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Women's Role In Vietnam In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The Role of Women in Vietnam Women have always played a powerful role in many wars, from mass producing bullets in the second World War to taking up jobs that men could not do in the first World War. But with the Vietnam War, the women were unspoken hero's. One does not have to be in a war physically in order to contribute to war effort, and for a plethora of women who had significant others in Vietnam, they helped the soldiers mentally . In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses a similar idea when introducing female roles. He uses women as metaphors for the changes the men undergo, as metaphorical objects, and how they affected soldiers fighting in Vietnam. To begin with, although the war traumatized many men, some used the …show more content…

The constant war zone does not only weaken the physical state of soldiers, it can also take away the stability of some men’s mentality. Although O’Brien does not directly state that the other characters in the novel are mentally unstable, he uses the women, who are close to the soldiers, as mirrors of the soldier's emotions. As an example, O’Brien uses his daughter to convey how the fighting in the Vietnam war and how reminiscing on Vietnam has changed him mentally. O’Brien tells a story twice, one time telling it truthfully and the other time “story-truth”(179). He comforts himself through the entire chapter because of this, telling one story and stating that it was untruthful, but it does not become apparent to the reader until the daughter asks, “‘Daddy, tell the truth,’ Kathleen can say, ‘did you ever kill anybody?’ And I can say, honestly, ‘Of course not.’ Or I can say, honestly, ‘Yes’”(179). In this quote O’Brien is reflecting on how he interacts with other people, and how he resists telling the truth, a habit he developed while reminiscing about his past in Vietnam. O’Brien uses his daughter to express the struggle he has between truth and dishonesty when storytelling about the war. In conclusion, O’Brien uses women as metaphors for the mental changes the soldiers go through after fighting in the Vietnam

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In the book "The things thy Carried" written by Tim Obrien we can see a story about solders at Vietnam War. The connections i will be talking about are "Woman in war" and "The loss of innicence". Tim Obrien shows us those connections through chapters as "Sweet heart of the song tra bong", "The Things they carries", "Love" and "Field trip". Usually i would think that a woman in war is always used as a passive character, however Tim Obrien changes the stereotipical view on the role off Woman in war and showed us how the troma of war can change your prespective to anything. Through this book i can learn that as soon as you lose your innacence you can not get it back.

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In the "Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, Tim O'Brien, Norman Bowker, and the young boy whose name was never revealed are all examples of soldiers who couldn't or at least had a hard time talking about their expiriences in war. In the NPR interview with Tim O'Brien one caller who happened to be a Vietnam soldier said he “couldn’t tell anybody what [he] had witnessed”. Many of the soliders who served in Vietnam had a hard time talking about their experiences of the war. The soldiers felt as if nobody cared about how they felt because they were supposed to be strong-minded individuals. If they had someone to talk to often times bringing up memories of the horrifying scenes of the war made their situation worse.

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In 1945, during World War II, roles of women varied from building ships and weaponry to nurses working on the front lines. In the novel, The Things They Carried, women have overlapping and contrasting responsibilities during the Vietnam War. Propaganda boosted civilian morale during the WWII; similarly, women boosted the morale of soldiers during the Vietnam War. Two women, Martha and Dobbins unnamed girlfriend, demonstrated throughout the book the role of women to First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Henry Dobbins, respectively.

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Throughout the entire two hundred thirty three page, predominately male book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, there are three main female characters, Martha, Mary Anne Bell, and Linda. The author, Tim O’Brien, incorporated the three main female characters into the story for specific reasons. Martha, the girl Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was in love with, portrayed how women and girls were distractions at time of war, whereas Mary Anne, Mark Fossie’s girlfriend, served the purpose of showing how war can change a person, and Linda, Tim O’Brien’s first love, represents how a war can be fought internally right at home. Martha wrote the most beautiful letters to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross.

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This forewarns the reader that they could be reading something that is real or something that is completely made up. O’Brien is a masterful writer who has created an unique story about the experience of war through his style of writing.

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A 9-year-old girl named Linda is drafted to fight in a war in Vietnam. She is trained for a few weeks, then flown away. The young girl is scared and confused; however, Linda must hide her feelings in order to be respected. After a few days at war, she is tragically killed in action. In truth, an experience like this is enough to frighten even a 17-year-old girl or young man.

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Instead, he denounces the traditional, dominant war story narrative. Brutal details, according to O’Brien, are necessary, “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come back talking dirty” (66). O’Brien essentially challenges and warns the reader by suggesting they must be prepared for reality.

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Often times women serve several important roles in a novel that help to drive and fully develop the plot. Many authors write about women and what they represent in order to keep the reader engaged. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, the various female characters in the story represent numerous topics. Since the women in the novel serve an important role, they represent psychological baggage, innocence, and the function of memory. One female character in the novel that represents psychological baggage is Martha.

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The Vietnam War was a long battle of seventeen long years. There were many causes leading up to this traumatic event. The U.S. got involved because of the spread of communism throughout Asia. The novel, The Things They Carried is about how morality can change both how a soldier thinks and feels. In Tim O’Brien’s historical fiction novel, The Things They Carried, both the physical and geographical surroundings shape the psychological traits of the characters during the following events: Mary Anne’s disappearance, the death of Curt Lemon and Mitchell Sander’s unbelievable story.

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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.

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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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This quote epitomizes the trauma caused by war. O’Brien is trying to cope, mostly through writing these war stories but has yet to put it behind him. He feels guilt, grief, and responsibility, even making up possible scenarios about the life of the man he killed and the type of person he was. This

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Tim O’Brien never lies. While we realise at the end of the book that Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders and Rat Kiley are all fictional characters, O’Brien is actually trying to tell us that there is a lot more truth hidden in these imagined characters than we think. This suggests that the experiences he went through were so traumatic, the only way to describe it was through the projection of fictional characters. O’Brien explores the relationship between war experiences and storytelling by blurring the lines between truth and fiction. While storytelling can change and shape a reader’s opinions and perspective, it might also be the closest in helping O’Brien cope with the complexity of war experiences, where the concepts like moral and immorality are being distorted.

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The tribulation the soldiers have to endure with all the violence in O'Brien's novel brings a tremendous slap of psychological trauma in their lives. This psychological trauma has been

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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.

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