O’Brien still mentions items that are carried but rarely are they actual objects. Most of which are feelings, thoughts or attitudes the men carry through out the war. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love longin” (O’Brien, excerpt 8) For example; Lt. Jimmy Cross carries the love for Martha by carrying the picture, letter and the stone. All of these items are what he believed kept him going, they had given him the strength to carry on. After Ted Lavender is shot, Lt. Cross carries the guilt of his death, he felt as though he hadn’t don’t his job protecting his men. “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien, 7). Lt. Cross’ story shows the battles one in the service goes…
In the story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien, it is a story about a soldier having a conversation with his daughter. In the conversation, you can see some of the soldier weaknesses, strengths, and how his actions affected the story. Next, the soldier weakness are shown.…
When he first received the notice O’Brien contemplated the idea of abandoning his duty to serve in the war and defecting to Canada. However, “the prospect of rejection: by my family my country my friends, my hometown” convinced O’Brien that he had to say and fight the war…
“I would not be brave. That old image of myself as a hero, as a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a threadbare pipe dream.” The impasse reached by Tim O’Brien as mentioned in “On The Rainy River” was between his moral stance on the war and the preservation of his reputation. Rather than the blatantly obvious external conflict of the war this retelling emphasises the internal conflict and angst felt by the young men sentenced to fight in it. The personal battle mainly stems from the conflicting emotions of Tim O’Brien as if he stays true to his morals then he faces exiled, losing the respect of his parents or being subjected to ridicule. Whereas if he goes then he will be going against his own morals which are telling him to run for the sake of his family, his friends and most importantly, his sanity.…
He clearly outlines this in his text when stating, "they carried all that they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." Often times, the human spirit and emotions are not given the weight they deserve and are written off as inconsequential. This can clearly be seen even today when psychological problems are not treated to the same degree as physical problems. Many believe if a problem is not visible, it mustn 't exist. Nothing could be further from the truth and O 'Brien brilliantly outlines this in his compilation of stories. He includes feeling and emotions with the tangible objects that the men carried, making their emotional struggles much more apparent. He states that the intangibles contained their own type of gravity and mass, so much so that they were very much tangible. This is crucial, as the objects that one cannot touch, wind up being much heavier than actual physical goods. Every soldier had to carry goods that were necessary to their survival, as governed by their superiors. They had to have food, water, ammunition and other necessities that were crucial to their survival in Vietnam. However, these men carried other things like condoms, dope, photos of loved ones, and sand from a geology class. The latter items are seemingly insignificant to live, however they prove to be even more…
In the story "The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien, discusses a group of American soldiers marching through Vietnam during the war. The narrator is describing the items that each of the soldiers carries with him during the march through Vietnam. The items that the soldiers carried with them are both symbolic and physical items and what these things are depends upon the individual soldier. They carry the basic necessities for survival and the bare minimum to make their life as livable and comfortable as possible. They also carry memories, and fears, and it is these symbolic items like these that are the prime focus of the story. The weight of these items is as real as that of any physical ones, and unlike those physical objects, they do not go away.…
Thesis Statement: In “The Things They Carried,” the soldier uses physical objects to calm their secret fears. This symbolizes emotions, spiritual burdens within the objects that symbolize times, places, and also what they feared. Another thing we are not aware of is when the author mentions dust which is a constant reminder to the soldiers that they are not safe.…
Manhood in western societies is pre-programmed, pre-packaged and forced-fed to boys from birth to adulthood. Historically the puriest example of a real man was the military standard. Military manliness dictates that a man must be strong, both physically and mentally, a man must be unfeeling and must be loyal to their fellow commrades. Men must show a certain level of respect for women but never acknowledge them as equal.…
War has always been something that seemed pointless to me; it seemed like violence with no other purpose but to harm people. I felt sorry for the people who had to go to war, for the people who died, and for people who could never go back to normal after a war ended, because of the mental or physical impact it had on them. Howard told us his story, his opinion about war, and the book “The Things they carried”. He changed my way of looking at war a lot, partly even my opinion about war.…
Tim O’Brien’s story about vietnam war is The Things They Carried. This work tells what the soldiers went through the time during Vietnam. As the story begins, it focuses on the Alpha Company is sent to fight in Vietnam war. The soldiers carry goods and personal items to be able to survive. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters and pictures from a female named Martha. The first casualty for the company is Ted Lavender, shot dead. Cross blames himself for the death because he thinks he was too busy thinking about Martha to properly take care of his troops. O’Brien received a draft letter and he is not looking forward to going into war because he had just graduated Harvard for graduate school. He was stuck between wanting to run or doing what everyone expected which…
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…
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, “The Things They Carried”, fear and shame in the characters lead to several actions. For example, both fear and shame were motivating factors in the war. Some of the characters had a fear of being shamed by others, so they joined the war. O’Brien describes a personal experience he had involving fear and shame. After receiving his draft notice, O’Brien debates running away to Canada or staying to fight in the war. He ends up deciding to fight in the war because he fears being thought of as a coward by everyone else and the shame he would feel if he ran away. Additionally, fear and shame affected the relationships that the men had with one another. None of them wanted to look bad in front of each other so they engaged…
Throughout the passage of time, in order to make sense of the world and justify established ideologies, man has put forth disproportionate effort into defining what is deemed by the masses as acceptable and appropriate. With the formation of these social life requirements, it goes without saying there will be outliers who do not fit this man-created construct, either by innate or self-realized characteristics. This social restraint is undoubtedly the source of much emotional turmoil and unrest. Here is where Sarah Rosetta Wakeman’s story begins. As a white, American woman born in the 1800’s, Wakeman’s scope of “acceptable” life directions was very limited, and much can be said about how she dealt with the obstacles created by the aforementioned social constraints. Wakeman’s decision to leave home, and assume the characteristics of a man, was more out of a sense of familial duty than an outward expression of suppressed sexual identity. In order to better understand Sarah’s motivation one must first analyze her childhood and the environmental factors which molded her.…
O’brien repeatedly states what each soldier is carrying for two reasons. The first reason is character development. The more the reader knows about a character’s possessions the more he/she effectively knows about the characters themselves. An example of this would be how Cross carries a picture of a girl, fantasizing whether or not she is a virgin. Dobbins carries extra rations and his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck. This implies superstition and an above average weight. Ted Lavender carries weed and tranquilizers to placate his anxiety. This suggests an inability to cope with death or violence; perhaps wartime as a whole. Finally Kiowa carries an illustrated copy of the new testament and a knife given to him by his father. These possessions allude to the fact that he is a man of god with a respect for his father. I think it id ironic, though, that all of these men’s non-military items are of no real consequence in the war. They don’t do anything. It could be argued…
Being from a military town, people talk about war and the effects it has on people regularly. People that are not around military people probably have no idea what happens when a soldier comes home from war; they may read about one soldier in the news but they do not see the effects first hand. Tim O’Brien tries to show people the guilt people have, the death involved in war, and the things they will always carry with them in his novel The Things They Carried. While everyone goes through these things during war, not everyone goes through them the same way and O’Brien shows this in many of the stories but mostly in “The Things They Carried” and “Speaking of Courage.”…