Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

During the Vietnam War, the platoon came into a sewage field and were ambushed by mortar fire. Kiowa got hit by one and Norman Bowker attempted to save him, but he lost him. After the war Norman Bowker was never able to live in peace. He never had a stable life after the war. At the time he lived with his family and took part time jobs that lasted very shortly. The things he cared are now gone such as his childhood friend who drowned at a young age and his ex-girlfriend who is already married. Due to so much loss, Norman Bowker has little purpose in his life. He would take his family car and drive around the lake several times. He also wanted to speak to someone about his story during the Vietnam War such as his father but never had the courage to. Norman also requested O’Brien in a letter to add his story to his work. After three years later from 1975 he ended his life silently and without any

Norman Bowker arrived in Vietnam thinking that the amount of medals and awards a man receives determines the amount of courage they have. But because of this belief, Bowker has an emotional life due to the many atrocities he experienced in the Vietnam War, and especially with Kiowa’s death. These emotions that Bowker goes through are not in the form of anger toward the world, but instead they are feelings of self-hatred and extreme survivor’s guilt directed upon himself. After serving in the Vietnam War, Bowker returns home and has trouble finding himself and transitioning back into reality. He describes his life before the war, and also what he saw and did in Vietnam. Bowker describes how he remembers driving around the lake with Sally and how one of his friends drowned in the lake. He explains how most of his friends are either married now or they moved away in search of jobs. Norman Bowker can’t just seem to fit in. In 1978, three years after the chapter ‘Speaking of Courage’ was written, Norman Bowker hanged himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown of central Iowa. Three years prior, O’Brien received a letter from Bowker describing how he couldn’t find a purpose in life after the war. Bowker writes to O’Brien: “What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how to get there

The Vietnam War was a long conflict lasting between 1955 to 1975 between the communist North and the democratic south with help from the United States. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Tim O 'brien 's short story “The Things They Carried” follows a platoon named alpha company during the peak of the Vietnam war led by first lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is very charismatic but in his mind he is unsure how to lead his squad because his mind tends to wander to a thought of a girl back home. Throughout the story he has overcome with emotions and guilt because he believes he his the reason for some of his squadmates death. “The Things They Carried” Embodies the hardship, reality, and price/toll of war, ultimately Tim O’brien writes this masterpiece as not of a war story, but as a love story and how that love changed a man.

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

In "The Things They Carried," O'Brien made reference to the Vietnam war that was closely associated with the physical, psychological, and emotional weight the soldiers beared.  The overall method of presentation of this story incorporated many different outlooks on the things the soldiers carried, dealt with, and were forced to adapt to.  In addition to this, O'Brien showed us the many reasons why and how the soldiers posessed these things individually and collectively and how they were associated directly and indirectly.  The strong historical content in "The Things They Carried" helped emphasize the focus of the story and establish a clearer understanding of details in the

No matter how hard a person can try, they can never forget their recollection of the horrors in war. Some people are driven by their to the dark point of being severely depressed and/or suicidal, and in some cases, committing suicide. Norman Bowker kills himself in The Things They Carried due to the guilt from his friend’s death and the feeling that he had no purpose in his life anymore. On the other hand, Chris from Miss Saigon lives in turmoil after Kim commits suicide. James Blake Miller also lives in confusion and distress after coming home because he is traumatized from being in combat. Veterans are haunted by memories from war; some vets find the rest of their lives controlled by these memories, which slowly destroys the possibility for a stable and hopeful life.

In the novel The Things They Carried and the documentary Regret to Inform, people that were involved share their recollection of events that occurred during the Vietnam War. Consequently, both works also share the underlying idea that people are affected by the war even after it is done. They convey this meaning through the stories of mental and physical harm each witness deals and dealt with because of the war.

People often feel embarrassed because they believe what they do are wrong. In The Things They Carried, the conflicts in emotions of the soldiers highlights the theme of embarrassment. For instance, O’Brien in “On the Rainy River” is ashamed because he decides to go to the Vietnam War and escapes his real ideals. In “Speaking of Courage,” Norman Bowker is embarrassed because he has saved himself instead of saving his friend Kiowa from death. Indeed, the theme of embarrassment plays an essential role in The Things They Carried because the theme has successfully demonstrates the how the war affects the complexity in the soldier’s decisions and emotions before and after the war.

Tim O’Brien depicts some of the effects it has on them, as well as some coping mechanisms they use, in The Things they Carried. Some of the things the soldiers lose include their innocence and a few of their fellow soldiers. Everyone was affected by this differently, some felt guilt, others just pretended things were fine, or dreamt them back to life. The reactions of those experiencing loss also help define it and how powerful it can be. When Kiowa died, one of the boys felt the effects of immediate loss, leading him to believe he was to blame for his death. He felt that “he was alone. He’d lost everything. He’d lost Kiowa and his weapon and his flashlight and his girlfriend’s picture. He remembered this. He remembered wondering if he could lose himself” (O’Brien 171). Like him, many people feel very lost during hard times and question how much longer they can stay sane and handle the situation. In some unfortunate cases, when loss becomes too much, some commit suicide, or react violently. However, an alternate way of coping with loss (of lives and of sanity) that is seen in the novel is to completely ignore it. O’Brien recalls how “in Vietnam, too, [they] always had ways of making the dead seem not so dead. Shaking hands, that was one way. By slighting death, by acting, [they] pretended it was not the terrible thing it was…” (O’Brien 238). The thoughts of one of the characters portrays how much everyone

In the novel, The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien uses the novel to explain the art of storytelling. However, in several chapters of the novel, O’Brien uses the novel to explain a love story towards his fellow soldiers. Following the war, soldiers that were in O’Brien’s platoon continue to suffer from the traumatic experiences. One soldier, Norman Bowker, needed O’Brien’s help to write his story of trauma that he is experiencing from the Vietnam war. When O’Brien fails to Bowker’s experience, that he is feeling at home, Bowker feels as if no one will ever relate to him and he cannot talk to anyone about his war experience. Due to Bowker’s loneliness and O’Brien’s failed writing attempts to put Bowker’s story into words, Bowker commits

“It is sweet and right to die for your country,” is a statement that Tim O’Brien, the main character, would have strongly disagreed with before and after entering war. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a novel compiled of short stories, all linked to the Vietnam War, depicting the experiences of several soldiers. Soldiers emerge from war with a fresh perspective, having revelations about issues such as the impact of war on a person, the meaning of life, and how to move on with life after returning from war. Aside from the heavy arsenal that O’Brien used during the war, a pen and paper are his literary weapons. Recalling his memories and even creating his own fictional stories about war, he published these narratives in hopes of keeping war alive in his present, not just his past.

Douglas MacArthur, military chief for World War II, once said,”Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” For those who survive battle and return home safely, an entirely unique battle begins: learning how to move on. Vietnam War veterans specifically felt a lack of respect and acknowledgement from their fellow citizens because of the controversial causes of the war. In the chapter “Speaking of Courage” of The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s use of the symbolism of circles demonstrates the state of eternal meaninglessness and idleness that Vietnam-War-survivors like Norman Bowker experiences after returning home. In “Speaking of Courage,” O’Brien captures Norman Bowker’s failure to settle into his new life as a veteran

“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien is a story in which the author details the possessions the emotions and the memories which were carried by the soldiers into the Vietnam War. The accuracy fact fullness and the attention to details make this story a truthful experience, riding on a thin line between fiction and a reality. It embodies the transformation that a soldier in a war zone undergoes. The author being a war veteran himself captures the events in a vivid manner. The two works of literature serve as an authentic and knowledgeable depiction of men fighting a war. They not only carry the weight of weaponry and ammunitions and supplies needed but also the weight of the struggle and the violent deaths that surround them which weigh heavier than the items they carried. The outcomes of war for the side that wins or loses results in devastation of the people but the soldiers are the ones who carry with them the memories of pain and struggle long after the war ends. Every war is partly fought on the ground and partly in the mind of soldiers.