The True Weight of War In “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, it is evident that the psychological impact of what the soldiers went through was heavier than all of the supplies and equipment they carried. Wartime can be much harder on some men than others, it is a true test of resilience. Some soldiers were driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to have a reason to continue to fight. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery. Sadly, it is not until the completion of the story where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is brought back to reality by the tragic death of his soldier and friend, Ted Lavender, and ready to face the tasks …show more content…
In “The Things They Carried,” it is said that “ they carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die (443).” Given that the majority of humans have experienced some form of trauma, we can understand how some men were driven to suicide and others into insanity. Nevertheless, it is clear that the majority of men were hardened enough to bear these burdens because we have seen many soldiers return home. The text also mentions that regardless of the material things upon their backs, “heavier still was the knowledge of the deaths they had seen, the treacheries they committed, and the hope of living to return home” as a testament to the weight they truly shouldered (437). Each man consistently “carried all (he) could bear, and then some (436).” Despite this baggage, the men found ways to make “themselves laugh (443).” They would create jokes and repeat them day after day until they grew bored of them. Reading this, some may believe that the war drove them insane. Contrary to the previous statement, soldiers did this because they could not change where they were or what conditions they faced …show more content…
For example, protagonist Jimmy Cross knew the letters he received from his beloved Martha “were not love letters,” but “he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack (433)” to allow him to pretend they are lovers. Everyday, he spent every second thinking of Martha and of all the romantic trips they would go on (434). Although it may seem foolish to some, his delusions of Martha are what kept him going through the war. “The simple pebble” given to Cross by her becomes his good luck charm, even though he did not quite understand her reason as to why she sent it to him. Slowly, he became obsessed to the point of ordering his men to spread out in formation during marches so that he could have time to imagine being with her (437). He continually put his men in danger by becoming lost in his fantasies. Even one of his men, Lee Strunk, died inside of a Vietcong tunnel while Cross day dreamed of being wrapped up under the earth with Martha
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.
The whole atmosphere…they carried gravity” (O’Brien 124). The reader is given much attention to the weight and pressure of all the external forces the soldier would carry. But the greatest of weight the men carried with them was not physical at all. It was their emotions: “Grief, terror, love, longing these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (O’Brien 126)
There are both physical and emotional things that way people down in everyday life. In war there are even more responsibility that each person has to deal with. You have the physical responsibility of the men around you but also the emotional baggage that comes alone with that. In the story “The Things They Carried,” Lieutenant Jimmy Cross has the big responsibility of keeping his all his men safe, and he feels like Ted Lavenders death is his fault so the weight of these two things weighs him down a lot. Everyone has things that way them down, some more than others but that doesn’t mean that it effects everyone in the same way.
They carry many things, they carry a massive amount of weight on their shoulders. However, the heaviest thing that they carry cannot be touched. The intangible weight of fear, loss, anger, and guilt far outweigh any tangible item that they could possibly possess. The Thing They Carried is not only an eye-opening collection of war stories, but it is also a love story, a memoir, and a tribute to the unimaginable things that happen to our soldiers in war zones. War changes men, makes them different, and when they come home they are not the same person and they often have trouble readjusting to the life of a civilian.
In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien created several allusions that each character endured during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story were vast representations of the things soldiers carried both mentally and physically. The things they carried symbolized their individual roles internally and externally. In addition to symbolism, imagination was a focal theme that stood out amongst the characters. This particular theme played a role as the silent killer amongst Lt. Cross and the platoon both individually and collectively as a group. The theme of imagination created an in depth look of how the war was perceived through each character which helped emphasize their thoughts from an emotional stand point of being young men out at war.
In the story The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien shows the reader a sense of depressing love. O’Brien uses the physical weight carried by the soldiers as a motif for the emotional burdens they must endure while fighting in Vietnam. A love of which is portrayed in the story with a soldier loving a woman more than his fellow soldiers. But this woman does not love him in the same way. O’Brien uses many literary devices throughout the story, and shall be covered in this text. The tone in the text is very prevalent, and O’Brien gives the reader easy access to find and understand them.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien expresses the importance of a story-truth, as opposed to a happening-truth by use of literary elements in his writing. The novel is about war and the guilt it leaves on everyone involved in the war. Story-truth is not exactly what happened, but uses part of the truth and part made up in order to express the truth of what emotion was felt, which an important thematic element in the novel is. The three literary devices he uses to express this are diction, imagery, juxtaposition, and hyperbole. All of these elements allow the reader to identify emotion that is expressed in each story, as though that were the complete truth.
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
In the story, “The Things They Carried”, author Tim O’Brien described specific items that each of his soldiers carried with them to the Vietnam War front. The items that the soldiers carried were for mental protection; they believed that the things they carried would take their minds off all the terror and violence that was going on around them. The protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy cross, carries out letters from a girl named Martha, which leads to him losing his focus for the war and a lack of protection for his fellow soldiers. The death of Ted Lavender tested Lieutenant Cross’ loyalty to his men, his imagination of Martha, and the significance relating to each of the items the soldiers’ carry.
Tim O’Brien brings the characters and stories to life in The Things They Carried. He uses a writing style that brings stories to life by posing questions between the relationship of reality and fiction (Calloway 249). This is called metafiction and it exposes the truth through the literary experience. Tim O’Brien uses metafiction to make the characters and stories in The Things They Carried realistically evocative of the Vietnam War.
Actions tested there ethical and moral values. After this point these soldiers have to cope with the cause and effect from their actions. Coping can cause mental illnesses, and addiction but also you can cope with these some things plus more things such as love, and mortality. This is the most important struggle that had to take care of for their survival. But why is this still relevant to today's society? Tim o’brien used many methods while writing this book to help the reader to understand the soldiers experiences and feelings throughout the war. These methods include imagery, repetition, hyperbole, metaphors, allusions, and many
The story focuses on the emotions of the soldiers and describes how they endured extreme emotional torture during their time at war. All of them taken away from their homes and being thrown into a terrorizing unfamiliar area then given a gun and being told to fight most of them being young and having no combat experience. Tim O’Brien explains the amount of emotional stress each man carried “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (89). He describes how their fear affected even what supplies they brought with them from the amount of ammunition, to pocket knives, and even food. One of the soldiers in the story, Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers with him because he was scared of the physical pain he might endure. “Depending on numerous factors, such as topography and psychology, the riflemen carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines” (82). All the men struggled through
“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story written about the Vietnam War. The title has two meanings. The first is their duties and equipment for the war. The second, the emotional sorrows they were put through while at war. Their wants and needs, the constant worry of death were just a few of the emotional baggage they carried. During the Vietnam War, like all wars, there were hard times. Being a soldier wasn’t easy. Soldiers always see death, whether it be another soldier or an enemy. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien explores the motivation of solders in the Vietnam War to understand their role in combat, to stay in good health, and accept the death of a fellow soldier.
The soldiers face loneliness, isolation, the heavy burden of fear, and the weight of their reputations. The soldiers carry such a heavy weight from the past, in the present, and for the future. Even after the war, the psychological burdens the men carried during the war continues to define them. Those who survive the war carry guilt, grief, and confusion.
The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing