Preview

Dear America Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
652 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dear America Analysis
Throughout the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and the documentary “Dear America: Letters Home to Vietnam” the central feelings of fear and trepidation were prominent. As a reader, or viewer, I was able to take the feelings of the soldiers during the Vietnam War and translate it in a way to relate it to my own life. During Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and the documentary “Dear America: Letters Home to Vietnam”, I experienced many different emotions that were brought on by the situations presented. From the very beginning of the novel where O’Brien listed off the things they carried, I felt uneasy. What started off as a simple list of tangible items they literally carried, morphed into emotional or mental baggage that weighed each of the men down in different ways. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who …show more content…
We all carry things with us that no one else can see. This is relatable not only to those who have fought in war, but also to the everyday person. The Greek Philosopher Plato once said “… everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle”. Whether this is a literal battle or an internal conflict invisible to the human eye, we all have something to carry. From the chapter “The Things They Carried” I was able to construe that there are some things that others can help us carry, like our back pack or a gun. On the other hand, there are also things that we must carry ourselves, like the feelings of fear, love, uncertainty, and ostracism. As I saw the progression of these insubstantial troubles creating more and more weight upon the backs of these soldiers, I began to think about how in my own life there are feelings that can create a sort or weight, even though it may not be in such an extreme circumstance as the Vietnam War. Yes, there are things that make me afraid, sad, embarrassed, and numerous

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Things They Carried, a novel by Tim O’Brien, is a collection of war stories told from a fictional Vietnam veteran’s perspective. O’Brien elucidates the physical and emotional barrier war creates between men and women to help demonstrate the frustration soldiers have with women in war.…

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a very descriptive story about a group of soldiers and their experiences during and after the Vietnam War. Included in this story of their experiences , is the physical weight of the objects they had to carry during the war. O’Brien not only tells the reader about the physical weight of war material , but also of the mental and emotional weight the war had on the soldiers. He goes into depth about the burdens of guilt, love, memory and terror the war had on his fellow men. O’Brien is sure to exaggerate these emotions in the story and makes it apparent to the reader that the physical weight of the war is heavy, but the emotional and mental weight are both heavier.…

    • 2108 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Vietnam War was arguably the most traumatic experience for the United States in the twentieth century. That is indeed a grim distinction in a span that included two world wars, the assassinations of two presidents and the resignation of another, the Great Depression, the Cold War, racial unrest, and the drug and crime waves.”(Donald M. Goldstein) Tim O'Brien, the author of the book, The Things They Carried, goes into his memory to his time serving in The Vietnam War. It explains his experiences with his fellow teammates and everything they went through. Being a nonlinear book, it gives you an almost real experience to life while being a soldier in Vietnam. O`Briens intended audience was future generations and he discussed shame/guilt and morality/death.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tim O'Brien, in his short story “The Things They Carried,” writes about what soldiers in Vietnam carried, literally and figuratively. He discusses what they “humped,” the tangible things and the intangible ones too. For example, all the men carried flak jackets which had a real defined weight but also they carried fear and “all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (21). We can touch the flak jacket but not the fear or Jimmy Cross' love for Martha.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien takes us back to the Vietnam War. He demonstrates to the reader that not only does each United States soldier carry something physical with them, but they also carry an emotional burden as well. What each man carries is a combination of thoughts, emotions, and past experiences.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carry, an emotional story about soldiers leaving home to fight in the Vietnam War and the items they carried with them. O’Brien begins his story, when soldiers go into combat and overseas to serve our country include military issue equipment as well as personal items, which hold memories of fear or emotional value. O’Brien shows readers the weight soldiers carry while serving in the military. The love for family and country are important and how memories can be carried to aid in relieving stress of the battle.…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tim O’Brien authored the novel “The Things They Carried” a novel filled with short stories about the Vietnam War. The first passage in the collection lists the numerous things the solders in O’Brien’s platoon carried. Varying from weapons, to thoughts of loved ones back home. Distorting the line between the tangible and intangible, O’Brien writes about the things like bibles, pantyhose, moccasins, and pictures. Things the men carried tangibly, but are used to give them something to think about other than the waning darkness of the war, that making them intangible. The intangible things are used to escape the war; weighing heavier than anything tangible possibly could. Specifically, they are burdened with death. The men carry the intangible burden of death, something always on their minds and weighing more than anything tangible they could ever carry. They did what they could not to acknowledge death, each using their own techniques try and put a spin on and lift the emotional baggage of war and war’s mortality.…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Although O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is considered fiction in many ways it is Metafiction. "Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (Waugh 2.) Once in an interview O’Brien admitted to his conscious blurring of fact and fiction by way of using Metafiction to generate stories that are “more real” (Sawyer 117-126.) O’Brien’s practice of using Metafiction indisputably makes the events and stories conceivable for the reader. The reality of O’Brien’s description of the intangible items each man carried has been noted to have long-term implications for those who have had to lug around the psychological affects of war. According to an article in BMC Psychiatry, “Combat exposure is the factor most consistently associated with mental disorders and symptomatology. Research with Vietnam veterans demonstrated substantial associations between combat exposure and PTSD” (Kewley 1). In another article findings that suggest, “...Vietnam veterans are much more likely to report problems associated with posttraumatic stress disorder including ‘‘nightmares, loss of control of behavior, emotional numbing, withdrawal from the external environment, hyper alertness, anxiety, and depression”(Card 7). The way in which Tim O’Brien represents each character with both the physical and emotional baggage that he carries lends itself to constructing characters that become personal. The characters by way of these items that they carry have become believable. It is because of this believability that the reader can visualize the weight of each character. O’Brien’s ability to blur the lines between fiction and fact with the items carried in war ensures…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Things They Carried,” a short story by Tim O’Brien, the reader is able to see, in great detail, each of the characters ways of dealing with the atrocities of the Vietnam War by what they choose to carry; how symbolically they use these objects as a means for remembrance of what they have left behind, to escape what they deal with each day, and for some, a false sense of security and/or control over the violence and death that surrounds them.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Literature Summary: “The Things They Carried”, published in 1990 tells a true story of Tim O’Brian, author and main character, who is drafted for the Vietnam war. He tells about the different items that him and his fellow soldiers carried with them to help cope with the traumatic environment that they were placed in.…

    • 1873 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, recounts the horrible experiences of soldiers at war in Vietnam. Throughout the novel, the author not only tells war stories, but tales about his own life, often referencing and dwelling on those who have made an impact on his life. He stresses the importance of these people and stories, often referring to them as “war stories” although many of these are not true. They serve as an outlet for O’Brien, allowing him to let go of these horrible memories but also letting him keep the importance that they had on his life. These stories and messages are emphasized through the symbols displayed in the novel, the imagery used throughout, and the anecdotes that recount his memories.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, many negatives of being a soldier are presented. These negatives, being shown as emotional burdens, are prevalent throughout each character in The Things They Carried. More intensely shown is Norman Bowker. He carried strong burdens throughout the story as well as the end of it. The social aspect of the Vietnam War affected the soldiers in The Things They Carried by forcing them to get involved with illegal drugs, and find themselves stuck with emotional burdens of depression and PTSD.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien shares some of his chilling experiences in the Vietnam War using a rather unconventional form. He writes war stories and most of the ones in this…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In reading the novel “The Things They Carried” in my english class this year, I have learned that most, if not all, people carry intangible and tangible things with them everyday. In my readings, I found that the soldiers in the novel carry their tangible things to help with what they are carrying intangibly. Regardless, the things we carry make us stand out in our own way; they make us who we are. I, for example, carry the emotional stress that attacks me everyday, and a ring that I love.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book, The Things they Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the lives of soldiers during the Vietnam war are described. The book shows how the soldiers are affected by various obstacles that they came face to face with. This work of literature helps to fill in the gaps of what the soldiers had to carry around with them not just physically but emotionally. Like when the soldiers had to deal with the lost of their friend Kiowa. At this point in the book the soldiers had to deal with the guilt that they had lost a companion.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays