ipl-logo

Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

1142 Words5 Pages

In 1955, the United States declared war on Vietnam with the goal of defeating the communist rebel force that was becoming exceedingly prevalent. Approximately ten years after the war began, the federal government decided to issue a draft to send able-bodied men overseas to serve in the military and support their country. Besides the draft, there were many other reasons for Americans to go to Vietnam during this time period, such as travelling overseas for photographing and broadcasting daily events, helping distribute supplies, or simply visiting the soldiers who fought tirelessly in Vietnam. When the war concluded, Americans returned to their homes, but they all drastically transformed from their personas before the war. The Things They …show more content…

Tim O’Brien, a soldier who is hardened by the events of the war, arrives home with immense guilt and new, conflicting emotions that he must learn to control. His fellow soldier Norman Bowker returns from the war, unable to cope with the war mentally as well as emotionally. Vietnam also drastically alters the personality of Mary Anne Bell, an American civilian visiting Vietnam, into someone unrecognizable to those who knew her before she had traveled to Vietnam. The transformative psychological effects of the war on Americans in Vietnam are illustrated through the characterizations of Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, and Mary Anne Bell in The Things They Carried. Tim O’Brien transforms after the war, and he becomes mentally burdened by guilt, as well as exceedingly emotionally challenged. He begins to develop guilt from responsibility for others’ deaths and also the weight of having survived while other people did not. Following the end of the war, he must endure his feelings of intense shame because of the deaths of his comrades and enemies: “But this Tim’s transgression also …show more content…

Years afterwards, he still feels detached and numb, so he must write to attempt to reconnect himself: “[O’Brien’s] moments of introspection also become emotional releases, opportunities to cut through the numbness that the war has created in him so he can feel again” (Herzog 115). He uses his writing as a form of therapy to manage his emotions of stress and intense guilt in an effort to thrive despite his traumatic recollections. Moreover, he fears facing the emotional weight of killing people and leaving his comrades to fend for themselves in the past, but O’Brien also does not want to become emotionless and indifferent to hurting others (Herzog 118). He still cannot place all of his emotions and memories in order; he says of himself: “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of my life I try not to dwell on it” (O’Brien 128). Tim O’Brien struggles to handle his memories after the fighting, not by obsessing over his remembrances but by acknowledging them and attempting to thrive despite his challenging past. Many years after the war has passed, the festering presence of his inward guilt has grown, and he attempts to give himself closure by making sense of the loss of his friends and the lives he

Show More
Related
1757 Words | 8 Pages

War is one of the most complex yet completely understood subjects to read or write about. Tim O’Brien has captured the true essence of being drafted into a war. “The Things They Carried” is a novel composed of multiple short stories; Each taking the reader through the perspective of the narrator showing his multiple landscapes, situations, and changing feelings from being drafted into the Vietnam War to surviving it. These stories really help one understand the effects of war on someone’s mind as well as body. Tim O’Brien is the main character and protagonist in this novel.

Read More
905 Words | 4 Pages

In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried the narrator, Tim O’Brien, often blurs the lines between reality and fiction. As a young soldier, O’Brien recalls the Vietnam war including the sounds, sights, and his emotions, while 20 years later he again shares his feelings and experiences of the same event. This same event, however, is told differently in order to help him cope with the emotional pain of war. The details become blurry as the pain is too great to endure.

Read More
435 Words | 2 Pages

The antagonizing adversity, the convoluted hardships, and the reassuring lies – a war story that engulfs its audience in morality by tapping into a soldier’s inner memories back in the Vietnam War. The memories that Tim O’Brien possesses are documented in The Things They Carried, as it details the tragedy of mindlessly wandering on the battlefield with the disturbing thought of possibly being dead in seconds while carrying the burdens of the companions who died. It is a tragedy from the perspective of insiders versus outsiders, as one persists while the other watches them mourn their lives. Looking back to old memories like a distant friend, Tim O’Brien compounds fear, friendship, and falsehoods to retell his experiences as an American soldier to demonstrate that we are human individuals coping

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the story, Tim O’Brien writes about things he carried from the war to his normal life and speaks about the difficulties of it. He carries things from the war to his normal life because of the PTSD he suffers from. He brings words from the war over to normal life because the words used in war have become the new normal for him whether it be good or bad, but either way, PTSD reminds him about the experiences using these words during the war. The story states, “He doesn’t know how to live with the guilt of the war. He uses words that he would only use in the war because he is not used to normal life after the war.”

Read More
1085 Words | 5 Pages

The Vietnam War was full of grief, heartache and tragedy, no one experienced this more than the soldiers who fought in it. Tim O’Brien shows the trauma the war has caused him in his book The Things They Carried. The story focuses on the character Tim, a member of Alpha Company, who tells his stories of the war. Many of these stories circle around guilt, and each character in the book has a different way of coping with it. One character, Kiowa, acts as the glue that holds Alpha Company together.

Read More
1435 Words | 6 Pages

The main point is how he has to deal with death from a young age to the combat zones. In a way he blames himself for the deaths of his friends or failing to save them, but he failed to understand that it is not his fault. He just needs to find a way to understand since he is forty three years old and has to find closure, O’Brien at the conclusion of his book said “I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story.” (233) He realized through his writing that he was carrying things with him that needed to be explained to him or it was going to hurt him mentally and physically.

Read More
945 Words | 4 Pages

Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. The topic of the book goes through the experiences of soldiers during the Vietnam War and expresses both the physical and metaphorical things the soldiers had to carry with them while deployed. His purpose for writing the book was to recount his personal experience in the Vietnam War and allow him to comment on the war. I chose this book because I thought it would be an interesting read and I would be able to learn more about how a soldier in the Vietnam War felt while deployed. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a story of his recalling of events that provides an honest depiction while maintaining an enjoyable read which shows how the soldiers were changed in the war.

Read More
1292 Words | 6 Pages

Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

Read More
460 Words | 2 Pages

The Profound Effect of the War on a Human in The Things They Carry The Things They Carried is a captivating, fictional novel by Tim O’Brien that provides various experiences that O’Brien and others go through during their time serving in the Vietnam War. As in any book, many different types of change are prevalent throughout the stories that are told; however, the clearly most profound change that is dealt with in this book is the unalterable mental and emotional change that the soldiers themselves endure during the war and the seemingly eternal effects of the war on the human spirit. Although every character is touched both negatively and positively by the Vietnam War in their own way, Mary Anne Bell, Norman Bowker, and the narrator himself

Read More
2081 Words | 9 Pages

The soldiers in the Vietnam War are portrayed as losing themselves in the chaos and trauma of combat. Through the stories of the soldiers and their experiences, O’Brien explores the ways in which war strips away one's sense of identity and humanity. The author himself is depicted as losing himself in the war. O'Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his experiences inspired much of the book. Through the character of Tim O'Brien, the author explores the ways in which war can strip away one's sense of self and purpose.

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

The novel, The Things They Carried, starts off by author Tim O’Brien introducing us to many characters however, this very unique author novel explores most, if not all experiences of many American troops in the Vietnam War and what they went through daily during the war. This literary masterwork of Brien, in which was published in 1990, vividly portrays the psychological and emotional toll that troops bear while serving in the armed forces while also illuminating the complexity of war and its profound effects on people during that period. Initially, he uses many vivid and detailed storytelling skills in order to delve into the lives of the soldiers, revealing their fears/worries, hopes, and struggles. Additionally, to the real loads of guilt, anxiety, and trauma, he also highlights the weight of the material possessions they are required to carry, such as guns, ammo, and personal items.

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

O’Brien tells the readers about him reflecting back twenty years ago, he wonders if running away from the war were just events that happened in another dimension, he pictures himself writing a letter to his parents: “I’m finishing up a letter to my Parents that tells what I'm about to do and why I'm doing it and how sorry I am that I’d never found the courage to talk to them about it”(O’Brien 80). Even twenty years after his running from the war, O’Brien still feels sorry for not finding the courage to tell his parents about his decision of escaping to Canada to start a new life. O’Brien presented his outlook that even if someone was not directly involved in the war, this event had impacted them indirectly, for instance, how a person’s reaction to the war can create regret for important friends and

Read More
1504 Words | 7 Pages

In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.

Read More
1047 Words | 5 Pages

He was embarrassed about being shamed by the people he knew for going against his morals. Tim O’Brien knew he wasn't just carrying the faith and hope of others to fight in the war, but he was also carrying his intrusive thoughts and discomfort. The soldiers didn't just carry their bag of weapons, but “they carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried” (O'Brien 3). Digging deeper into the book's literal and figurative language, It tells us clearly what the soldiers carried weapons but even everyone’s problems, including Tim O'brien. O'brien carried the bundle of burdens that included the physical and emotional view of grief, love, and dread.

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

Read More

More about Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Related Topics

Open Document