Joseph Jacob Ann Wachtler ENGL 2202 16 May 2023 Irony In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien’s use of irony provides the reader insight to the underlying mental states of the soldiers in his short story “The Things They Carried.” The stress the soldiers go through puts a heavy toll on all of their minds. Losing a comrade, a close friend in such stressful times of war, would usually turn one’s mind into mush. Despites their loss of a fellow soldier they still continue onwards, but are they okay mentally? O’Brien reveals the inner workings of the men’s mind subtly by putting hints throughout the story that the reader must look out for. Most hints are often revealed with the use of irony. At times of war stress will always be a common occurrence …show more content…
The illusion of comfort, however, is often recurring throughout the story, “...they took turns [carrying] a 28-pound mine detector…often useless because of the shrapnel in the earth, but they carried it anyway… for the illusion of safety” (O’Brien 5). All of the soldiers know they are in a dangerous place and could die any moment and yet they still continue on. They all know their duties and responsibilities being soldiers but they also have their sense of pride of being men to uphold. They are all afraid of showing any kind of weakness to each other, “They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it” (11). O’Brien’s story repeats the same thing of showing the men experiencing traumatic events and having them brush it off like nothing happened. In truth they are the opposite compared to their act. The tough outer shell they show protects their fragile insides, shielding them from the shame they have created themselves. The soldiers know about this unconsciously and they suppress it. Telling jokes about their situation or about others takes away some of the gloom from the tragedies that have befallen them. That is their way of coping using dark humor, but in truth they are terrified. The