An Analysis Of O Brien's Morality

Tim O’Brien uses saddening tone words to explain why he fabricated the entire novel, instead of telling the truth. O’Brien feels as though he is responsible for the deaths that happened in Vietnam, even if he did not do the killing. He believes that his “presence was guilt enough,”(171). This is why O’Brien formulates the false stories, to make the reader feel the same way he did in that situation, even if he has to bend the truth to do so. The author finds it necessary to put a face to the victim in order to make it more bearable. Otherwise, O’Brien is left with “faceless guilt” and “faceless responsibility,” (171). He also feels as if he holds the weight of all of the men that he could’ve possibly killed.

To add on, O’Brien lacks the knowledge and skill to help others, making him egocentric. It is sensible to state this due to his inability to be selfless and rid his mind of vain thoughts. O’Brien strongly believes that he “was too good for [the] war, he was too smart, too compassionate, too everything” (41). This hyperbole, an exaggeration, exhibits that O’Brien only thinks of himself and does not want to go to war because it does not benefit his future at all. He is unable to understand the nation’s need for his presence in Vietnam due to his uncontrollable anger which blinds him from an opportunity to help those who are hurting and are in need of help from people such as him. Additionally, his anger also resonates from his envious thoughts, which is caused by what he suggests is an unjust government.

Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp

Tim O’Brien felt and believed that he would be jeopardizing his own soul by killing people in the Vietnam War, which he views as immoral. He was convinced and persuaded that war was wrong and evil, since people were losing their lives as a result of it. He makes a decision to desert due to the belief that this is the only moral choice. It is however unfortunate that O’Brien lacks the courage to desert and hence, he lets himself to be sent to Vietnam War. “I simply couldn’t bring myself to flee.

Tim O'Brien, he kills a man, he lets go of his guilt quickly and acted very nonchalant. He states that, "It just occurred to me that he was about to die, I wanted to warn him (O'Brien 127)." Tim is feeling like it's his fault that the man got bombed because he didn't warn him."Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t, (O'Brien 128)." O'Brien still feels the guilt of the mans death and still holds on to it, he admits that he had no thoughts about killing, so he didn’t expect the out come of him throwing the grenade. This proves that Tim O'Brien feels a lot of guilt from killing him and still tries to make peace with the death. He also felt the guilt of Kowa's death,

Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, the author and narrator, examines the concept of moral ambiguity. Tim O’Brien focuses on the effects of war and the difficult decisions made by soldiers each day in many of his novels, but within this text, O’Brien demonstrates ambiguous morality through a variety of lenses and perspectives. The scene in which O’Brien most directly addresses moral ambiguity is the aftermath of Kiowa’s death, told from the perspective of an omnipotent narrator, O’Brien leads the audience through the explanation and rational of many soldiers allowing their reactions to be the focal point of the chapter, concluding that in war both everyone and nobody is responsible.

This certainly comes out in the fragging incident, when the squad kills Lieutenant Sidney Martin. But there's something more. Another time, O'Brien was quoted as saying, "My concerns have to do with the abstractions: ... How does one do right in an evil situation?" (Bates 263). That is the big question, of course, that this novel deals with. See, the point that O'Brien is making is not that war is an evil situation. He's trying to take that for granted and move beyond. Now that you've got this evil situation, what do you do?

In Tim O’Brien’s book If I Die in a Combat Zone, he argued that the Vietnam War was an immoral war without a reason for being fought, he conveys his message by stating that the people who fought in the war did not know what we were truly fighting for, and that humans should value each other’s lives because we know right from wrong, also through his depictions of the atrocities that were carried out by the American Soldiers, and how the American government sent men to Vietnam that were did not have the mentality to kill another human. One of the reasons why he believed that the Vietnam War was wrong was because he believed that humans, as a species, should have learned to not partake in wars because we understand right from wrong, and therefore

After reading “Young Goodman Brown” I believe the theme of the story is the weakness of public morality. I came up with this theme, because we see in this story that Brown seeks out to the devil, because he finds out that his father and grandfather both follow the devil. By Brown copying his father and grandfathers beliefs we see his faith become weak. This story shows us how one cannot judge others if they are good or bad, by looking at their religious beliefs.

To O’Brien, both the Vietnam War and the Korean War were quite similar, as in both a simulated line separated a country while the same-race people killed each other (61). Death is inevitable in war, however, with fear comes the choice to be brave or to be a coward. O’Brien gives an example of bravery when he depicts how Arizona charged out on the field. Win or lose, bravery is partly defined in the charge: when one man puts his own life out on the line for a fellow soldier (134). While Arizona may have been shot that does not make him any less of a hero. He made the decision to humble himself for the sake of other people’s lives. He made the decision to be courageous in a time of need. At the beginning of the novel, Tim O’Brien thought that courage could mean just going to war, instead of fleeing. However as the war started to change him, he grew and learned what it truly meant. Major Callicles, Battalion Executive Officer, argued that courage was not about waiting around or hoping things will get better. Bravery is about is about going out, doing your best, and making things better yourself (200). Towards the end of the novel, Tim O’Brien realized that whether someone believed in the war or not, bravery means not backing down, chiefly when it happens to be sheltering your own

After being drafted, several thoughts came to his mind. O’ Brien thought about how his life will be if he goes to war. He states, “I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do- charging and enemy position, taking aim at another human being” (44). It seems that O’Brien thought about his principles and morals as a human being. He believes killing innocent people was not a heroic act; it was an act of shame. On the other hand, he clarifies that not all wars are negative, “There were occasions, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve it ends” (44). He considered to fight only in the cases were war is necessary to achieve a significant purpose. O’Brien uses examples of Hitler, referring him as an evil and one of the reasons he would have validated a war, and even joined the military if it were necessary. Yet, he does not want to play hero in a war that had not sense. For that reason, he decided to run away from his draft.

Prior to learning he was drafted into a war he hated, we are told that he had recently graduated from college (38). O’Brien says, “I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong” (38). The previous quote shows his confusion towards the war, he then goes on questioning the war by saying, “Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression?” (38) which furthermore provides an example of his uncertainty towards the war. While facing confusion, O’Brien also believed he was “too smart, too passionate” (39) for the war, he claims his drafting was “a mistake, maybe— a foul-up in the paperwork” (39). Both of the quotes show man vs. society conflict. Since O'Brien had recently graduated and received a full scholarship at Harvard, he felt like he was on top of the world, like any other person would if a war was not going on then, society was focused on something he didn't believe so he did not want to accept the harsh reality that he had just been drafted. The narrator also faces man vs self conflict, O’Brien wants to get out of the draft but, he says, “There was no happy way out...my health was solid; I didn't qualify for CO status — no religious grounds, no history as a pacifist” (41). O’Brien knows that it would be illegal to not follow the law of the draft but he also knows that he does NOT want to

O'Brien's reason for writing the novel is to tell a true war story with the story-truth, instead of the happening-truth. The happening truth isn't important because the emotions of the soldiers is what matters, which the story-truth captures. In "Good From," the story-truth gives in detail of the man O'Brien killed, but in the happening-truth O'Brien didn't kill anybody and is left with "faceless responsibility and faceless grief." (page 172) It shows why the happening-truth doesn't matter because it doesn't convey the guilt O'Brien felt over death in the war, while the story-truth does. "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth" (page 171)

O’brien speaks on a true war story and how it “is never moral, it does not instruct, nor encourage virtue,” (65). These stories show the true colors of war and how it can only be immoral because of the chaos and violence it creates. To O’brien war is ambiguous, and this can be credited (ethos) to his experience of being a soldier in the war. A man called Rat tells a clueless soldier that “[he] [doesn’t] know human nature, [he] [doesn’t] know nam,” (93). This War in Vietnam is changing people altering their state and implying that human nature is only immoral.

In the book “The Things They Carried” and the chapter “The Man I Killed” O’Brien is the speaker. He is talking about the man he killed over in Vietnam. I feel as if O’Brien kind of thought way too much about this guy’s life. I also think that he dragged it out a bit more then he needed to. In the poem “The Man He Killed” Thomas Hardy is the speaker. He talks about how the guy he killed and himself could have been good friends if they didn’t end up as enemies. He said he had to do what the job was meaning they were both infantry and he shot him dead to do his duties. “ But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, and killed him in his place” (Hardy Stanza 2) He talks about how he thinks it was a good thing