The Things They Carried Vietnam Essay

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.

He doesn't want to go to war, but is afraid the community at home will be ashamed of him. The text says, “in June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated.” (O’Brien 38). This quote shows that O’Brien doesn't want to go to war; he doesn't immediately flee to Canada but rather he considers both sides and eventually chooses to go to war. O’Brien says, “it was easy to imagine people sitting around the table at the old Gobbler Café on Main Street, coffee cups poised, the conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O’Brien kid how the damned sissy had taken off for Canada” (O’Brien 43).

By using syntax, repetition, and evidence, Tim O’Brien builds an argument to convey the reality that the soldiers in the Vietnam War had something to carry, both physically and emotionally. In “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses syntax to arrange his sentences in order to show the harsh correlation between the weight of real and mental possessions. For example, O’Brien first introduces the 30 pound PRC-scrambler radio, then immediately follows with the weight of memory. Appealing to emotion by displaying that, like the heavy radio, the weight of memory also was a burden, but something that they were forced to carry.

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

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.

In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt, and will deal with his past. In war, a way to

In this final chapter, O’Brien strings the various threads of plot events together to form a cohesive message. Each of the major themes is illuminated as each of the major stories is retold mostly told about Vietnam and a younger version of himself

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

The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in

     In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.

The Vietnam War. A war that many Americans believed unfair and unnecessary. “Why am I being sent off to fight in a war I don’t know anything about? Will I ever return again?” Many draftees asked themselves these questions hoping to find comfort in the answers. But there was little to no hope, and they knew it. They were being drafted and they could do absolutely nothing about it, only hope that at the end they would be returning to the enlightened faces of their loved ones, something that not many Vietnam soldiers expected to ever see again. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, portrays his experience in the war along with his fellow squad members, in their fight for survival against the Vietcong. In The Things They Carried, each

Ultimately, this novel is not about Vietnam--in fact, it is not about war at all. It is about the narrator 's attempt to find a place where the erosion of time will have no effect. By working through the "threads" of this novel, O 'Brien 's intentions become obvious: He is fighting to preserve the physical against deterioration, and by extension, to preserve life by immortalizing it in fiction. He is not writing as a result of neurosis or as a form of therapy; he does this since

1. O’Brien believed that the war was unjust for both himself and many others. He received his draft notice only two weeks after graduating from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although he studied political science while there, he tried everything he could to ignore the ongoing Vietnam War. With attending peace vigils and war protests, he was ready to attend Harvard University’s School of Government to earn his Ph.D. Since he was “politically naive”, it was hard for him to understand why he had to risk his life for a cause he did not believe in. This idea resonated with other characters.

The 1960’s was a decade full of changes and advancements. Events from the 1950’s greatly influenced those of the sixties. The existentialism movement in the fifties led to the evolution of the hippie culture. Not only was this decade full of positive changes and advancements, but the nation dealt with many heated movements as well. Debates as well as intense wars caused times of turbulence. The Vietnam War was fought between America and Vietnam. Many American men were drafted for the war with no choice. One such draftee was a man named Tim O’Brien who, because of the war, became a writer. Tim O’Brien, an author and a Vietnam War veteran, pinpoints the major aspects of the

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.