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What Is The Use Of Irony In The Things They Carried

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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

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The heaviest of the weightless load was fears that they would not speak of, or perhaps could not speak of, lest it come alive and eat up their sanity. Instead, they shallowly laughed off the threat of death in this war, all the while alienating each other, thinking that this isolation wouldn’t allow their fellow soldiers to see how afraid they were of the dark shadow of death. It’s easy to feel the weight bearing down on the soldiers shoulder’s as O’Brien goes over the detailed list of items strapped to these men’s backs. Perhaps the most haunting of his words being “They all carry the emotional baggage of men who might die.” Nonetheless, they marched on.

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In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, the author skillfully presents a paradox about war and how it is both horrible and beautiful. Through O’Brien’s vivid storytelling and sorrowful anecdotes, he is able to demonstrate various instances which show both the horrible and beautiful nature of war. Within the vulnerability of the soldiers and the resilience found in the darkest of circumstances, O’brien is able to show the uproarious emotional landscape of war with a paradox that serves as the backbone of the narrative. In the first instance, O’Brien explores the beauty in horror within the chapter “Love.”

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This brings focus specifically to the things the men are carrying, both tangible and intangible, without deemphasizing the narration. O'Brien gives only straight forward descriptions in these sections and the writing is nugatory of any feeling or sentiment whatsoever. On the other hand, when describing the intangible items, the writing is automatically perceived as more in tune with the emotions of the characters in the novel. The author's writing tends to be taking more sentimentality in these segments and adds a great deal of emotional weight for the reader. The soldiers all clearly want to escape the reality of what is going on around them in the war.

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O'Brien emphasizes the difference between the troops' actual experiences and how those experiences are portrayed in the society and by the government throughout the entire story. He discusses how soldiers are taught to "spin" their perspectives in order to make them more appealing to the American public, frequently by praising their own bravery and understating the atrocities of war. He explains how soldiers can eventually have feelings of remorse and shame due to their sensitivity to violence and

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Their fear stems from several different wells. For one, the soldiers are in constant fear of their own life. O’Brien writes about the moments during heavy artillery as being chaotic and full of

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In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien describes how soldiers physically and emotionally adapted to Vietnam. In the chapters “The Dentist” and “Stockings,” he uses irony to accentuate these adaptations, in order to illustrate that for those who fought in the war coping was as essential as surviving. In “The Dentist,” Curt Lemon’s desire to be perceived as strong highlights his burrowed uncertainty of his courage.

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In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien expresses to the reader why the men went to the war and continued to fight it. In the first chapter, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather they were too frightened to be cowards.” The soldiers went to war not because they were courageous and ready to fight, but because they felt the need to go. They were afraid and coped with their lack of courage by telling stories (to themselves or aloud) and applied humor to the situations they encountered.

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The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.

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This is seen, especially when O’Brien says “ there was that coldness inside me. I wasn’t myself, I felt hollow and dangerous” (O'Brien 197). O’Brien, in the sentence, exemplifies the trauma that many soldiers injured well being out and how the recovery can cause them to no longer

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O’Brien goes into great depth in this small quote on how loss of innocence and war can affect people in the war. The quote “Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t” shows how war is so different from what any human experiences at home. After that small quote he follows it up by bringing up how you have to use normal stuff to show how crazy these things are and how much of a pole it can have on somebody during a war. The way that war is treated for many is mostly the mental part that is struggling. But for many "War is hell, but that's not half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love.

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O’Brien lists the items the soldiers are carrying, such as "matches, C-rations, malaria tablets, and two or three grenades. " These descriptions create a sense of realism and specificity, as well as emphasize the weight and burden of the soldiers' physical possessions. The soldiers are described as carrying their emotions with them at all times, even when they are not actively participating in the conflict. Yet, the emphasis on these tangible goods also helps to underline the weight of the soldiers' emotional baggage, which is intangible but no less substantial. For example, the line "They were afraid of dying

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O’Brien’s intended audience was young people who were not educated about the war and he discussed the themes shame/guilt and mortality/death. The chapter “The Things They Carried” gives an introduction about the men in the group, it also shows shame/guilt. The chapter talks about the equipment each soldier carried and how it affected them. During this chapter it focuses primarily on LT.

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Such as violent fights against their enemies, within their own group and mentally within their own minds. In order to survive through these hardships, the soldiers each develop coping mechanisms, specific to their own experiences. Depending on what the men went through some of them use multiple strategies as others do not help them. During

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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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