, but was almost always loaded.” (369) This is how O’Brien shows that the men had to carry all the equipment to be prepared for the situation they were in. …show more content…

These men didn’t have very pleasurable experiences explained by O’Brien. “The Teeth were broken. There was a swollen black bruise under his left eye. The cheekbone was gone.” One of their own men had been shot in the head on the way back from peeing. The men had seen the horrific image of their own man after being shot. That would take a toll on anyone one. Especially if you are Jimmy Cross the first lieutenant and leader of his platoon. “The responsibility for the lives of his men.” (369) When you are the one who has the responsibility of your men, and one of your men dies on your watch. That has to be hard mentally. I could only imagine what would be going through someone’s mind after something like

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Rhetorical Devices In The Things They Carried

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The Things They Carried by American author Tim O’Brien, who was drafted in the Vietnam war, describes the experience of the American infantry fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien utilises various rhetorical devices to illustrate the immense emotional & physical burdens the soldiers were to bear to enlighten the reader about the true horrors of war. For example, O’Brien employs asyndeton & polysyndeton in sentences listing the many things the soldiers carried. “They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades…,” (O’Brien). The lists of items carried carry on, overwhelming & exhausting the reader of the physical burdens of war.

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Tone In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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In the book The Things They Carried by Tim o’Brien many war heroes don't always come back home the way they left. Throughout these stories readers can really see and understand what a few soldier encountered on the field. The author portrayed these through changes in tone. Three tones that are provided in the story are discouraged, miserable, and thankful. Being in the war can really change a person inside and out.

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Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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I. —Introduction Today the average US soldier carries at least 60 pounds of gear, with an extended patrol almost doubling that weight. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is about a platoon of soldiers fighting on the ground during the vietnam war. These soldiers have to endure several challenges during their journey that will test their limits every second of every day. However, the things that get them through the day is what they carry. The things these soldiers carry represents their role in the platoon, as well as, their personalities.

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Lieutenant Jimmy Cross Character Analysis

798 Words | 4 Pages

One of the Lieutenant’s men, Ted Lavender, gets shot in the head while the rest of the company is distracted and Cross takes the soldier’s death personally and in result feels like a failed leader. As a result, the next morning Cross burns Martha’s letters and photographs, he swears off any further fantasies, and makes a personal vow to become a harder, crasser officer for his men. Cross becomes acutely aware to the fact that these men’s lives are in fact his to shoulder and protect, the event serves as a major reality check and turning point for the

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Coping Mechanisms In The Things They Carried And Tim O Brien

1435 Words | 6 Pages

Combat is one of those incidents, where the best and the worst of people will be shown. The effects from combat could last minutes to a lifetime and will define people for the rest of their lives. To overcome the effects, people must have coping mechanisms. In the book, The Things They Carried, a platoon of soldiers is followed in their quest to survive the Vietnam War. The soldiers developed coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they can function normally and survive the war.

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1520 Words | 7 Pages

The Things They Carried Analysis More often than not, a reader picks up the story, “The Things They Carried,” and notices the unavoidable overload of symbolism intertwined. The heavy burdens the soldiers carry is portrayed extremely well by the author’s use of symbols, as it is one of the main focuses the author seeks to make evident to the reader. However, the author does not only want you to focus on the symbols of the burdens these fictional characters carry, but he wants you to understand what they really went through and that his story symbolizes the lives of these real, brave soldiers.  “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

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The Themes In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The physical damage and emotional depreciation that the characters go through in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, support the themes of the story by showing the traumatic effects the soldiers endure as a result of the war. December 1, 1969, changed lives of many people because it was the date that renewed mandatory service. The US draft for Vietnam brought many young boys into new surroundings and sent them crawling with an invisible enemy. Their normal lives were forever changed. No longer surrounded by familiar faces, their new homes were now foxholes, forcing them to stay alert at all times.

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Emotions In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

550 Words | 3 Pages

(O'Brien 118-120). This incident of seeing the man O’Brien killed shows how Tim feels guilt and how the image of the dead body stays with him. Kiowa needed to comfort him numerous times. Tim also remembers cleaning a blown-up soldier’s body. “I remember pieces of skin and something wet and yellow that must’ve been the intestines.

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Responsibility In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1368 Words | 6 Pages

In the Novel The Things They Carried it starts off by talking about the things the men carry physically, mentally and emotionally. Throughout the book It gives many examples of how they carry emotional things such as guilt. It also talks about things they literally carry like their guns, things from loved ones and anything they need

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A Wounded Soul: The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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It wasn't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn't quite dying, because in a curious was it seemed scripted…” (The Things they Carried, 19). This quote relates to a coping mechanism used in the war, the boys sent were unprepared for the sweat and blood, and many did not want to be killers.

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The Emotions In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

976 Words | 4 Pages

Any rational person would blame Jimmy Cross’s neglect for Lavender’s death, but the author explains how Jimmy’s emotions for Martha were some he could not control. O’Brien describes Cross’s behavior when he exclaims, “suddenly, without willing it, [Jimmy] was thinking about Martha.”(11). As a drafted soldier who longed of his life in America, Jimmy Cross simply could not stay focused in the war environment. Even more, given the circumstances, the war enervates Cross so much that he nearly loses his masculinity when he “[tries] not to cry”(16). However, having made clear that all these behaviors were one’s that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross could not control, Tim O’Brien argues that soldiers cannot always perform as society expects them to and can sometimes make mistakes in war that are

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Personal Issues In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1158 Words | 5 Pages

These men have to watch their fellow soldiers die in front of them and carry away their bodies and then overcome sadness as a feeling in order to move forward. War can be mentally draining and it changes a person who has witnessed it and in the face of a battle that have to overcome these mental challenges to complete the order at

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Response To The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1608 Words | 7 Pages

It is mentioned that the things they carried “might provide some measure of safety or security, as did the compass, the maps, the artillery, the ponchos, the dry socks; it might comfort them in time of great fear, as did the letters from home, the photographs of sweethearts, a smooth rock sent by a friend from the Jersey shore” (Wells 2). He tells us that “[t]hey carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture” O’Brien 23). After all they were humans, kids who had been taken from the safety of their homes and sent in to harm’s way. This is probably why O’Brien made this a fictional story. To respect the memories of those who fought with him but also informing us about the things that went on during the war.

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Mental Trauma In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

842 Words | 4 Pages

In the book The Things They Carried, people experienced serious mental trauma. Not only did some, if not all, of them come back home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but they also came back to a nation full of hate and uneasiness towards the veterans. These veterans came back home riddled with guilt and visions flashing before their eyes every time they closed them, people’s worst nightmares put into real life, and yet these veterans are dishonorably discharged, with statements saying that they must not have been good enough for the war. Tim O’Brien, the author of this book, decided to tell us all of the war stories he will never be able to forget, in order to help us picture the unimaginable horrors that all of these veterans went through.

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PTSD In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1768 Words | 8 Pages

Dangerous and intense situations typically lead to certain devastating consequences to a persons both emotional and physical health. As result of these experiences, there is often not only exterior injuries, but also the non visual psychological damage that is just as hard, if not harder, to resolve. One commonality throughout all wars is this unseen casualty known as PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder. Tim O’Brien, veteran of the Vietnam war, demonstrates how PTSD affects soldiers in countless ways in his novel The Things They Carried. He uses fictional but lovable characters that readers can easily relate to, intensifying their emotional engagement in the book.

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