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The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

651 Words3 Pages

The Things They Carried” is a great short story by Tim O’Brien who displays the remarkable story of soldiers during the Vietnam War. Being away from your family, in an unknown place, giving up your life’s luxuries is difficult to handle mentally and physically. Similarly, in the short story we see how soldiers try to overcome their fear by escaping from the reality of the war time situation around them, to a world that is just an illusion. Throughout the short story we see several men coping through their fear in Vietnam as they had the responsibility of a solider and carried burdens of need and emotions. In order to cope with their fear, the soldiers talked with each other and told each other what they felt since the only thing that they had was time and pain. As O’Brien writes, “They shared the weight of memory. They took up what other could no longer bear. Often, …show more content…

For example as the author writes, “It was the burden of being alive….They would repair the leaks in their eyes….light cigarettes, try to smile…After a time someone would shake his head….someone else would laugh….” (O’Brien, 123). This line is a very powerful line in order to show how for the soldiers seeing death has become a ritual for them. The soldiers would laugh and talk and touch the dead body showing that they are seeing life in a differently familiar manner. In other words, for them seeing so much death has made them used to the situation, but, they tried to make death seem different and un-real as they laugh out their pain through this dead body. Also, as O’Brien wrote, “They found jokes to tell” (O’Brien, 123) explains that they tried to live different and enjoy life despite all the pain. For the soldiers the only thing that they had was each other that helped them release some of their stress and helped them continue

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