Victoria Perich
5 October 2015
Forms of Literature
“The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien’s short story, “The Things They Carried”, talks from a narrative point of view. The title of his story foreshadows the overall theme of an emotional versus physical burden throughout the soldiers experience in the Vietnam War. O’Brien talks about the various items the soldiers were carrying, along with their emotional baggage and the emotional toll the war was taking on them. Some of the baggage that is being lugged with them is composed of love, terror, grief and longing. The physical burden is carried with these soldiers daily. As stated in the beginning of the short story, “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha,” this shows that soldiers sometimes carry something that is meaningful to them with them. But, things they carried were not always meaningful they also carried necessities for example mosquito repellant, and water. An additional type of physical burden, is finding out someone who you are friends with during this war got shot. For example when Ted Lavender died, Jimmy Cross burned two photos and the letter he always carried. He did this thinking that the burning of these photos would help the physical burden of having Lavender not physically there with him anymore. Each man’s physical burden
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Fear of shame not only motivates men to go to war but also affects soldiers’ relationships with each other once there. Concern about being accepted in the war, which might seem in the end an unimportant part given the chances of death and importance of staying together as a “team” during this time. The emotional burden was not just during the war it was also after the war that all these memories came back to them. When these memories come back it brings sadness to them thinking about all the people they lost through out their time
In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian, the author discusses distinct items the soldiers carry with them during the Vietnam war. He explores weapons and equipment, but also talks about emotions and feelings the men frequently are approached by. The title of the novel is used to highlight the heavy emotional burden the soldiers had to carry during and after the war. In many cases, a soldier felt responsible for the death of one of his closest comrades.
Everyone carried at least something with them such as: burdens, ghosts, cruel images, and unscrupulous experiences. (“The Things They Carried” Critical Survey of Short Fiction 1790-1793). In Tim’s novel, They Things They Carried, he carried courage, innocent, guilt, and love: those were his personal memories. Nonetheless, in the novel, it seems like every veteran carries griefs and experiences. Each person will have different griefs: to Tim, his griefs will be dead of his friends, Lavender and Kiowa.
Hunter Berman Ms.Silver AP English P-4 6/7/2018 The things They Carried Historical Report The Things They Carried is a novel written by Tim O'Brien about U.S. soldiers stationed in Vietnam and their personal stories of what they literally and emotionally carry. He focus on what the soldiers have on their person and how each of those items have an effect on them for reason specific to them.
During World War II Winston Churchill once said “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” The soldiers in World War II suffered many psychological and physical tolls during the war and even after the war ended. When Winston sent his troops he offered their blood, sweat and tears of the men. Sometimes the memories never leave. Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried shows many physical and psychological effects that soldiers went through during the Vietnam War.
In the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the author describes a platoon marching through Vietnam at the time of the Vietnamese War. He does so by describing in detail the items that each of the men carry with them during their march. The things that the soldiers carry with them are not only tangible but intangible items as well, and what these things are depend fully upon each individual soldier. They carry Military Payment Certificates, the basic "necessities" for survival along with the bare minimum to make life as livable as possible during the time of war. The men decided on the items they wished to carry with them depending completely on their habits and rate of metabolism.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war. ”-Plato . As we read through the book we relize that soldiers have too much emotional truam due to the trumatic experiences they have gone through. These trumatic experience has caused soldiers to carry emotinal burdens when they come back home to society. In the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien shares his experience as a soldier in the Vietnam war and shows how much the war causes someone to carry emotional burdens.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a short story that discusses burden, love, and sacrifice. The story is narrated by O’Brien and it relays his experiences and actual battles he was involved in when he had served time in the Vietnam War. He uses strong emotional appeal to show the readers how awful and gruesome the war was. He mentions a lot about carrying weight both physically and emotionally by stating many things that relate such as “They shared the weight of memory” and “They carried each other, the wounded or the weak. They carried infections.”
Writing Prompt 1 What does it feel like to carry the weight of a nation at the same time as being a teenager? In the novel “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien explores the nature of the Vietnam War and the children who were sent there to fight the war. In the opening chapter of the novel, O’Brien makes it clear of the effect the war has had on his fellow soldiers and himself by the repeated usage of the word “carried”. This term defines the rest of the novel by establishing connections between the soldiers and their lives back home.
Tim O’Brien’s short story, The Things They Carried, is a Vietnam War veterans auto fictional tale of his experience in Vietnam. The story sets out to give a surreal look at the Vietnam War’s effects on the soldiers who fought it, and give some insight into a war that is still debated to this day. For me, the major themes I saw in the story were about the burden each soldier held, and how each soldier had their own way to try and escape the horrors they faced. The major, unifying theme of the story was about the burdens each soldier carried with them through their time in Vietnam. However, the burdens each man carries varies from their SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) gear such as canteens, ammunition, and helmets, to personal items such as comic books, photographs, or even dope.
A Thousand Pounds of Burdens A soldier must carry a multitude of equipment: rifle, knife, helmet, body armor, grenades, and many more. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien begins with a litany of the physical gear soldiers in Vietnam carry; with each listed item, the total weight of a soldier’s equipment slowly grows into a massive number. Assumably, the equipment would prove to be a soldier’s largest burden in the battlefield. Although soldiers in Vietnam certainly carry backbreaking amounts of equipment, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Rat Kiley, and Norman Bowker manifest the weight of intangibles -fear, grief, and longing- and how these emotional and psychological burdens far outweigh their physical gear, tormenting them during and even after
"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing"(O'Brien 20). The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a collection of war story that focuses around his life and relationships with people in the Vietnam War, especially the part people usually choose not to focus on: the burden, the guilt and the regret. In the war stories it is forgotten that soldiers that fought in those wars are real people who had to deal with the consequences of their actions. O'Brien integrates this into the book by carving out Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the highest ranking soldier in their group, to be the scapegoat.
Physical articles such as guns, ammunition, food, and water, are carried to survive and keep the soldiers healthy, whereas intangible ideas are brought along with the soldiers to maintain a healthy mentality. For example, “they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb” (Back Cover). This quote explains an elusive idea of what the soldiers carried with them. Soldiers being forced to fight in the war do not go home unharmed emotionally, even if they were not physically injured. Each soldier goes home carrying feelings of guilt, confusion, and “unrelenting images,” while each soldier still fighting in the war carries their love, passion, and perseverance.
The author was writing the story “The Things They Carried” expressed so many thoughts and feelings about what the soldiers had faced, they showed their feelings and duties, life or death, and overall fear and dedication. This story shows the theme of the physical and emotional burdens that everyone is going through in the war. By showing his readers what the soldier’s daily thoughts are and how they handle what is going on around them. Tim O’Brien expresses this theme by using characterization, symbolism, and tone continuously. In the story, physical and emotional burdens plagued several characters as they all had baggage weighing them down.
The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.
Events that occur randomly and that are traumatic can take a toll on all aspects of an individual that endure them, what if an individual were in a gruesome situation and the lives of human beings were lost under their unintentional control? How would they feel for the rest of their lifetime? In the article “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, she describes the emotional reality of soldiers in their home are often at odds with the civilian public, and are struggling to carry the burden of feeling responsible of traumatic situations. Survivor’s guilt is the bold feeling that survivors have after a tragic event taking place when others have passed away. Soldiers in battle experience losses during combat.