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War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

792 Words4 Pages

War is a very psychologically traumatizing event. In Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, he highlights the harrowing effects war has on a person’s psyche. Characters such as Norman Bowker, Tim O’Brien, and Jimmy Cross are deeply affected by war, but how they deal with their guilt is completely different. Norman Bowker’s dealing with his war guilt is highlighted in “Speaking of Courage”. This story displays Bowker’s dealings after the war in his town and how he deals with guilt over his friend, Kiowa’s death. Bowker, while driving around the lake that his town surrounds, imagines a situation where he explains how he is coward to his father who repeatedly interrupts Bowker's story to say he already has 7 medals. He recollects the night …show more content…

O’Brien does not try to justify his actions, but makes up a life story that is very similar to his own to try to familiarize with the dead Viet Cong soldier he stumbles upon in the story “The Man I Killed”. The story O’Brien makes up highlights the dead soldier's life. Going from being teased for his women-like appearance at school and faking his excitement of fighting and being patriotic in front of his father and uncles. O’Brien continues to make up stories about the young Viet Cong soldier, how he went to continue his passion in math, going to study in Saigon and how he met this girl that liked him for his bony legs and small wrists. The way that O’Brien handles guilt after the war shows his own problems that arose during the war. O’Brien before he was drafted has a full-ride scholarship to Harvard for grad-studies. He creates this story for this Viet Cong soldier that bears many similarities to O’Brien’s supposed life, such as going Saigon to continue studies in math. O’Brien continues to create a backstory similar to his own for this dead soldier that he knows nothing about to handle to guilt of seeing him dead. He handles the guilt much better than Bowker for O’Brien does not kill himself after the

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Most people don’t know much about what exactly happened in the Vietnam War. Should this war have even happened? Many Americans believe this war was unnecessary for the armed forces to participate in, especially because of the damage caused in WWII. Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They carry, offers a collection of short stories in which each expresses the different Vietnam experiences. Every story in this novel was impressive for its own unique reason.

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Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

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His coping mechanism that he uses is through his writing about the Vietnam War. He is writing because he is trying to deal or understand what happened in the war. In the chapter “The Lives of the living Dead”, explains that through O’Brien’s writings, he able to come to peace at what he observed and did in combat. He may not understand why events had happened because he has not remembered the most traumatic experiences clearly. Even if his friends are dead, he will be able to remember them and his surviving platoon, through his stories to immortalize them.

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Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: A Literary Analysis

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In the short story, “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien focuses on this to show that everyone fighting in a war has a story. He spends the story describing the man he killed and searching for justification of his actions. He carries around guilt with him because of it, and his fellow soldiers try to help him justify and come to terms with his action by saying things like, “You want to trade places with him? Turn it all upside down= you want that? I mean, be honest,” (126) and “Tim, it’s a war.

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War In The Things They Carried, By Tim O Brien

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He could not deal with his memories that consumed him and eventually took his own life. Bowker has an internal struggle with himself and his mind after the war, especially with the memories that eventually envelop his entire life. Bowker witnessed many terrible atrocities in his time in Vietnam. His time in the war was indicative of the future he would have after seeing what he saw. He had to witness the other soldiers in his platoon die, the enemy die, the slow but sure death of innocence in his fellow man.

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With the abundance of tragedy and war in this world, everyone has an experience connected to all the violence. Moreover, people try to distance themselves from reality in order to find happiness or acceptance of these painful occurrences in their lives. In an analogous manner, the author Tim O’Brien shares stories of soldiers in the Vietnam War who try to evade their ordeals. In The Things They Carried, he explores how the effects of war during and after combat cause the soldiers to discover coping mechanisms to deal with all the violence and loss. While the soldiers are in Vietnam, their personalities adjust to fit the environment and reflect the burdens they carry.

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Even after all these years, O’Brien is still unable to get the images of Vietnam out of him head, specifically of the man he killed. In the novel, he repeats the description of the man numerous times, almost to the point of excess, saying,“he was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole” (124).

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Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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By writing this story O 'Brien's personal history, His principles and conscience clashed with the country and society requirement. He wrote about the Vietnam war soldiers, They usually reluctant to conflict. But

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I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war” (O’Brien 49). This shows how O’Brien could be a coward in the stories.

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“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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O' Brien revisits the place in which Kiowa died in an attempt to gain conciliation between him (emotions) and the Vietnam (war). In the chapter O'Brien states that he "looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace" within the field therefore O'Brien seemed to want to make amends with his emotions towards the war by revisiting Vietnam (181). However he soon discovers that he can't blame Vietnam for who he has become as Vietnam "was at peace" (181). O'Brien has a dramatic change in character as he realizes he is now seen as some sort of civilian by his fellow platoon and no longer one of them. Throughout the chapter O'Brien seeks revenge from Jorgenson as he in some way blames him from his alienation from his platoon.

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