Analysis of The Things They Carried

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

With this part of the story, O’Brien is able to inject the theme of shame motivating the characters in the book. This chapter is about how the author, who is also the narrator, is drafted for the war. He runs away to the border between Canada and the United States, he stays in a motel with an old man for about a week and finds that he should go to war for his country. In the beginning it was about shame, he didn’t want to look like a coward because in truth he was scared. He was afraid to face the pressures of war, the humiliation and the fact of losing “everything”. This man was an average person who lived an average life with no problems, until he got the notice about the war, which caused the shame and fear of being seen as a bad person to come out.

Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. “The Man I Killed” describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally.

“War is hell, but that’s not the 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. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (80)

“His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole...,” writes O’Brien as he studies the deceased enemy (118). Throughout the novel, the author shows consistency with repeating stories and lines in a way to present a greater image. He reminds the reader of details the elaborate his larger view. When he writes of the man he killed, he wants the reader to imagine themselves in his shoes, as he imagined himself in the enemies’. As he carefully studies the dead man, he imagines how the boy found himself in the war. By relating American society to the boy’s village of My Khe, he bridges similarities connecting the two by a culture that promotes defending one’s land and ways of life. By saying, “he would have been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege,” he shows there is minimal difference between how most Americans view the military and the duty of the villagers in My Khe (119). Although he had not known the exact history of the boy, he attempted to illustrate in his own mind what his life may have been like prior to the invasion. The inability for O’Brien to walk away from the body as Kiowa continued to pry him away says he was troubled by the similarities. Despite Kiowa saying it could have been him lying lifeless on

War covets the aspect of man that is man itself, for it craves to morph them into mere objects and targets. For many soldiers, they succumb to such a fate; being depleted their ability to feel immediate emotion, they develop primitive, animalistic urges of bloodlust during a time of bloodshed. The aspects of war gravely impacts a person, and as such can be seen in O’Flaherty’s character “the sniper,” as well as seen in O’Brien’s character “Private Paul Berlin.” The sniper is a victim to the war’s cold, emotionless embrace. A Republican soldier, he is, divided from his brothers in arms on the other side, the ones called the “Free Staters.” Nonetheless, under the circumstances, they all are pawns to Dublin’s chess table of a civil war, being played at the mercy of the war’s

For countless of people today, the Vietnam war is just something from the past, but for Tim O’Brien, the Vietnam War will endlessly be with him. This one year in Vietnam changes the lives of this platoon from emotional pain, physical pain, as well as muscle pain will commence to cloud their vision. The weight of the things that they carried takes great effect on them that they have to continue to endure on this one year trip in Vietnam and remember these memories for the rest of their lives..

"The Things They Carried," is a story about drafted soldiers during the Vietnam era who were sent to the Vietnam War. The author, Tim O’Brien, describes the things that the men carry during their tour of duty. The items carried are both physical and impalpable items and what these things are is subject to the individual soldier. They carry the necessities for survival in the jungles of Vietnam as well as the personal things each soldier feels necessary to make life as comfortable as possible. Additionally, each of the men carries the memories and fears of past and present experiences. The heaviness of the impalpable items is as tangible as that of any physical item, and not so easy to cast away. The literary argument in which the novel

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

Thematic Statement: “The Things They Carried”- The mental and morale that a person go through is intense because it becomes the fundamental that will be throughout the whole story.

At the same time, O’Brien struggles with destructiveness of the conflicting images of violence and peace in death through the juxtaposition of the imagery of the dead man. While “his one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole.” The dead man has one shut eye that resembles a peaceful sleep, while the other side is obliterated by the grenade into a star-shaped hole. The image of the star-shaped hole in the dead soldier’s eye represents the hopes that he once had when he was alive: “He hoped the Americans would go away. Soon, he hoped. He kept hoping and hoping, always” (119). Furthermore, “his right cheek was smooth and hairless,” an image of untouched innocence that contrasts with his left cheek, which was “peeled back in three ragged strips,” destroyed by the violence O’Brien inflicts upon it. The juxtaposition of the butterfly that settles on his chin and the fatal wound on his neck, “open to the spinal cord…blood…thick and shiny” illustrate the complexity and ambiguity of the unnaturalness of war, depicted by the image of the dead man’s wrung neck, contrasted with the ironic peace and naturalism of death in the image of the fragile butterfly. These select images are also those that O’Brien chooses to fixate upon and develop throughout the chapter as he struggles to comprehend the moral implications of his actions. The innocence of the “slim, dead, almost dainty young man” is further reinforced when O’Brien describes his wrists as “wrists of a

In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien the author tells about his experiences in the Vietnam war by telling various war stories. The quote, "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories.

The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.

Throughout “The Things They Carried” and “Spin” the men were scared. The biggest piece the men carried were their reputations. Fulfilling the reputation of their fathers was an immense fear of the men at war. They were scared about the unknowns. They used methods to cover and cope with their fear.

Friends in unexpected places Do you remember where you met your best friend? In wars soldiers can find friends too, that aren’t just comrades. Just like in the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien when Ted Lavender adopted an orphan puppy. In a war, a soldier can find themselves with the care of an animal. The animal can bring joy and happiness to the soldier.