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Psychological Issues In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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Psychological Issues In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
“I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, to damaged to be at war.” Army veteran Daniel Somers, talks about how when one is forced into war, they lose everything, including their mind, and are unable to get the peace they desire. This relates to the topic because the soldiers outlined in Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, have gone through the feeling of being caught in a war while at the same time, dealing with psychological issues. This paper will go into detail about the soldiers struggle to retain their humanity and how specific traumatic events lead to the soldiers undoing. Events in the Vietnam War caused the soldiers immense psychological problems and forced them to give up their pre-war life.
From the beginning, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was faced with the conflict of keeping his love for Martha or becoming a committed soldier. Cross’s mind was constantly occupied with thoughts of Martha. This is …show more content…
Rat writes a letter to the sister of his friend, Curt, to inform her of the death of her brother. In this letter, Rat goes into detail about the fun times he had with Curt, claiming that “he made the war seem almost fun, always raising hell and lighting up villes” (O’Brien, 1990, p. 68). This clearly displays that Rat was not overly concerned with his responsibilities and was just looking to have a good time with his friend. He also mentions how “he loved the guy, … [Curt] was his best friend in the world” showing a deep care for this person and a feeling of genuine sadness for his loss (O’Brien, 1990, p. 68). This portrays that Rat had a powerful connection with his friend essentially telling the reader that Rat was just a kid trying to make the most of his situation. Rat’s life before the death of his friend was occupied with happiness and a general low caring attitude towards the
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