Tim O ' Brien 's ' The Man I Killed '

Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried” epitomizes the degradation of morals that war produces. This interpretation is personified in the characters who gradually blur the line dividing right and wrong as the motives for war itself become unclear. The morality of soldiers and the purpose of war are tied also to the truth the soldiers must tell themselves in order to participate in the gruesome and random killing which is falsely justified by the U.S government. The lack of purpose in the Vietnam War permanently altered the soldier’s perspective of how to react to situations and in most cases they turned to violence to express their frustration.

In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes a chapter on “The Man I Killed”, which describes the characteristics of a young Vietnamese man in which O’Brien may or may not have killed with a grenade. The novel is not chronologically sequenced, which leaves more room for the reader to engage in a critical thought process that fully bridges the author’s mind to their own. In O’Brien’s chapter, “The Man I Killed”, he attempts to humanize the enemy in a way that draws little separation between the enemy and himself by relating the enemy’s life prior to the war to his, and illustrates the war through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it.

The Vietnam War began in 1954, consisting of many extensive, horrific years of battle that seemed to create more harm to the United States and its soldiers rather than to North Vietnam. The 500,000 United States military personnel returned home with the loss of the war and the loss of their friends on their minds. Although the physical and emotional experiences that the men went through is unfathomable, Tim O’Brien does a great job portraying what life as a soldier was truly like in the Vietnam War. In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien depicts the unstable emotional and psychological condition of the American soldiers through the symbolism of their belongings and personal anecdotes from their lives.

“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.

In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses the art of fabricating stories as a coping mechanism. Trying to distinguish the difference between fictional and factual stories is a challenge in this book, but literal truth cannot capture the real violence that the soldiers dealt with in Vietnam, only “story truth” can. He explains, “If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made victim of a very old and terrible lie.” (O’Brien 65). The novel illustrates that storytelling is a way to keep the dead alive, even if it may not be a true story.

Tim O' Brien, a soldier affected by the Vietnam War, reflects on his experiences when his daughter asks herself if he has ever taken a life. When she is nine years old, nearly 20 years after the Vietnam War is over, Kathleen asks her a question. Has he ever killed someone, she wants to know. O’Brien decides to tell her that he hasn’t. It felt like the “right thing to do”; he thinks when she is a grown-up she will understand better. Maybe then O’Brien will tell her about the slim young man who still obsesses him, whom he still thinks about when reading the newspaper.

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

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

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

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried was written as a collection of short stories centered around the Vietnam War and the after effects it had on the men that fought in it. The truth is one of the central themes in and around this book. The collection is classified as a work of fiction, yet there are many aspects of the book that leave its readers wondering whether these stories are rooted in truth. Since its publication in 1990, many readers have researched the author’s career as a soldier in the Vietnam War and compared what they know about his experiences there with what was written in the book. The truth is debated throughout the main character’s retelling of his war stories. “By telling stories, you objectify your own experiences. You

In the book, “The Things We Carried” Tim O’Brien addresses how war changes the human psyche when the mind is in a vulnerable state, by showing that the soldiers talk to an old man that is dead in a village, and by O’Brien seeing people that are dead like Linda, Ted Lavender, and Kiowa. Throughout the book, O’Brien shows all the tragedies and hardships he has experienced in the war, as well as the people around him. He shows the deaths he has witnessed, like Ted Lavender getting shot in the face, or when Kiowa drowned in sewage in the banks of the Song Tra Bong. There was also the time Lee strunk died after stepping on a landmine. These events in O'Brien's life made his mind(human psyche) change by showing life and death as a connection .

When the truth seems too good to be true should people still believe it? When people explain episodes from the war or certain details the claims at times can become too crazy, which makes them unbelievable. In addition to being unbelievable, the state of being truthful can sometimes be extremely hurtful. This causes people to branch away from the truth and even make stories easier on the ears. Ultimately, most people enjoy hearing stories that sound truthful and have some kind of moral, yet the truth can be hard to accept.

In the short story, “On the Rainy River” his book The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien shows the internal conflict he has with himself about entering the Vietnam War. He gets drafted into a war that he hates, and he battles himself on whether or not he wants to fight. He feels like a coward for deciding to fight, but then has to deal with putting his family through the pain and stress of possibly not making it through the war. While O’Brien struggles with his moral convictions against the war, he determines to fight in the Vietnam War to protect his family and defend their honor.

Tim O’Brien, in his collection of short stories called “The things they carried”, develops the theme of soldiers ‘carrying’ many burdens throughout their lives. Through his persona, also named Tim O’Brien, O’Brien contradicts the stereotypical reason as to why the men joined the war. Jimmy Cross explores the unwanted burden placed on a Lieutenant of the platoon member’s responsibility. Further O’Brien explores the affect of the Vietnam War on the soldiers on their wellbeing through Norman Bowker, who suicides as he is unable to deal with the memories and the pressure faced due to the war. the emotional burden from the memories, physical weight ‘humped’ by them during the war and the mental pressures enforced upon them are the different

“In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.” - Ernest Hemingway.