Tim O’Brien wrote a memoir, in which he wrote about his life as a Vietnam soldier, called If I Die in a Combat Zone. Raised in Worthington, Minnesota, Tim O’Brien was influenced by wars while growing up (particularly the Korean War). Soon landing in the training facility at Fort Lewis in Washington, O’Brien’s life was about to change. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, author Tim O'Brien argued that the Vietnam War was full of courage through how the soldiers chose to stay and battle for their nation, his depictions of Plato, and through O’Brien’s experiences of his fellow soldier’s deaths. Through the ideals escaping from a draft or deserting the war, then came the idea of injustice within the war. While at Fort Lewis, O’Brien …show more content…
Explaining what he once heard to be from Plato, O’Brien uttered that proper courage came from wisdom and nothing else. For one to be a true sublime human being, they must demonstrate wisdom, justice, temperance, and lastly courage. As for a man without wisdom cannot be courageous, something a man without courage cannot contain any of the other three virtues (wisdom, justice, or even temperance). To Plato, wisdom is simply not just knowing what is right and what must be done, but following through with it. Courage, portrayed so perfectly by Tim O’Brien, is “the endurance of the soul in spite of fear” (140). The act of bravery is a battle within itself. Bravery is not about acting upon one’s desires, but instead setting them aside and putting the needs of the people around them first. It is about humbling yourself to your best ability, no matter how much fear one may obtain. There are people who simply just do not understand what is right due to their lack of intelligence, states O’Brien. Then there are so many men who might know what is right, however, they have too much fear to build up the courage to fight for it. As fear so often overtakes one’s whole self without even true recognition, courage is acting against that (136). All throughout the war, soldiers are constantly faced with fear as fear tends to come hand in hand with death. …show more content…
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
The chapter “On the Rainy River” in the book The Things They Carried, is a short story about the author Tim O’Brien, and how he felt and reacted to getting his draft notice for the Vietnam war at a mere twenty-one years old. In “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien communicates the true nature of courage by introducing themes of shame and guilt, this is connected to the author’s idea of the nature of courage because he shows what happens mentally when he feels that he’s not reacting as he should to his draft notice. O’Brien wants readers to understand that courage can be very loosely defined, and most people aren’t the stereotypical “superheroes” you see in movies when faced with a life or death situation. O’Brien develops this theme by using examples of his reaction to getting his draft notice. This is most likely to show readers how many people in that time probably felt a lot of guilt for not wanting to go to
It is evident that O’Brien’s definition of having the courage and being brave was to stand up for what you believe is right, not to follow along with everyone else because you are afraid of what others might think about you. That fear is what leads a person to make idiotic decisions to prove they are brave when in reality they are viewed as cowards. O’Brien teaches us a perfect
In his novel, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O’Brien attempts to discover an appropriate definition of courage by reflecting upon his comrades, philosophers, and himself. Throughout the novel, O’Brien grapples with whether to be courageous by staying and fighting even though he is fighting a war in which he deems as wrongly conceived and poorly justified, or be courageous by standing for what he believes is ethical but become a deserter. Through the influence of others and self-contemplation of the definition of courage, O’Brien exemplifies the extremity in which America viewed courage as a necessary characteristic for an American soldier to possess during the Vietnam War.
This courage, or rather the opposite, is demonstrated in Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, in particular the chapter entitled “On the Rainy River”. In the summer of 1968, O’Brien was drafted to perform military service in the Vietnam War. He, like many others, thought that this conflict was very unjust and he didn’t really understand what the United States was trying to accomplish. Unfortunately for O’Brien, he felt that if he did not go and perform the service like he intended that not only his family, but also his entire hometown would look at him as if he were a coward. In response, he states “I was a coward. I went to war.” (61). In the traditional sense, the
Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old
Men have always viewed a love or need for a woman as a weakness. This is especially true in the U.S. military, where violence is sexualized and women are viewed as unnecessary. In a way, this is done to make life in the army easier because their are no women in the majority of their time. During an occupation, the local women have to incur the wrath of men trained to see them as something below human. Tim O'Brien exemplifies this in his novel, If I Die in a Combat Zone, where the soldiers in Vietnam mistreat the women used for sexual purposes like strippers and prostitutes, yet treat women in the villages as if they were their mothers. Soldiers at war, far away from the women in their lives, leads
In the beginning of “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien condemns the idea of heroism because he feels that it is unfair that he is forced to fight in Vietnam when he doesn’t find the true purpose of the war. O’Brien is flabbergasted when he receives news of his nomination from the draft to fight in Vietnam: “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything” (39). When O’Brien claims to be “too good, too smart, too compassionate,” he emphasizes the inherent unfairness of the draft process. Even though he has the
In On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien is still indecisive of whether he should go to Vietnam and fight or dodge the war and flee to Canada. On one hand the thought of being in the Vietnam war frightens O’Brien because he “had taken a modest stand against the war nor did he want to lose his life in a war that he couldn’t choose”. O’Brien “did not want to die, not there” (O’Brien 47). O’Brien knew for a fact that war was not meant for him because he lacked the emotional, moral strength a soldier needed to be fit for battle. From O’Brien’s perspective, he believed that if men wanted to “put their own precious fluids on the line”(O’Brien 45). Then that was fine, as long as it didn’t involve him, he was okay with people going into battle. At the time, Tim knew that it was a man 's duty to go fight in Vietnam and serve their country, but the thought of serving his country never crossed
One particular instance where courage is considered is Kiowa’s death. Jimmy Cross blames himself for Kiowa’s death because he thinks he was not courageous enough to pull Kiowa out of the field they were in. O’Brien later gives the reader an inside look at Jimmy Cross’s thoughts, and the metaphor he created to compare the situation to: “A lost ball, he thought. Tired players searching through the rough, sweeping back and forth in long systematic patterns”(167). Death becomes easier to cope with for the soldiers when it is compared to something familiar and peaceful, like golf. Jimmy Cross was comparing his dead friend to a lost golf ball - small in comparison to the rest of the course(or the war) yet important enough to spend time looking
"It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood- you give it together, you take it together." Serving in the Vietnam war was never easy for Tim O 'Brien, he had some very interesting things that happened to him.
What is courage? Is courage a feeling? Is courage a memory? Being a coward is one of the worst feelings experienced, that is why Tim O’Brien felt uneasy after he arrived back from the war. In the story “On the Rainy River,” by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien was to fight in the Vietnam war, he did not want to go to war due to many reasons, he felt cowardly as he was hesitant of the causes and effects of the war and he could have escaped to Canada.
Before describing the effects of Vietnam, first it is necessary to know how Tim O 'Brien was
O’Brien writes, “I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to… I was coward. I went to war.” I wasn’t surprised to hear him say this because I can understand the fear that was going through his mind. I feel like he is choosing personal shame over public shame, which makes him a coward. However, there is an irony within the situation because of how much courage it takes to even partake in the war. Yet, O’Brien still feels that he was a coward for not standing up and saying no. O’Brien views his act in Vietnam as being an act of cowardice. I don’t necessarily agree with him because it does take courage to go risk your life for others. On the contrary, O’Brien’s acts can be viewed as being cowardice because
Throughout history , we find courage weaving itself into the souls of remarkable people. A Soldier shows courage by sacrificing his/her life for their comrades and their cause. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines Courage as “the quality of mind and spirit as one has in the face of peril and fear”. Henry Fleming was naive, and a coward, but in the end, his mind and his spirit grew strong.
O’Brien illuminates the fear in the protagonist, as he describes his (Tim’s) fear of the war but also, being an outcast within his own family “Tim” feels everything that makes him who he is will be lost even if he survives the war. (O’Brien, 1990, pg. 42). As the protagonists flees to Wisconsin on his way to Canada, to avoid the draft, he came upon little cabin where this older person knew why he was there. The old man lets “Tim” stay in the woods, there he cuts wood, fishes and repairs the cabin while he makes peace with himself only to return home, not be cowardice, and serve his country. Here the protagonists stayed several days thinking he can flee to the border easier since it was just across the lake, then comes to his senses hence, returns to face his fear of future death and