short stories. In the story “Speaking of Courage‚” Norman Bowker has dreams and fantasizes about talking to his ex-girlfriend‚ who is now married to another guy. As he drives around in his neighborhood in his father’s Chevy‚ he imagines talking to Sally. “How’s being married?” he might ask‚ and he’d nod at whatever she answered with‚ and he would not say a word about how he’d almost won a Silver Star for valor” (134). In this statement‚ Norman Bowker is having intrusive thoughts about Sally Kramer.
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The symbolism of women in both stories plays a role in representing the theme. In “Speaking of Courage‚” Bowker‚ the protagonist‚ imagines himself telling his story to Sally Kramer. He uses the word “shitfield”(78) to describe the setting in his story‚ and she replies that she doesn’t “like that word.”(78) Sally is symbolic of the innocence of non soldiers. The slight dispute between her and Bowker over the word choice represents how soldiers change and become more upfront and
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Kiowa was hit and began sinking into the mud‚ only strange gurgling noises could be heard. Norman Bowker saw Kiowa sinking into the mud and began crawling his way toward
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The story was told from a third-point of view and its main character was Harold Krebs‚ a young man who had recently returned from the war. The story took place in Krebs hometown in Oklahoma. The central theme of the story was the change Harold made during his permanence in war. Through out the story‚ readers could assume that Harold Krebs left his hometown being one man and came back being another one. The author introduced Krebs as a man changed socially and emotionally. At the beginning of the story
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As a way of marking time‚ Norman Bowker repeatedly drives a loop around the local lake remembering old girlfriends‚ hoping one day to track down high-school buddies who have moved to Des Moines or Sioux‚ and how he would explain Kiowa’s death in the field. When Bowker was in “high school‚ at night‚ he had driven around and around it with Sally Krammer…or other times with friends‚ talking about urgent matters… Then‚ there had not been war”(O’Brien 132). Bowker came home to find that Sally was
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a short story about one man’s struggle with returning home after war. Harold Krebs had just returned home‚ later than the majority of the soldiers‚ resulting in a dull welcoming from his town. In order to be heard‚ Krebs lies about his war experience through elaborated stories. Even though Krebs is home‚ he is lost- lost in society‚ lost with love‚ lost within himself. Although Hemingway does not describe much about what Krebs experienced during the war‚ it is obvious that this man went through a
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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. Considering that these men were in war‚ seeing people die‚ the idea of them having emotional burdens is understandable. Norman Bowker was a character that could not handle
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due to their time in the war. Some lose their innocence along with their ability to cope like Norman Bowker‚ or Mary Anne. Some are like Time O’Brien; while he was changed in Vietnam‚ he found a way to continue living. O’Brien tries to show the conflict of war while telling us how it changes people. These three characters represent the effects of Vietnam and how they lost their innocence. Norman Bowker survived the war and went home to restart his normal life again. Upon arrival he realized the
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shows the effects of war on both genders using Mary Anne Bell and Norman Bowker to show how they lose their innocence and how war changes soldiers regardless of their gender. O’Brien says that “ “Speaking of Courage”‚ was written at the request of Norman Bowker who‚ three years after the story was written‚ hanged himself in the YMCA‚ right before Saigon finally collapsed. He received a seventeen-page handwritten letter from Bowker saying that he could not find a meaningful use for his life after
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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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