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The Man I Killed Poem Theme

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The album title Trapped In My Mind fits The Man I Killed by Tim O’Brien and the songs selected because the songs are mostly about thinking to yourself and being on your own path. By having the album cover of a man on the moon alone it shows the desolate feeling and being away from everyone. Being alone to yourself is a great time to reminisce.
The exposition of The Man I Killed and “Suicidal Thoughts” by The Notorious B.I.G share a common theme and tone. The common theme is after making a poor decision one may suffer an emotional burden as a result. In The Man I Killed Tim O’Brien is describing the dead body and the dead man was not built buff like a typical soldier. The Vietnamese man had a fragile stature and “ his chest was sunken and poorly …show more content…

The Man I Killed is written by Tim O’Brien who is the main character in the story and the situation is told by writing a book on what happened. And in Eminem’s Song “Stan” the story/rap is told in an epistolary style. Stan is writing letters to Eminem to express how much love he has for him since he is his favorite rapper but as Eminem starts to not read his letters quickly Stan goes crazy. The song and book share a common motif of storytelling. The stories are told in a first person point of view and are told by writing about it. Tim in The Man I Killed had difficulty with speaking about the Vietnamese Man he killed but found ease with speaking on it by writing. In “Stan”, by writing letters and reading them aloud it helps the reader comprehend the situation. Kiowa is trying to convince Tim to speak on the situation and let his emotions out but Tim is having an internal conflict with himself. Tim doesn’t want to talk about how he killed the Vietnamese Man because he is in shock and can’t accept what he done. Kiowa simply says “Talk” and Tim says nothing. (O’Brien 176) This internal conflict is similar to the one Stan has in “Stan” by Eminem. Stan’s internal conflict of him loving and hating Eminem simultaneously is shown through his lyrics and voice. The voice Eminem raps in is very aggressive and this shows he truly cares about what's going on. Stan when thinking about Eminem says “ I loved you Slim, we coulda been together, think about it! You ruined it now! I hope you can’t sleep and dream about it!” In the beginning, Eminem speaks in a softer more caring manner but then becomes aggressive and hate starts to fill his mind and this is vivid in his voice. Internal conflict is seen in both Tim O’Brien and Stan because they both can’t accept their situation and deal with it either with silence or aggression. Both writers speak on their situations through pen

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“They 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 77) Tim O’Brien clearly demonstrates to the reader that one of the most difficult burdens to bear is being a coward because even though carrying over fifty pounds of equipment is hard on the body physically cowardice is among the worst pain because you can never put that feeling down for even a second to relieve the pain. The novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, intends to show the reader how the platoons soldier’s cowardice and dread can effect them in the form of regret later in

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When soldiers returned home from the Vietnam War in the 1970s they were not met with the fanfare and celebration that past generations had received, but instead faced judgment, persecution, and limited treatments for their physical and emotional traumas. Most soldiers faced feelings of guilt, depression, and post-traumatic stress due to the gruesome violence and many other hardships of combat. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a series of vignettes about a regiment of men serving in Vietnam at the height of the war. O’Brien, a veteran himself, is familiar with the suffering many experienced due to the horrors of war and uses literary devices to emphasize this pain and suffering. O'brien’s application of repetition conveys the emotional trauma war has on a soldier’s state of mind.

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Regret is a powerful emotion that has the ability to scar someone for the rest of their life. Moments of regret can come from relationships, self-made decisions and life changing events. The idea of regret also applies to “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh and “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien. Although these two literary pieces are very different in many ways, both authors describe the experience of the Vietnam War as a time of regretful decisions that negatively impacted people of both the American side and the Vietnamese side. Both authors tell a story about a character that recalls of flashbacks of the war, where they grieve over the past decisions that have affected them for the rest of their life.

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The commonality that these two stories is the use of characterization

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Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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Both of these stories use the theme of isolation, madness, symbolism and have an ironic ending.

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With their similarities in writing styles, we see the struggle that the human mind goes through when dealing with dark obsession, an important aspect of the human condition. There are also some differences, for instance, there is death in both but they are a bit different, and one of the narrators has more control of their situation than the other. Not everything is as it appears, for example in Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.”

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Their use of compare and contrast lets them effectively explain the difference between their experiences and those around them. Using these modes of rhetoric both writers are able to communicate a common theme of being or fearful of what the future holds for them. The fact that there is a common theme between these two essays shows that messages can transcend time, works of literature and experiences. Narration is most commonly used to tell a story. Both writers use narration to tell their stories and by doing so make them more personal.

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Answering the call to serve causes enough moral conflict and killing for the war only adds to it. Tim O’Brien struggles to make sense of his thoughts after killing a Vietnamese man while outside of My Khe. O’Brien writes “The Man I Killed” detailing how the man’s disfigured appearance looks repetitively, and dreaming about what the man’s life must of been like before his death. Afterwards O’Brien reflects saying, “It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy…”

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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.

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People can easily recognize the hatred one as a person more than an object, because an object cannot speak or drive in the reality. While reading this poem, readers may also question if this person is a foe or not. Line 17, “You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate,” provides

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In the next few lines the speaker says he did not hit the friend, he simply pretended as if he didn’t hear him. That says a lot about the speaker, it shows he is wise and does not let words affect him.

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The short story “On the Rainy River”, by Tim O’Brien is an exploration of how guilt and the pressures of society can shape one’s decision making. O’Brien feels guilty about going to war in Vietnam which contradicts his principles and his dream of becoming a writer. In the story, O’Brien admits, “I was a coward, I went to war” (O’Brien 80); he feared how the people of his community, and the rest of society would view him if he ran away. He feared the external embarrassment he would face if he dodged his draft notice instead of serving in the war; the fear of being judged by society was too unbearable for him to face. During O’Brien’s encounter with Elroy Berdahl, he is influenced to adhere to a decision, however, he chose to conform to the expectations of society.

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