O Brien's Analysis

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.

z Teynor Hour 3 War: The Ultimate Paradox In today’s society truth is definite, if something is true, then it must of happened. However, throughout The Things They Carried, the blurring between reality and imagination represents the confusion and moral ambiguity of war.

He decided to go to Canada, but instead stayed for about a week at the border between Canada and the U.S.A.. One day, he went fishing and thought about if his family and friends thought about him as a bad person and became embarrassed. Due to his embarrassment, he kept thinking about what he would do because if he went to Canada, he would not see his family and friends again. He was sad when he thought he would not see his family again, but he still did not want to go to Vietnam. Suddenly, he knew that even though he did not believe in war, he would go home and fight in it. This quote is important because it tells the audience about why O’Brien did not want to go to the Vietnam War and why he decided to go to war.

Furthermore, O’Brien himself admits he went to war not out of courage, but out of embarrassment and cowardice. In the chapter “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien received a draft letter for the Vietnam War. He was in shock, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. A mistake, maybe—a foul up in the paperwork. I was no soldier… I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness” (41-42). Obviously, O’Brien did not want to go to war. However, he was

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

The Vietnam War had a life changing effect on the soldiers, including O 'Brien. They came into the war as boys as young as seventeen and left either in body bags made of their own poncho or they came out alive. But were they ever really alive? No, they had their innocence ripped out. They weren 't young boys anymore. Their young selves were killed out in that jungle and all that was left was a carcass of gruesome memories of the tragedy of war, the deaths of their fellow soldiers. They changed as people. O 'Brien came into the war as a young man against war. A young soul believing that the Vietnam War was wrong and there was no need for fighting or killing. However, toward the end of the book he tells us the story of how he got revenge on a fellow soldier. This soldier, while in the middle of war, took too long in treating O 'Brien for a bullet wound and also should have treated him for shock. O 'Brien almost dies on the field but fortunately

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

“If I truly believe the war is wrong, is it then also wrong to go off and kill people? If I do that, what will happen to my soul?” (pg 60). Tim O 'Brien is an American man who was drafted into the Vietnam War. O 'Brien is not a violent man and struggles because he believes that the war is wrong. He debates whether or not he should go to war or move to Canada to avoid the draft. Tim O 'Brien decides to join the army. O 'Brien uses his personal experiences as a foot soldier in the Vietnam War to convey his possible bias perspective that the Vietnam War was a waste of people 's lives and a shameful venture for the United States.

O’Brien uses explicit details and imagery to illustrate what the experience was like for the terrified men. Although they are sad for the loss of their friend Lavender, and try as hard as they can to be courageous, their major feeling is of relief, mainly because they are still living. Courage is shown in the “The Things They Carried” with this quote. “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.” (p. --) This quotation is O’Brien expressing his reasons for having the courage in going to Vietnam, instead of being a coward. At the same time he is giving the reader a generalization that foreshadows the later several references towards courage and cowardice.

The men who served in the Vietnam War were just barely men. Some of them just hitting the age of twenty. It was the draft, which involuntarily brought these boys into the fight, to fight a war which they saw no meaning in. Many of these boys are the sons of veterans who fought in World War II, who came home to parades and were held up like heroes for fighting. Honorary men of the country and the soldiers fighting in Vietnam did not want to disappoint them. Thus, when O’Brien mentions in the quote, valor was not the point, he is trying to explain to the reader that the men went as if it was a job they had to do, not a random act of courage that willed them to proceed. The draft pulled them into it. They did not want to dishonor their fathers,

He calls himself a coward for going to war which sounds very weird. The quote means it is very hard to be brave during a war like Vietnam. Since the author turned in to a coward right when he was on the edge of the border, this quote relates well to this story.

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

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses Juxtaposition, Symbolism, and Point of View to show the burdens carried by the soldiers, and the effects war can have on individuals. He wrote the vignette in order to bring a greater awareness to Americans who were unaware of the dark reality of war. Juxtapositions, such as Desire versus Shame, Morality versus Crime, and Talking versus Distraction, are primary modes by which O’Brien shares the burdens of soldiers. Also, individual juxtapositions such as “Gentle Killer (O’Brien 66)” are used along with dichotomies as a window into the heart of the soldiers, and to show the ambivalence they held when making choices. “On the Rainy River” describes the Desire versus Shame conflict within O’Brien immediately after he was drafted for the Vietnam.

As well as compared to his story "Going After Cacciato” He had protested the war in college and didn't believe in it. Coming from a conservative Minnesota town, O'Brien said he thought about running away to Canada (Homer). He also played golf near the Rainy River. My conscience kept telling me not to go, but my whole upbringing told me I had to go to this horrible war as an patriot to my country

In this passage O’brien demonstrates his own character traits. As a writer, he has a strong ability to understand what others are feeling and sympathize. When he kills the young soldier, he creates a story around him, imaging the soldier as having similar struggles to his own. He deeply regrets the soldier's death because he feels that neither of them really wanted to be fighting in this war and relates his own life story to the fictional one he creates for the soldier.