Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O'brien explains in vivid details how different aspects of the war and what happened during it, impacted soldiers. While civilization is something that is almost mandatory for all human beings to possess, it is difficult to obtain while being involved in a hostile combat that they had no say in. The idea of civilization is to act accordingly in society but due to soldiers being isolated from society and having little to no contact to the real world, soldiers struggle to attain the same way of life they once did. The loss of innocence is an idea that O'Brien incorporates into the book as the civilization that the men once had gradually transitions into savagery. As the plot evolves O'brien is able to

The killings display barbarism as there is a lack of compassion or sense of sympathy. For example, after Lemon´s death when Rat Kiley randomly started to shoot at the water buffalo, ¨He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt.¨( O'brien 75). There was no remorse for the baby buffalo as it laid their suffering from the pain that was inflicted on him, Although, this is how Rat releases his emotions from the death of his best friend and is the only way he knows how, it has a negative outcome on living things surrounding him. This concept of dealing with pain is unorthodox as in the real world and doesn't usually happen. In fact, it is against nature and humanity to inflict this amount of pain on to any living thing and to make matters worse to do so apathetically. In addition, the men have almost become accustomed to his behavior as they just sit and watch, ¨Nobody said much. The whole platoon just stood there and watched.¨(O'Brien 75). Rat´s actions have become normal which is why there is not a powerful reaction from the rest of the soldiers or an impulse to stop it. The war is a different setting and atmosphere from their life before. With that being said, what may have before seemed wrong in society may now seem right as there are no restrictions in place for such situations and the men must learn to cope with the things that happen to them during their time in the war in their own

For instance, when Mark Fossies girlfriend came to visit him on the base. Mary Anne went to visit Mark but ended up engaging in the war with the greenies, an elite army force, this was unexpected from her usual life which opened her up to new things, ¨In part it was her eyes: utterly flat and indifferent. There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it. (O´Brien 105). Mary Anne went from being a sweet friendly girl, as Rat described her to be, to being able to end numerous amount of lives and keep souvenirs of it as jewelry. Mary Anne´s innocence was lost and not in usual sense for women which is commonly associated with sexaul intercourse, ¨Mary Anne made you think about those girls back home, how clean and innocent they all are, how they'll never understand any of this, not in a billion years.¨(O´Brien 173). She had loss her civilization as the war transformed her. The men noticed this and were in a way grateful for it because this different side of Mary Anne is something that all the men experienced. People who have not experienced the war and all it hardships would never understand. In the real world the soldiers feel like an outsider because of how much they changed and went through due to the war but they also don't quite fit in with the war. Just as the men struggled, Mary Anne struggles to live with her new found