Essay On O Brien's The Things They Carried
Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, O’Brien illustrates the tragic impact of war on a soldier. In this novel O’Brien recounts numerous stories of innocent soldiers getting their minds corrupted by the horrors of war. He tries to convey the burden the soldiers had to carry throughout the war. The title, The Things They Carried, is symbolic of the emotional load the soldiers carry during the Vietnam War. O’brien tries to tell us that the mental burden carried by the soldiers far outweigh the physical load, and he authenticated that through his war stories about Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Jimmy Cross, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, and many more. He successfully paints the image that the physical load each man carried just underscores their emotional
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Norman Bowker is just a microcosm of the 22 veterans that commit suicide every day. Like the rest, Norman Bowker just couldn't win the fight against the post traumatic stress he had gotten from his time in war, and ultimately he hanged himself in a YMCA in his hometown in Iowa. In a letter O’brien received from Bowker before his death in which he “described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war” (149). This represents the harshness about the nature of war and how people coming back from war feel lost and left fighting some of their toughest battles alone. This also shows something greater about American culture in relation to their war veterans. This is a common thing about American society in how we do a damn good job of taking a soldier and making a warrior out of him, but we don’t do as good of a job taking that warrior and reimplementing them back into society. In the U.S. we have a lot of the best resources to help these young innocent warriors coming back from war, but we as a society do a poor job getting them the help they need and not feel lonely in their toughest times. This part of Bowker's letter just shows how veterans struggle to survive in society post war in America, but his letter has many meaningful words regarding war culture and specifically the Vietnam
Norman Bowker is just a microcosm of the 22 veterans that commit suicide every day. Like the rest, Norman Bowker just couldn't win the fight against the post traumatic stress he had gotten from his time in war, and ultimately he hanged himself in a YMCA in his hometown in Iowa. In a letter O’brien received from Bowker before his death in which he “described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war” (149). This represents the harshness about the nature of war and how people coming back from war feel lost and left fighting some of their toughest battles alone. This also shows something greater about American culture in relation to their war veterans. This is a common thing about American society in how we do a damn good job of taking a soldier and making a warrior out of him, but we don’t do as good of a job taking that warrior and reimplementing them back into society. In the U.S. we have a lot of the best resources to help these young innocent warriors coming back from war, but we as a society do a poor job getting them the help they need and not feel lonely in their toughest times. This part of Bowker's letter just shows how veterans struggle to survive in society post war in America, but his letter has many meaningful words regarding war culture and specifically the Vietnam