The Prisoner 's Fight, Patriotism, And Duty

In the fictional novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien vividly explains the fear and trauma the soldiers encountered during the Vietnam War. Many of these soldiers are very young and inexperienced. They begin to witness their acquaintances’ tragic demise, and kill other innocent lives on their own. Many people have a background knowledge on the basis of what soldiers face each day, but they don’t have a clear understanding of what goes through these individual’s minds when they’re at war. O’Brien gives descriptive details on the soldiers’ true character by appealing to emotions, using antithesis and imagery.

Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing

In this essay we will cover three topics centered around Vietnam Prisoners of War and will discuss two books that are, in ways, very similar, but very different due to a variety of things. One of the two books being compared in this essay is titled “Defiance” by Alvin Townley and was written quite recently in 2014. The other novel that was chosen for this essay was written in 1971 is titled “Five Years to Freedom” and it was written by James N. Rowe. These two books were focused on the capture and the treatment of American Prisoners of War during the Vietnam War, more specifically based on the lives of each of the men as they meet up in the prison camps and have to survive torture which was brought upon them because they are questioned by the Vietcong and will not give up military secrets. The Vietnam War started in 1954 and ended on April 30, 1975 totaling over twenty years. Each book has its idea of the incidents that happened and in “Defiance” there are several stories of a gang eleven American soldiers that was known famously as the Alcatraz Eleven. This essay will talk about the different accounts the American men endured, the two very different writing styles of each of the authors and the main themes we can see in each book.

War requires a lot out of soldiers. They give themselves wholly to their country, including their mind, body, and soul. However, one thing that seems to vary among these men is their sense of duty. In Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation,” three Irish soldiers form an unlikely friendship with their British prisoners of war. However, things take a turn when they are given orders to execute their new-found friends. When the order reaches the men, the three of them interpret their new duty in various ways. Through the orders of execution, “Guests of the Nation” emphasizes how people react to a sense of duty in varied ways from embracing it with pride, carrying out their duty with confusion and regret, and disobeying by limited participation.

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

Thomas Paine, a former writer, speaker, and soldier during the Revolutionary War, changed history by delivering a speech to the troops of General George Washington before the crossing of the Delaware River. The Crisis, given by a soldier himself, helped boost the moral of the war weary soldiers during the Revolutionary war. Thomas Paine also decided to mention that these men were not the summer soldiers in one of his the lines presented as “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.” This line describes how other soldiers did not show up to battle when his country needed him most. A soldier who is apart of winning times is happy to fight, unlike the soldier who is ready to succeed after endless strings of lost battles. Overall, the author uses the techniques of establishing himself with credit,

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

Often times, we feel we deal with the weight of so many burdens. We feel overwhelmed and aren’t able to do anything about it. But unlike our minor situations faced daily that we feel is weighing down on us, there are many veterans who would love to have it as good as we do. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried discusses many veterans who experience the burden of shame and guilt daily due to their heroic actions taken during the Vietnam War. The book shows you how such a war can change a man before, during, and after it’s over.

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” Rarely have there been as powerful and as meaningful words as these from the pen of Thomas Paine. Paine was one of the many men who experienced the harsh effects of the war. The war was deadly, more deadly than ever could be expressed through words. The extremes of the war were felt by all, although some felt the cruelty the war more than others. Men from many different walks of life and men from different sides of the war all had their souls “tried” by this war. Some of the men, who joined the Colonial Army, could not take these “trials” once the going got tough.

Green portrays the war as a symbolic event for men to show their duty as an American to protect their own country. Green’s choice of words such as “honor” and “justice”, “glory” and “heroism” served as a motivator for his audience to show that partaking the role of being in the Union forces will

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought after power and control. It is human instinct to desire to be the undisputed champion, but when does it become a problem? Warfare has been practiced throughout civilization as a way to justify power. Though the orders come directly from one man, thousands of men and women pay the ultimate sacrifice. In Randall Jerrell’s “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, Jarrell is commenting on the brutality of warfare. Not only does Jarrell address the tragedies of war, he also blames politics, war leaders, and the soldier’s acknowledgement of his duties. (Hill 6) With only five lines of text, his poems allows the reader to understand what a soldier can go through. With the use of Jerrell’s poem, The Vietnam War, and Brian Turner’s “Ameriki Jundee”, the truth of combat will be revealed.

America is considered one of the top countries in the world. To maintain that status, Americans are supposed to do anything and everything to make sure America is the best. During wartime, Americans are called to serve and protect America. Not only that, but during wartime Americans are called upon to act patriotic. Once Americans are sent off to the battlefield, they begin to see how much they actually want to serve and protect America. In “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, soldiers witness gruesome events and suffer from physical attacks that traumatized them physically and mentally. Ultimately, it made them realize the truth about war, and it made them less patriotic for war due to the suffering they had to face.

The camp was the worst place of their lives, a world full of deaths, guns, broken feelings and where one dead soldier was just a trophy. The value of life it’s against the pride of a nation. “If they aren’t got them a good war, they don’t know what to do with themselves” (Dean 154). The author try to say that in order to get the respect of others, America should fight no matters how many soldiers could die.

“ In that brutally controlled environment a perpetual enemy can get his hooks into the slightest chink in a mans ethical armor and accelerate his downfall. Given the right opening, the right moral weakness, a certain susceptibility on the part of the prisoner, a clever extortionist can drive his victim into a downhill side that will ruin his image, self-respect, and life in a very short time”(12). The Vietnamese like all captors inherently knew in which to destroys one’s integrity and moral code resulted in the destruction of the individual themselves which results in loosing ones goodness. Stockdale highlighted the best defense was to keep ones conscience constantly clear and protected. Stockdale depicts one specific mans willingness to

When faced with the countless problems of war including death, disease, sorrow, and loss, soldiers develop and intense bond between one another as they seek support in one another. A brotherhood is formed among these soldiers who rely on one another for protection and companionship amid a time in their lives where they are faced with the constant threat of death and violence everyday of their lives. But what happens to them after the war? In After the War, poet brings awareness to how the war-torn soldier attempts to reestablish their self in a society they have been isolated from for so many years through use of free verse and repetitive phrases, which further reinforces the theme throughout the poem.