Category: The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a short story written by Tim OBrien to present to the readers his own autobiography and a war memoir. OBrien complicates the narration by creating the protagonist who actually shares his real name. The story is about a platoon of soldiers from the American soil fighting in the Vietnam War.

The title of the story The Things They Carried is effective for it describes the soldiers and the kind of valuables they brought along in their missions. This is evidenced by the introduction of the story where Tim OBrien gives a detailed description of the main characters and what they carry from the physical items to emotional ones as well. This paper will focus on the title of the story The Things They Carried and how it acts as a guide to the meaning of the story.

Through the use of literary techniques, the author gives detailed accounts of the tangible and intangible things which the soldiers take with them and which most of the times burden them. Each of the soldiers possessions defines the kind of people they really are. The things that the soldiers carry depend on several factors like their constitutions, priorities, missions, necessity, and sometimes superstition.

The narrator says they carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28 pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated bibles, and each other. If the soldiers happen to arrive home safely and sound, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war (OBrien, 2009). The title of the story fits well with its meaning as evidenced by the first point of view of the narrator when describing the things they carry.

Jimmy Cross the Lieutenant of the company carries letters written by his girlfriend Martha everywhere he goes. Even though the girl has not given Jimmy a sign or an indication of love, he still carries the letters as a reminder of his love for her. Jimmys backpack carries each letter written by Martha and his mouth carries her good luck charm (OBrien, 2009).

After marching the whole day, Jimmy would sit down, unwrap the letters and fantasize that Martha will one day come to her senses and returning his love. Apart from the letters, Jimmy does carry Marthas photographs to serve as a memory of her. It was only once that he got the chance to go on a movie date with Martha.

During the movie, he had touched her knee and the look she gave him made Jimmy withdraw his hand fast. OBrien explains that, while on mission, Jimmy wishes that he had carried her upstairs, tied her to the bed, and touched her knee the whole night (2009).

The description of the physical items carried by the men on their day to day events give the story a meaning. The narrator OBrien makes it possible for the reader to realize this; he explains the physical items as mosquito repellants, chewing gums, and pocket knives among others (2009).

Henry Dobbins one of the platoon members carries a large machine gun and extra rations of food to nourish his huge body. At the same time, Dobbins superstitious nature makes him carry and tie the pantyhose of his girlfriend around the neck. Ted Lavender who is ever nervous carries tranquilizers and marijuana to use when he need to calm down. Kiowa who is a religious man carries the New Testament Bible given to him by his father in all missions. The things that these men carry are highly determined by the kind of necessities they have.

One Dave Jensen is a very hygienic man and as a result, he carries his tooth brush wherever he goes together with dental floss and bar soaps stolen from Sydney, Australia. As a matter of necessity, the men are required to carry important items like wrist watches, mosquito repellants, can openers, heat tabs, pocket knives, lighters, sewing kits, matches, salt, cigarettes, water, food rations, and Military payment Certificates among other items.

Steel helmets and camouflage covers are equally a necessity which each man has to carry. For clothing, the men would carry fatigue trousers and jackets, boots, socks, and foot powder to protect them against foot diseases. While Mitchell Sanders carries condoms, Norman Bowker carries his diary, and Rat Kiley values his comic books and carries them everywhere.

According to OBrien, the land is full of booby traps, therefore it is a necessity for every man to carry steel centered, nylon covered flak jacket (2009).

With the cold nights, it is a requirement that the men carry plastic ponchos which are green in color, to use as raincoats during the monsoons or makeshift tent or even a groundsheet. All these items are universal and essential as evidenced by Ted Lavenders situation after he is shot; using the poncho, the men wrap him well and carry him across the paddies to the chopper which takes him away for treatment.

Depending on psychology and topography, the men carry the right kind of weapons and enough ammunition. According to the type of mission, the men carry varied weapons to suit the varied situations. They carry M-14S, shotguns, Simonov carbines, bayonets, Smith and Wesson handguns, and silencers among the many types of weapons.

In most situations, Lee Strunk carries his slingshot which he calls the weapon of last resort (OBrien, 2009). Kiowa would carry the hatchet which his grandfather was fond of using and Mitchell Sanders carries brass knuckles. Each man is required to carry grenades; the grenades could be smoke grenades, white phosphoric grenades or tear gas grenades.

Tim OBrien explains that they carried all they could bear, and then some; including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried (OBrien, 2009).

The things they carry also vary with the kind of mission to attend; on a mountainous mission, the men carry machetes, tarps, mosquito nets, and bug juice. On night and ambush missions, each man carries the most valued item in their lives. The title the things they carried gives meaning to the entire story as evidenced by the stuff the soldiers carry.

Superstition plays a role in the things the men carry; Jimmy Cross does not leave his good luck charm in the form of a pebble given to him by Martha. Dave Jenson carries along a rabbit foot and Norman Bowker carries the thumb given to him by Mitchell Sanders.

The men carry stationary, pens and pencils, safety pins, signal flares, razor blades, candles, fingernail clippers, trip flares, wire, hats, statuettes of the Buddha, and so much more.In conclusion, the things the men carry change after Ted Lavenders death. With Lieutenant Jimmy Cross blaming himself for fantasizing about Martha instead of saving Ted, he burns everything that reminds him of her.

The title of the story gives its meaning; of all the things the men carry, the greatest burden is their emotions. They carry loads of desires, memories, and fears as well. To show the seriousness of the intangible burden, the lieutenant Jimmy Cross says it is very sad the things the men carried inside (OBrien, 2009).

Reference

OBrien, T. (2009). The things they carried: A work of fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

The Things They Carried is one of the short stories in the book Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. The story was written by Tim OBrien who, according to his military life experiences between 1968 and 1970 served as an infantry fighter in Vietnam. Though the characters of this story are fictional, OBrien obviously created a realistic setting in the story based on his personal experiences in combat.

By doing so, he was able to depict the harsh realities and emotional problems that soldiers go through in war environments. This analysis became evident in the story as depicted by the actions of the principal character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Lieutenant Cross carried a heavy burden within himself after failing to concentrate in the war. Consequently, he lost his sense of reality by constantly daydreaming about a girl known as Martha.

The beginning of the short story is a simple one explaining the things soldiers carried as they went to war. OBrien found it difficult to discuss most of the topics in the story hence he employed a distant way of telling the story of the Vietnam War. His intention was to convey the message that the war did not affect him much. However, the structure and the feelings created by the events starting from noble events to distressing ones are important in the story.

They form the basis of the discussion of emotional experiences that affected the soldiers in combat. In the end, it was clear that the things that soldiers carried were not at all things. The soldiers had to deal with the emotional feelings of men who were exposed to the risk of death. Things like terror, love and fear were not tangible but the weight they had on the soldiers was tangible. The author says that the soldiers carried with them shameful memories and a feeling of cowardice (OBrien 21).

The presentation of such passages causes the reader to share in the grief of the soldiers. The author gives details that compel the reader to look at the soldiers as fellow human beings and people who go through the experiences of normal human beings. Just like other human beings, the soldiers had their troubles and emotions.

Fear, cowardice and shame were some of the burdens they carried while at war. These were burdens that troubled them contributing towards their character change. OBrien uses characters like Mary Anne Bell and Mark Fossie to show how the soldiers were changed from innocent people into savages.

As the author gives an explanation of the things soldiers carried, he presents the major themes of imagination and memory in the story. OBrien succeeds in showing how these two themes can facilitate mental escape. For instance, Lieutenant Cross always thought of Martha even as he performed his normal duties during the war. He did not have memories of her but only imagined of their romantic trips together.

These imaginations of Lieutenant Cross are described by the author as full of pretence. The importance of the deeds of Lieutenant Cross is shown when OBrien gives information about the photograph of Martha and letters from her that were carried by Lt Cross. These symbolized the love Cross had for Martha.

OBrien deviates from using literary techniques where he describes the physical things of the soldiers and presents the most important characters in the story. He provides important details of the things that were carried by the soldiers. The explanation of the things carried by the soldiers helps the reader to look at them in a more realistic manner.

The author aims at helping the reader connect with the feelings of the soldiers and take the situation as if it was real. Details such as the weight of things like radios, grenades and weapons seem trivial but assist the readers in getting a real picture of the weight of the war (OBrien 399).

OBrien uses the death of Lavender to present the situation Lieutenant. Cross found himself in since his role in the war conflicted with his conscience and the imaginations that brought peace to him. Lieutenant Cross burnt the letters from Martha and accepted that he was responsible for the death of Lavender.

This conflict in his line of thought informs the reader that one should be careful to differentiate fantasy from truth. Although he burned what seemed to be a constant reminder of Martha, his memory of her did not disappear. In addition, he carried a burden of guiltiness and pain for what he did.

Lieutenant Cross is used by the author to explain the concept of mental escapism. Mental escapism is defined as the act of focusing on unimportant things in order to avoid unpleasant conditions. Lieutenant Cross was supposed to focus on the war but instead he spent all his time thinking about Martha.

After the death of Kiowa, he was also supposed to look for his body but instead he concentrated on thinking about the letter he had to write to Kiowas father. He managed to concentrate on issues that were not related to the war yet he was compelled to carry a heavy burden because of that. The short story was an important contribution towards the Literature of war in Vietnam with OBrien being credited for his ability in memorializing war experiences.

Works Cited

OBrien, Tim. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. New York: Longman, 2010. Print.

The Things They Carried, Tim OBriens is a fictional story that surpasses the field of Vietnam War fiction. Essentially, it surpasses the fiction in general even though the author categorizes it as a work of fiction. The story, narrated in first-person narrator covers the events before and after the war.

The story exposes the soldiers dilemma, fears, and feelings during and after the war. The author explores the historical, social and economic setting of the time, which is evident in the contemporary world (OBrien 1).

The soldiers are depicted as young men who are unprepared for the war. This is evident by the intangible emotional fear they carry along with memories of their loved ones. Tim OBriens captures the historical negative effects of Vietnam War on US economy.

The soldiers carried some food supplies, pictures of their girlfriends, fear, sadness and confusion. This in essence portrayed their social status, a characteristic exhibited by a present day soldier when going to war.

The Irony of being at war is that Peace and conflict are both inevitable; it is the way we handle either of the two that determines our opinion of life in general both in the present and future, that is clearly depicted in the book where OBrien is the Protagonist re-living his experience at war through the pages of his book as the fictional character.

Age, we see that this is an important qualification required when recruiting troops to join the army in fighting any war. Among other things, lack of maturity was largely the cause of death as young men under nineteen, were not equipped with the emotional stability required to deal with the Ugliness of war.

When drafted, one is not left with much choice and the decision made is unfortunately more often than no based on fear other than ethics. With the alternative of going to jail many of the young men reluctantly motivated only by the embarrassment of shame.

Among the striking things possessed by the soldiers were weapons, protective gears for survival purposes. Personal items included a bible, foot powder, comic books, marijuana and a hatchet. OBrien asserts that dignity could never be put down and was perhaps the hardest emotion to carry but could not be surrendered.

OBrien observes that fear and panic in the midst of the noise of battle was a common phenomenon. Ironically, some soldiers were at the brink of crying, wishing that they had not come (OBrien 21). The narrator brings forward the constant stream of distressing memories of the war, attempts of realism and insights. Fear among the soldiers was covered up with unusual stunts and tough speeches.

The human nature of the soldiers is clearly depicted by the things they carried. OBrien lists the items that were carried by the soldiers, and this way, he individualizes and humanizes them. The intangible items carried by the soldiers were even more symbolic.

OBrien observes that the items were heavier than their tangible backpacks. Although the soldiers appear to have no idea of what they were fighting, their country, God and the weight of duty characterized their intangible items. He writes, It was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march (OBrien 15).

Another irony depicted by the story is the soldiers real motivation; fear of being referred as cowards. Every soldier is said to have death as his ultimate fear, but death was better than humiliation.

In the history books, the Vietnam War is best described as Americas longest war dated back to President Harry Truman who committed fifteen million dollars aid to the French forces in Indochina in 1950 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. In the years the funding of wars has been on the increasing prompting more and more soldiers dehumanize each other to cope with the deaths of their comrades.

The pain of losing their comrades affected the soldiers during and after the war. According to the narrator, soldiers used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness (OBrien 20). He observes that soldiers formed intimate relationship, just like any other colleagues in an organization.

Nevertheless, soldiers used language to trivialize their bonds when death occurred to their comrades. In place of the word die or dead, they used words like greased, zapped, offend, lit up, to describe the deaths of their friends thus proving the fact that though death is inevitable, none of us want to live in the reality of it.

The Things They Carried is very relevant to Peace and Conflict studies. The book clearly points out the unwillingness and unpreparedness of the soldiers when going to war.

We see an inner conflict as depicted by OBrien and a continuous struggle to release the pain and anguish that has builds up as a result of experiences from the war affecting the family around him trying to find meaning and redemption in his war stories. The characters in the story acts to speak loudly against the option of going to war, a war like the Vietnam War.

Work Cited

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York, NY: Broadway Publishers, 1998. Print.

Introduction

Vietnam War was among the most dramatic, polarizing, and controversial events of the second half of the 20th century for the United States. Many people believed that the war was the representation of Americas greatness and power as a country; on the contrary, many others considered it to be the violation of human rights, pointless waste of national resources (both economic and human ones), and the greatest tragedy of the current generation. These polarizing opinions and debates are still present in the contemporary scholarly literature, political discourses, and ordinary conversations.

However, it is essential to precisely state the fact that the most crucial aspect of any war is the personal tragedy of an individual, the collision of a persons dreams and hopes with the reality of a military conflict. One of the better means of expressing this aspect is fictional literature. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the short story by Tim OBrien, which is entitled The Things They Carried, to explore its uniqueness, to discuss techniques and arguments which are employed by the author, and to define the importance of the chosen literary piece to retrieve a profound conclusion.

The Uniqueness of the Chosen Literary Work

Brief Characteristic of the Author

First of all, it is important to briefly touch upon the personality of the author to offer a more in-depth context for the further analysis of the literary piece. Tim OBrien was born on October 1, 1946, in Austin, Minnesota and was drafted for military service in Vietnam in 1968 (Stowell 3). After returning from the army, he studied in Harvard and worked as a reporter for different periodicals (Stowell 3). However, he is most recognized for his literary works, which he began to publish since 1973. It is possible to say that the author significantly contributed to the development of the comprehension of the Vietnam War in the American literature. The literary piece under consideration, The Things They Carried, was published in 1990, and in this story, OBrien continued to explore the settings of the war and numerous issues which are related to it. The following sections will explore various aspects of the literary work.

Core Literary Features of the Story

Furthermore, it is possible to observe the unique characteristics of the short story under discussion in general before dwelling upon the particular aspects more thoroughly and profoundly. In other words, this section serves as an outline for the further developing of this paper.

The following questions will guide the development of the paper: (1) what techniques does the author uses, and (2) what arguments are central to his literary work. These are two principal areas of inquiry for conducting the analysis. First of all, the aspect of technique should be observed to retrieve the most significant features to dwell upon. It is possible to notice one of the critical literary devices that author uses is the word carry as a metaphor. This word is present in the title of the story, and it is used throughout the narration in various meanings. Also, the other characteristics of the literary work, such as the composition of the text, use of vivid vocabulary, and narrative approach, will be analyzed as well.

Secondly, after building an analytical basis for the technical aspect of the OBriens writing, it would be possible to investigate his arguments. In other words, the principal ideas, which were implied by the author, will be analyzed in the context of broader notions, such as psychological trauma, affection, duty, leadership, etc. The efficiency of these arguments and ideas along with the uniqueness of the authors representation of them also will be discussed. In overall effect, the results of studying OBriens techniques and arguments will provide an opportunity to conclude how these characteristics help to define The Things They Carried as the literature of importance.

Techniques Used by the Author

The Central Metaphor of the Story

As it was already mentioned, it appears that OBrien has put immense emphasis on the word carry. Its use throughout the story represents one of the central authors ideas, which he wanted to translate through the literary piece under discussion, but this aspect will be discussed later. In this section, the word carry be analyzed solely as a literary device.

It is evident that carry is a metaphor, but it is interesting to explore how is this metaphor built. The use of this word is repetitive; it is prevalent throughout the story. It is argued that polysemy is used as a principle means of constructing the complex metaphor. Firstly, at the beginning of the literary piece, carry is used in its common sense of bearing some weight since the author describe various equipment which is carried by the soldiers (OBrien 482-483). However, as the story progresses, OBrien starts to interchange the use of the word in its conventional sense with its application to non-material things (for example, the narrator tells that they carried themselves with dignity), and that is how the metaphor is constructed (492). Also, there is a very peculiar transitional point between the direct and metaphorical use of the word carry, when OBrien writes about the material things which were carried by the characters (for example, Jimmy Cross good-luck pebble from Martha), but he describes the emotional attachment to these things which every soldier had. Therefore, it is possible to notice that the author shows excellence in constructing an elaborate metaphor which serves as the basis for narration.

Storytelling Technique

Further, the storytelling aspect of the literary work should be analyzed since it also represents the authors unique approach to describing the war. This section is vastly based on the research by Sadie Williams, in which he studies several literary works by OBrien, including The Things They Carried. The authors major assumption is that OBriens storytelling technique can be efficiently compared to Freuds theory of dreams (Williams 4). Synthesizing Freuds views on the dream-formation process, Williams states that recalling information from the past in order to share an experience with other individual (which is the definition of storytelling, as a matter of fact) is the process which is similar to the formation of a dream to a significantly vast extent (3).

Further, the author argues that OBriens writings are vastly based on his personal experiences (which was also mentioned in the previous section). Therefore, when he writes a literary piece, he recalls his memories and manipulates them, much like a dream is constructed from the real-life situations, experienced by an individual. It is evident that The Things They Carried does not follow a conventional linear structure of the literary work development. Instead, according to Williams, OBrien utilizes dreamlike, non-cohesive and seemingly confusing fashion to create a story of his war experience, and this story only lacks cohesion on the surface level (4). The following section will discuss the ideas which are principal to the understanding of OBriens work.

Arguments and Ideas Developed in the Story

Furthermore, it is essential to determine and discuss the most important ideas and arguments which are presented in The Things They Carried. In the first section of this paper, several possible areas of inquiry were identified, and it is possible to restate them before dwelling upon each one in particular: (1) an immense psychological burden resulted in mental trauma, (2) the disruption of affection, and (3) the notion of a real leader. These three topics create an interrelated and profound description of the wars influence on the life of any involved individual. The following subsections will discuss each of the mentioned aspects in particular.

War Experience as a Psychological Trauma

One of the previous subsections was dedicated to the analysis of the use of metaphor in the literary piece by OBrien. In this context, it is possible to start with the statement that the concept of a burden is implied by the author by the constant use of the word carry. Also, another detail should be mentioned: the author always precisely states the weight of the parts of equipment carried by the soldiers. Therefore, given that carry serves as a metaphor in the short story, it is possible to conclude that author also implies that the war put an immense psychological burden on an individual. In the course of time, that individual could not bear this burden any longer, and he or she breaks down, obtaining a mental trauma which might severely affect his or her life even after the war. It could be suggested that the final meaning of the literary works title is that the soldiers carry these burdens and traumas out of war into the peaceful life, where they can not adapt. It was the explanation of the central metaphor of OBriens story, and the following subsections will discuss more particular arguments and ideas.

Correlation and Contradiction between Female Affection and War

The second notional component of the story in importance is Jimmy Cross affection for a girl named Martha. This aspect is also consistent throughout the story, and it also represents a highly significant argument, implied by the author. Moreover, in the Lieutenant Cross perception, his love for Martha is the reason why the soldier under his command was killed. The author creates highly vivid imagery to engage his readers emotionally.

It is spectacular how OBrien interlaces love with death in one of the final episodes of the story under consideration. At the very moment when he supposed to be in active control of his military squad, he was thinking about Martha. Thus, after the soldier is killed, Jimmy Cross feels a deep emotional pain for losing his friend and colleague (OBrien 494). However, he also loses his affection for Martha, claiming that there is no more place for such feelings in his life. He also concludes that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead. This statement translates the discussion to next topic of leadership.

However, it is also of high interest to touch upon the study by Joseph Patrick Weil, which explores female representations in the contemporary literature, dedicated to the depiction of war. He approaches this question from the standpoint of feminist theory, which is fascinating perspective, especially for the literary work such as The Things They Carried. The author argues that women representations are used as tools of modern catharsis (Weil 3). He asserts that the females characters in the prose of OBrien are translated through unconsciously masculine language, which has a particular rhetorical impact on the narration. The core conclusion by Weil is that OBrien uses women as stylistic and rhetorical tools, which sometimes results in flat characterizations (65).

The Concept of Leadership

Finally, it is possible to dwell upon the third core idea which is expressed in The Things They Carried. It is not given as much space in the story as two previous arguments; however, it is still a highly relevant aspect of the literary piece that should be discussed. First of all, it should be noted that the topic under discussion is inserted into the narration as a part of a conflict between Jimmy Cross passionate love for a girl and his military duty, determined by his Lieutenant rank. After one of his soldiers dies, Cross feels his responsibility for this death. He willingly decides that there is no more place for affection and love in his life (OBrien 495). It could be assumed that this decision is the representation of actual leadership in the opinion of Tim OBrien. This concept could be described as the superiority of duty, which is the necessity to carry out the responsibility for other people, over the personal feeling and affections of a person. However, it is also evident that this decision is significantly hard for nearly every person because, in the example of Jimmy Cross, it is apparent that had to reject a vital part of his life.

Conclusion

Since the literary piece under consideration was analyzed, it is possible to come to several conclusion. Weil calls OBriens work a cultural touchstone for the tradition of the American war novel, and a canonical piece whose language is as accessible to its national readership (20). Therefore, it is evident that the piece under discussion could be defined as the literature of importance. The issues of psychological trauma, affection, and leadership along with the employed techniques were also discussed, and it is evident from the discussion that OBrien created his work masterly.

Works Cited

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Reading Literature and Writing Argument, edited by James, Missy, et al., 6th ed., Pearson, pp. 482-495.

Stowell, Jim. Tim OBriens The Things They Carried: Play Guide.History Theater, Web.

Weil, Joseph Patrick. Female representations in contemporary postmodern war novels of Spain and the United States: Women as tools of modern catharsis in the works of Javier Cercas and Tim OBrien. Dissertation, University of South Carolina, 2015.

Williams, Sadie. An Analysis of Tim OBriens Storytelling Techniques in Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods Using Sigmund Freuds Dream Theory from On Dreams. Dissertation, Ohio Dominican University, 2016.

Introduction

The main theme of The Things They Carried by OBrien is the events that were happening during the Vietnam War. The war does not revolve around things such as heroism or tactics. It is characterized by boredom and terrific moments. Apart from that, it is a backdrop that defines the force against the lives of the soldiers.

OBrien emphasizes the fact that it is not easy to generalize what is entailed in war. The short story addresses different themes, but war is among its central topics. Tim OBrien is among the characters that play essential roles in the story. There is a close connection between OBrien and the theme of war. This essay will discuss the relationship between OBrien as a character and the war as the central theme of The Things They Carried.

War as the Central Theme of The Things They Carried

OBrien focuses on telling war stories. TTTC is a work of fiction. Throughout the story, there is an interplay between fact and fiction.

OBrien tells the story authoritatively because he was there during the actual war. That is the connection between OBriens biography and the storys central theme that was mentioned in the above paragraph of the essay. The examples of it in The Things They Carried are numerous. Regarding the Vietnam War, no one can tell the story better than a person like OBrien, who witnessed the action. Assuming a position of authority, OBrien goes ahead to define the parameters characteristic of a true war story.

He says that a true war story lacks morals. It never instructs nor encourages virtue and does not even suggest models of the right human behavior nor restrain men from doing the things they always do.

T. OBrien does not agree with the thesis that war stories are vehicles for restitution or change. He represents war as hell, mystery, terror, and discovery.

He adds that it is a nasty and thrilling experience that makes people men and also leaves them dead. He says that the irreconcilable opposites need to be together because their oxymoronic togetherness articulates the reality of war. He writes that the recollection of the death of Curt Lemon is possible when the surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which represents the hard and exact truth is seemed (OBrien 78).

The above quote shows that OBrien deals with the challenge of representation, the weakness of language to convey meaning, flavor, boredom, and the feelings of war. Inscription and re-inscription are the only ways through which he hopes to pass the message on the truth of war appropriately. That is what makes the theme of war in the story a circular and repetitive idea.

For every assertion of truth, it is essential to qualify and represent it for it to be considered authentic. OBrien creates a situation that conveys the message that no heroism or morality is derived from the experiences of war. It is the source of guilt and shame only. OBrien presents war as a disembodied presence with a life of its own, where deadly equipment like napalm and white phosphorus undergo a magical transformation into morally acceptable objects of beauty.

He portrays astuteness to the extent that he acknowledges the fact that describing such destruction as beautiful is in itself ugly truth. However, the justification for the truth bases on the role the truth plays.

Ugly truths like the fascination that war begets are bound to be expressed, although in expressing such truths, war is anesthetized and domesticated. The absolute moral indifference that OBrien relates to bombing raids and artillery barrages is only defendable if the attacks or bombardments have no human agencies behind them (OBrien 80).

The fact that there are always human agencies behind war and the eloquent portrayal by OBrien that war maims and kills makes it challenging to uphold an opinion of the moral or aesthetic perspective of war. The unleashing of such negative impacts of war trivializes any morality in war. In presenting an alternative moral view, OBrien perpetrates a mythic fascination with the horrific occurrences associated with war.

OBrien says that although war is hell, it is comprised of many other contradictions. A firefight is followed by a mysterious experience of surviving the ordeal.

He says that war is ambiguous and concurs with a story told by Sanders of men who heard things in the forest during the war. He, therefore, concludes by saying that a true war story does not tell the absolute truth. He recalls the circumstances that led to the death of Lemon as he smiled and talked but was killed within a second.

His body was thrown into a tree, and they were instructed to retrieve it with Jensen. OBrien says that true war stories are identifiable by the questions that follow the war. He retells the story of a man who has nearly killed a grenade as he tried to protect his friends. His message is that war stories that seem true never actually happened.

Conclusion

This essay analyzes Tim OBriens The Things They Carried. It is a compelling short story of the Vietnam War. In summary, war is its central theme, as shown in numerous researches. This paper on The Things They Carried aims to connect OBriens biography with the main issue of the plot.

In the story, different characters are used to express various themes, such as emotional and physical burdens, among others. However, the issue of war runs throughout the story. O Brien is himself one of the characters in the story and tells the story of the war as a person who witnessed it. He is closely connected with the theme of war in the story, such that without him, the issue cannot be brought out so clearly.

Works Cited

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998. Print.

Introduction

The collection of short stories by American writer Tim OBrien The Things They Carried, published in 1990, is a holistic narrative about the Vietnam War and its participants. The book combines the horrible depiction of war with reflections on the impact the war has. Written in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the work conveys the brutality and bloodthirstiness of military actions as well as the mental state of soldiers. The book, portraying the grave consequences of the war and its huge imprint on peoples minds, serves to show the psychological aspects of military actions and states that wars are conducive to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder in people actively engaged in them.

Horrors of War and Their Impact on the Psyche

Being an active participant in the Vietnam War, OBrien vividly portrays military actions from the perspective of young men who find themselves in the center of war, unable to question the heroic ideals of the army service. In the collections title story, apart from the things soldiers carry, the author portrays the feelings and memories they take with them through Vietnam. Thus, OBrien writes: They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing  these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight (3). This endless list depicts the unbearable emotional and psychological burden of their situation, exacerbated by adverse weather conditions when soldiers have to make their way to the area through swamp mud and rice fields waist-deep in water. OBrien vividly portrays the soldiers difficulties to show why post-traumatic stress disorder is formed. Moreover, the author makes his characters engage in actions hardly compatible with general human values such as compassion and mercy but which align with the orders of the army commandment.

Indeed, the stories are based on real events, and the evidence of the brutality and dehumanization of war efforts in Vietnam can be found in the descriptions of military actions by those people who took part in them. Relying on the evidence from the National Vietnam War Longitudinal Study, Dohrenwend et al. describe the prevailing attitudes in the army and vividly depict the atmosphere that reigned in it. Thus, they state the Vietnamese were hardly seen as human by the US military commandment, and soldiers were encouraged to call them different names such as dinks, gooks, slopes, slants and others (Dohrenwend et al., 16). Moreover, there was a striking contrast between the formal instruction to kill only military adversaries and the informal message (given loud and clear) to kill just about everyone (Dohrenwend et al., 17). Such attitude resulted in many episodes of burning civilian villages and killing people, including women and children, who had nothing to do with military efforts. One such episode finds its portrayal in the story Style, where the readers see a girl dancing in the background of a burned village where all her family died.

The brutality and cruelty of war where no one was spared could not but tell on the soldiers psyche. Thus, in the story Ghost Soldiers, combatants begin to hallucinate and believe in the supernatural, while in other episodes, they cannot get rid of the feeling of guilt for their actions. In the story The Man I Killed, the readers see the authors moral torments at what he did to kill a man (OBrien). Indeed, in this tale, OBrien is so focused on the feeling of guilt that his presence as a protagonist and narrator fades into the background. Confusion and a sense of hopelessness are reflected in the narrators fantasy. Thus, the author says, He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics, not able to get rid of the feeling that what he did was wrong (OBrien, 87)

Dohrenwend et al. state that in war, soldiers are prone to experiencing harmful and destructive feelings unparallel to anything they feel in civilian life (150-165). Indeed, anger, despair, and rage soldiers experience often serve to cover the fear they feel deep inside. Many acts of aggression have terror as an underlying cause that pushes soldiers to commit them (Dohrenwend et al., 168-174). The readers see how this fear drives soldiers to commit reckless actions, kill and torture people and animals, and earn post-traumatic syndrome in its most severe and incurable form.

The authors personal story is woven into the intricate fabric of madness, grotesque, and despair portrayed in the narrative. In the story On the Rainy River, OBrien recalls how he tried to escape from the draft to Canada. In describing his feelings, he is mercilessly accurate. On the one hand, he is unwilling to take part in military actions and risk his life in the war, the aims of which he does not understand, and, on the other, he is ashamed not to fight for his country. The author compares his condition with schizophrenia: inside, two voices are saying that its scary to go to war and more terrifying still to flee to Canada, where he will have to forget about his family, friends, and old life forever (OBrian, 37). This comparison is not accidental. Kang et al. state that apart from the horrors that the soldiers experience in war efforts, thinking about the justice and moral side of military actions and the soldiers own role in them may be conducive to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (528-537). Thus, the moral choice the author faces is in itself suggestive of the experiences ahead.

After-War Life and the Development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

It is widely known that people who lived through military experience may have difficulties adapting to everyday life. OBrien vividly portrays this in the story The Man I Killed, describing his personal feelings. Even twenty years after the war finished, he can still recall the man in minute details and continues brooding over whether it was possible to avoid the killing. Boscarino et al. state that the inability to get rid of painful memories is often a part of post-traumatic stress disorder that manifests itself through obsessive thoughts and memories, repeated experience of the situation, panic attacks, and anxiety as well as outbursts of anger and aggression (757-765). Moreover, PTSD patients, unwittingly, constantly return to the traumatic episode in their thoughts, and see nightmares and stroboscopic flashbacks (Boscarino et al., 757-760). Sometimes these reactions are triggered by the outer environment, at least remotely resembling the circumstances of injury but such memory reactions can also occur spontaneously.

However, the ability of a person to overcome his or her traumatic experience largely depends on the post-deployment support he or she gets. (Boscarino et al., 757-760). Boscarino et al. have found that in cases where people get high support from family and friends, they are more likely to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder than in cases when there is no one to share their experience with. This observation is well portrayed in OBrians story. The author makes it clear that his daughters support and understanding helped him to cope with the emotional impact the military actions he took part in made on his psyche.

However, not all people can overcome the traumatic experience they have lived through, and, in such cases, post-traumatic stress disorder may assume its most severe forms. The readers see a vivid example of it in the story Speaking of Courage.The main character of this story, Norman Bowker, returns to his hometown to find no one waiting for him: his father and best friend are dead, and his girlfriend has been married for a long time. The only joy he has is that he has met his late fathers expectations and brought seven medals from the war. However, awards cannot help Bowker cope with the post-traumatic stress disorder he experiences, and again and again, in his memories, he returns to the events of the Vietnam War.

Bowker remembers the death of his friend Kiowa during a mortar attack. Just as Norman keeps driving around the lake without realizing it, the thoughts in his head revolve around the themes of war and death. It is reasonable to assume that the lake around which he drives reflects in his memory the field where Kiowa drowned. The field, which resembled quicksand, in this context, is metaphorical, representing the image of death that took the lives of young soldiers. The comparison can be extended further to say that the lake, in turn, takes away Normans sanity and ability to adequately assess the current situation.

As Boscarino et al. state, the prevalence of mental disorders among veterans would be higher among those who experienced negative homecoming experiences (757). This idea finds its reflection in the story Speaking of Courage, where OBrien describes the symptoms of a mental illness slowly setting in. The metaphor the author uses helps to make a picture clearer. Thus, OBrian says about Normans driving, On his twelfth revolution, the sky went crazy with color (105). The choice of words in this sentence is deeply suggestive. Among other comorbidities of post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers name depression and suicidal thoughts that can affect as much as 7% of war veterans (Bullman et al.). Such a high percentage is explained by negative homecoming experiences and the inability to adapt to a peaceful environment.

Conclusion

Tim OBriens work is a psychological echo of the Vietnam War in which he portrays how military actions affect soldiers who participate in them. The author states that the atrocities of war and its cruelty are not easily forgotten unless people get a positive homecoming experience. Even then, it takes time to forget the war. The idea is supported by many researchers who have examined the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder development and found military actions responsible for many cases of it. Vividly portraying war and its consequences, OBrian warns against unleashing military actions no matter how tempting the idea may seem to various political powers.

Works Cited

Boscarino, Joseph A., et al. Mental Health Impact of Homecoming Experience Among 1730 Formerly Deployed Veterans from The Vietnam War to Current Conflicts: Results from The Veterans Health Study. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease vol. 206, no. 10, 2018, pp. 757-765. Web.

Bullman, Tim, Aaron Schneiderman, and Jaimie Gradus. Relative Importance of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression in Predicting Risk of Suicide Among a Cohort of Vietnam Veterans. Suicide and LifeThreatening Behavior vol 49, no. 3, 2019, pp. 838-845. Web.

Dohrenwend, Bruce P., et al. Surviving Vietnam: Psychological Consequences of the War for US veterans. Oxford University Press, 2018. Web.

Kang, Bada, Hanzhong Xu, and Eleanor S. McConnell. Neurocognitive and Psychiatric Comorbidities of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Older Veterans: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry vol. 34, no. 4, 2019, pp. 522-538. Web.

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Web.

Introduction

The collection of short stories by American writer Tim OBrien The Things They Carried, published in 1990, is a holistic narrative about the Vietnam War and its participants. The book combines the horrible depiction of war with reflections on the impact the war has. Written in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the work conveys the brutality and bloodthirstiness of military actions as well as the mental state of soldiers. The book, portraying the grave consequences of the war and its huge imprint on peoples minds, serves to show the psychological aspects of military actions and states that wars are conducive to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder in people actively engaged in them.

Horrors of War and Their Impact on the Psyche

Being an active participant in the Vietnam War, OBrien vividly portrays military actions from the perspective of young men who find themselves in the center of war, unable to question the heroic ideals of the army service. In the collections title story, apart from the things soldiers carry, the author portrays the feelings and memories they take with them through Vietnam. Thus, OBrien writes: They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing  these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight (3). This endless list depicts the unbearable emotional and psychological burden of their situation, exacerbated by adverse weather conditions when soldiers have to make their way to the area through swamp mud and rice fields waist-deep in water. OBrien vividly portrays the soldiers difficulties to show why post-traumatic stress disorder is formed. Moreover, the author makes his characters engage in actions hardly compatible with general human values such as compassion and mercy but which align with the orders of the army commandment.

Indeed, the stories are based on real events, and the evidence of the brutality and dehumanization of war efforts in Vietnam can be found in the descriptions of military actions by those people who took part in them. Relying on the evidence from the National Vietnam War Longitudinal Study, Dohrenwend et al. describe the prevailing attitudes in the army and vividly depict the atmosphere that reigned in it. Thus, they state the Vietnamese were hardly seen as human by the US military commandment, and soldiers were encouraged to call them different names such as dinks, gooks, slopes, slants and others (Dohrenwend et al., 16). Moreover, there was a striking contrast between the formal instruction to kill only military adversaries and the informal message (given loud and clear) to kill just about everyone (Dohrenwend et al., 17). Such attitude resulted in many episodes of burning civilian villages and killing people, including women and children, who had nothing to do with military efforts. One such episode finds its portrayal in the story Style, where the readers see a girl dancing in the background of a burned village where all her family died.

The brutality and cruelty of war where no one was spared could not but tell on the soldiers psyche. Thus, in the story Ghost Soldiers, combatants begin to hallucinate and believe in the supernatural, while in other episodes, they cannot get rid of the feeling of guilt for their actions. In the story The Man I Killed, the readers see the authors moral torments at what he did to kill a man (OBrien). Indeed, in this tale, OBrien is so focused on the feeling of guilt that his presence as a protagonist and narrator fades into the background. Confusion and a sense of hopelessness are reflected in the narrators fantasy. Thus, the author says, He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics, not able to get rid of the feeling that what he did was wrong (OBrien, 87)

Dohrenwend et al. state that in war, soldiers are prone to experiencing harmful and destructive feelings unparallel to anything they feel in civilian life (150-165). Indeed, anger, despair, and rage soldiers experience often serve to cover the fear they feel deep inside. Many acts of aggression have terror as an underlying cause that pushes soldiers to commit them (Dohrenwend et al., 168-174). The readers see how this fear drives soldiers to commit reckless actions, kill and torture people and animals, and earn post-traumatic syndrome in its most severe and incurable form.

The authors personal story is woven into the intricate fabric of madness, grotesque, and despair portrayed in the narrative. In the story On the Rainy River, OBrien recalls how he tried to escape from the draft to Canada. In describing his feelings, he is mercilessly accurate. On the one hand, he is unwilling to take part in military actions and risk his life in the war, the aims of which he does not understand, and, on the other, he is ashamed not to fight for his country. The author compares his condition with schizophrenia: inside, two voices are saying that its scary to go to war and more terrifying still to flee to Canada, where he will have to forget about his family, friends, and old life forever (OBrian, 37). This comparison is not accidental. Kang et al. state that apart from the horrors that the soldiers experience in war efforts, thinking about the justice and moral side of military actions and the soldiers own role in them may be conducive to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (528-537). Thus, the moral choice the author faces is in itself suggestive of the experiences ahead.

After-War Life and the Development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

It is widely known that people who lived through military experience may have difficulties adapting to everyday life. OBrien vividly portrays this in the story The Man I Killed, describing his personal feelings. Even twenty years after the war finished, he can still recall the man in minute details and continues brooding over whether it was possible to avoid the killing. Boscarino et al. state that the inability to get rid of painful memories is often a part of post-traumatic stress disorder that manifests itself through obsessive thoughts and memories, repeated experience of the situation, panic attacks, and anxiety as well as outbursts of anger and aggression (757-765). Moreover, PTSD patients, unwittingly, constantly return to the traumatic episode in their thoughts, and see nightmares and stroboscopic flashbacks (Boscarino et al., 757-760). Sometimes these reactions are triggered by the outer environment, at least remotely resembling the circumstances of injury but such memory reactions can also occur spontaneously.

However, the ability of a person to overcome his or her traumatic experience largely depends on the post-deployment support he or she gets. (Boscarino et al., 757-760). Boscarino et al. have found that in cases where people get high support from family and friends, they are more likely to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder than in cases when there is no one to share their experience with. This observation is well portrayed in OBrians story. The author makes it clear that his daughters support and understanding helped him to cope with the emotional impact the military actions he took part in made on his psyche.

However, not all people can overcome the traumatic experience they have lived through, and, in such cases, post-traumatic stress disorder may assume its most severe forms. The readers see a vivid example of it in the story Speaking of Courage.The main character of this story, Norman Bowker, returns to his hometown to find no one waiting for him: his father and best friend are dead, and his girlfriend has been married for a long time. The only joy he has is that he has met his late fathers expectations and brought seven medals from the war. However, awards cannot help Bowker cope with the post-traumatic stress disorder he experiences, and again and again, in his memories, he returns to the events of the Vietnam War.

Bowker remembers the death of his friend Kiowa during a mortar attack. Just as Norman keeps driving around the lake without realizing it, the thoughts in his head revolve around the themes of war and death. It is reasonable to assume that the lake around which he drives reflects in his memory the field where Kiowa drowned. The field, which resembled quicksand, in this context, is metaphorical, representing the image of death that took the lives of young soldiers. The comparison can be extended further to say that the lake, in turn, takes away Normans sanity and ability to adequately assess the current situation.

As Boscarino et al. state, the prevalence of mental disorders among veterans would be higher among those who experienced negative homecoming experiences (757). This idea finds its reflection in the story Speaking of Courage, where OBrien describes the symptoms of a mental illness slowly setting in. The metaphor the author uses helps to make a picture clearer. Thus, OBrian says about Normans driving, On his twelfth revolution, the sky went crazy with color (105). The choice of words in this sentence is deeply suggestive. Among other comorbidities of post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers name depression and suicidal thoughts that can affect as much as 7% of war veterans (Bullman et al.). Such a high percentage is explained by negative homecoming experiences and the inability to adapt to a peaceful environment.

Conclusion

Tim OBriens work is a psychological echo of the Vietnam War in which he portrays how military actions affect soldiers who participate in them. The author states that the atrocities of war and its cruelty are not easily forgotten unless people get a positive homecoming experience. Even then, it takes time to forget the war. The idea is supported by many researchers who have examined the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder development and found military actions responsible for many cases of it. Vividly portraying war and its consequences, OBrian warns against unleashing military actions no matter how tempting the idea may seem to various political powers.

Works Cited

Boscarino, Joseph A., et al. Mental Health Impact of Homecoming Experience Among 1730 Formerly Deployed Veterans from The Vietnam War to Current Conflicts: Results from The Veterans Health Study. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease vol. 206, no. 10, 2018, pp. 757-765. Web.

Bullman, Tim, Aaron Schneiderman, and Jaimie Gradus. Relative Importance of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression in Predicting Risk of Suicide Among a Cohort of Vietnam Veterans. Suicide and LifeThreatening Behavior vol 49, no. 3, 2019, pp. 838-845. Web.

Dohrenwend, Bruce P., et al. Surviving Vietnam: Psychological Consequences of the War for US veterans. Oxford University Press, 2018. Web.

Kang, Bada, Hanzhong Xu, and Eleanor S. McConnell. Neurocognitive and Psychiatric Comorbidities of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Older Veterans: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry vol. 34, no. 4, 2019, pp. 522-538. Web.

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Web.

Introduction

Books are written to deliver ideas, whether they fictional or based on real facts. There are cases when delivering the idea requires that the author recreates the truth even if it is based on real facts in order to have the readers relive a particular experience.

In the book The Things They Carried (1998) by Tim OBrien, a series of stories about the war in Vietnam, the author goes further in explaining his concept about the truth in the novel, where story truth is recreated by the author, and happening truth is the real life fact stating that story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth (179). This concept can be applied through the whole book, in a way that any particular event does not have to be real to be true. This paper analyzes the concept presented by OBrien, discussing the meaning of his ideas in the story Good Form, stating that the author in using story truth delivers feelings and emotions of a specific story moment, something not possible with narrating bare facts.

Main text

The novel consists of series of stories representing the memories of OBrien himself unrelated to each other, where the chronological order of the events is not followed. There are two common elements of these stories, their theme, which is memories of the Vietnam War, and characters  a platoon of American soldiers in Vietnam. Each story is indirectly presenting a certain idea that could be found within simple narration of the platoons actions where each story is titled according to a specific theme, e.g. Love, Spin, etc..

The main idea differently presented throughout the book, is that the real truth is sometimes vague to be represented literary. As an author the events are sometimes recreated, but that does not make them less true. In that matter, the truth of war is especially applied in this context.

The ideas of distinctions between truths can be considered as the main themes of the novel. These ideas were presented specifically clear in the chapter How to Tell a True War Story where OBrien stated that often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isnt, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.(71) Another chapter that explicitly states the aforementioned idea is Good Form where OBrien explained why the written story truth is different than the real truth, I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth. (179). The events in the stories were not narrated chronologically, sometimes referring to a specific event as a history flashback before it would be covered in later stories in the book. Although various excerpts from the text can be interpreted in a way that can contribute to showing different truths, a specific event repeatedly mentioned through the book is taken in consideration. The event is the death of Kiowa  a main character the death of which can be considered as the novels climax. This event was repeated through different versions due to the closeness of Kiowa to each character, a fact that created a sense of guilt that in an attempt to justify it, each character recalled this moment of death in their own way.

For example, the chapter Spin is devoted to events during the Vietnam War which cannot be identified with violence, the author recalls the little things that were characteristic to their peaceful time. In that chapter OBrien is making a reference to the death of Kiowa slightly without making an emphasis, I sit at this typewriter and stare through my words and watch Kiowa sinking into the deep muck of a shit field (32) This type of story truth does not necessarily represent the actual happening fact of Kiowa sinking. Nevertheless, the story truth is much better representing the moments that OBrien wanted to deliver which are the erased memories of the war, and some of those moments that cannot be erased. In that sense, the truth told in the book is truer than the real truth where assumingly it might have happened without OBrien literally watching Kiowa sinking. Accordingly, the story truth is not fragmented as OBrien represented it, for the purpose of showing how unerasable bad moments in war can unexpectedly occur, even when recalling good memories.

From a different perspective, the chapter Speaking of Courage narrates the life of Norman Bowker who returned home after the war, recalling the reason why he did not receive a silver medal. During this flashback Bowker describes the death of Kiowa from his perspective, telling his story truth. The field was boiling. The shells made deep slushy craters, opening up all those years of waste, centuries worth, and the smell came bubbling out of the earth. Two rounds hit close by. Then a third, even closer, and immediately, off to his left, he heard somebody screaming. It was Kiowa -he knew that. The sound was ragged and clotted up, but even so he knew the voice. A strange gurgling noise. (148)

Delivering the horrors of such moment, the happening-truth might not have served its purpose, where if there was something made up in this description it remains true, and from OBriens perspective truer than what really happened.

In that case, in die glow he saw Kiowas wide-open eyes settling down into the scum.(148), represents what Bowker felt when he was present, while actually he might have never saw anything in a tense moment like that. Analyzing this example, if OBrien had chosen to tell the real truth, he would not have been able to demonstrate how brave Bowker was, a fact that was nevertheless true even if OBrien narrated the story differently. However, in that case this fact would have been unknown.

Translating the aforementioned event in the context of what one could feel, sometimes can take different perspectives. In other words, the previous two examples are compared in the context of happening-truth and story-truth, while sometimes there are different visions within the story-truth itself resulted from different participants in the event, and the happening truth is either too gray to describe or in some cases remains unknown.

Exemplary of the stated above is the chapter In the Field that gives the view of Kiowas death by other members. A view of an unnamed soldier, for example described that event preceded by showing Kiowa a picture of his ex-girlfriend, Hey, shes cute, hed said  and then the field exploded all around them. Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead. (170) In this episode the story truth is made as a representation of the how this unnamed soldier is feeling guilty for Kiowas death.

The difference

The difference between all these points of view does not necessarily imply that some or all of them are invalid and thus untrue. It implies as stated by OBrien how each of the members felt at that moment or how OBrien wanted the reader to relive soldiers feelings. Another explanation could be assumed is that at the moment of an event happening, in that case the death of Kiowa, the details of the event cannot be memorized. Comparing to OBriens own story, when he states, There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, Im left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief.(179), he created his own truth based on what he felt at that moment. Similarly, the events based on the view of the unnamed soldier could be said to be recreated and thus truer than the real truth.

Conclusion

The war is a horrible experience from any perspective, and sometimes to share and deliver the horrors of war, the blank, bare truth makes incorrect assumptions in case it was told as is. In that case the distinctions presented and demonstrated by examples in The Things They Carried perfectly transfer the picture of war which based on how some of its participants felt at the time. The story truth is the truth that OBrien wanted to transfer, while the happening truth is the truth that sank with Kiowa in the mud.

Works Cited

OBrien, Tim. The things they carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Introduction

All of the pieces of literature contain a specific thought the author intended to make readers pay attention to, a lesson that can be learned based on one or another characters conduct. The book entitled The Things They Carried, written by American novelist Tim OBrien is composed of stories focused on Vietnam War. The author has personal experience related to the war, doing his work between fiction and autobiography. The book enables readers to perceive soldiers emotions, providing insight into how wars and events they conceive change people. This essay will examine one of the main characters of the story named, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, by discussing his personality in the beginning, explaining the influence of events, which are the death of Ted Lavender, a soldier, and the burning of letters, and revealing the changes in his conduct at the end of the story.

The Personality of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross at the Beginning of the Story

At the beginning of the story, the readers are shown a young man bothered by the affection of a girl named Martha. Despite the great responsibility for soldiers Jimmy Cross possess, more than anything, he wanted Martha to love him instead of paying attention to the wars events (OBrien, 10). The author displays, in detail, the nuances of the affection thorough the story making readers perceive them and emphasize their significance. However, it is also shown how dangerous such distraction can be. Even at the important mission, deep under the earth, Jimmy Cross is focused on his thoughts instead of responsibilities as he is not in the tunnel, he was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey shore (OBrien, 17). Readers are shown a weak leader whose obsession with the girl endangers missions.

The Events that Influence Lieutenant Jimmy Cross

It is not surprising, at war, that any moment of hesitation or distraction can result in terrible consequences. Jimmy Cross attracted his squads enemies attention in the tunnel, and Ted Lavender was shot in the head (OBrien, 18). Later, Jimmy Cross comes to the conclusion that He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence, Lavender was now dead (OBrien, 20). It is revealed that the death of one of his soldiers triggered a set of changes in the lieutenant. On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Marthas letters, and this action is a decision of a mature man (OBrien, 24). Therefore, it is the death of a close comrade that forces Jimmy Cross to grow and abandon his affection.

The Personality of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross at the End of the Story

At the end of the story, readers are shown a changed Jimmy Cross, who is now deprived of hesitations and fully willing to fulfill his responsibilities. OBrien writes, no more fantasies, he told himself (25), indicating the issue and the greatest challenge the protagonist has struggled with. It is also possible to characterize how exactly Jimmy Cross changed by appealing to the authors words: He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence (OBrien, 26). It is evident that all the above-mentioned events have made him the mentally stronger version of himself as the significant difference between the old and the new Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is displayed.

Conclusion

In his story The Things They Carried, the author Tim OBrien shows readers how the war can affect an individual, based on the tragedy of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who lost his comrade because of his affection for the young girl. The protagonist has considerably changed as the switch from a weak leader to a true one through pain, misery, and regrets are displayed in detail. This story teaches us not to be naïve and not to follow emotions blindly, revealing the violence of wars simultaneously.

Works Cited

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Web.

Tim OBriens short story, The Things They Carried, begins as a highly literal enumeration of objects soldiers in Vietnam carry, each thing valued not only for its utility but also according to its weight because every object has to be humped and therefore each soldier eliminates whatever is not needed, even dropping some of them along the way. Most of what they carry is meant to kill, save a life or sustain it; but the most highly prized objects have no utility, only mass. They represent the soldiers individual choice, that which he prizes enough to hump through the jungle day after day for no reason other than that it is his and which connect soldiers to the world outside Vietnam, they keep them from being swallowed up by the jungle or the war, and they are the final reminder of a world in which they felt at home. These are the things that tell a story of men in a totally unfamiliar place trying to maintain their connection with home but they are useful only until the men accept that they are exiles, forever alienated from their former lives.

Lt. Jimmy Cross carries a ten-ounce packet of letters from a girl in New Jersey, someone whom he hardly knows but who represents all he dreamed of before he went to Vietnam. Each day he and his men face the prospect of laying down their lives, of committing atrocities, of slogging through inhospitable country day after day, and of sustained feats of heroism needed to overcome their instinctive fear, all for no identifiable reason. At the end of a days march, and increasingly while doing his duty, Cross escapes into obsessive fantasies about Martha that he knows can never come true. His dreams are clichéd, even old-fashioned, set in a time when there were home-truths and traditions, and life was predictable. As Tina Chen says, Crosss exilic daydreams return him to a center and a home that is depicted as lacking in generative potential & his romantic fantasies are pitifully inadequate in the face of the ambiguous and dangerous realities of combat duty in Vietnam (85), and eventually Cross will put these dreams aside by burning the letters and photos, not only to lighten his load but to accept the new world in which he has been thrust so he can operate more effectively in it.

The other men also carry items that lack utility but are all the more valued for it. Henry Dobbins likes to eat, Dave Jensen likes to keep clean, Ted Lavender is afraid and carries extra tranquilizers and six or seven ounces of dope which, the narrator says, for him was a necessity (1023). So are Dobbinss peaches in heavy syrup and Jensens extra bars of soap. These men are all exiles and became exiles the moment the war in Vietnam broke out and they were faced with the choice of losing their reputation and connections at home by refusing to serve or going to Vietnam where they will be alienated from all they have known and loved. They are epistemological exiles, no longer at home anywhere, clinging to memorabilia of their former home but slowly being drawn further away from that place until home becomes a shifting and ambiguous location (Chen 83) which, in OBriens case he constantly mediated and housed in the language of his stories (Chen 83).

The mens stories are the ones they tell each other. Kiowa obsessively tells and retells the story of Lavenders unceremonious death, the way he falls like a sack of cement, as if he is trying to understand the rules of this strange, new world. Finally, he sees that there are no rules, only the sensual pleasure of being alive while others are dead. By mediating his new home through the language he distances himself from the New Testament he carries, which finally provides him with nothing more than sensual pleasure as he contemplates Lavenders death (1031).

The men are exiles in the world of war, a place described by the writers and poets who fought in World War I. Thomas Myers says that The Things They Carried depicts Vietnam as both this war and any war, which OBrien agreed with when he says that Every war seems formless to the men fighting it& We like to think our own war is special: especially horrible, especially insane, especially formless. But we need a more historical and compassionate perspective. We shouldnt minimize the suffering and sense of bewilderment of other people in other wars (qt. in OGorman 3). Ernest Hemingway is one of OBriens major influences, says OGorman, which makes it easier for him to connect Vietnam with World War I, and in turn with wars as far back as Homer. The connections are made in the fight every man has with himself when under fire, so well described by OBrien; but most of all these soldiers are bound together by their being exiled in a world where they must learn everything anew, just as a baby must learn to decipher its world.

This explains why soldiers are constantly trying to lighten their load. It is not that they are merely tired of carrying the things they do not immediately need, although they are very tired; it is that in the new world they inhabit they must aspire to be the one who carries the fewest things. As part of the US Army, they are given the best equipment to carry and when they lose things, these are replaced with even more and better things.

Purely for comfort they would throw away rations, blow their Claymores and grenades, no matter because by nightfall the resupply choppers would arrive & fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and woolen sweaters  the resources were stunning  sparklers for the Fourth of July, colored eggs for Easter. (1031)

This endless supply assures them that they would never be at a loss for things to carry, the only thing they could be sure of. Yet all these things were actually an embarrassment for the men, especially as they became better acquainted with their place of exile.

The moral Mitchell Sanders alludes to explains why their material wealth, taken for granted back home, has turned into an embarrassment in the world of war. The soldiers find a teenage Viet Cong corpse dressed in shorts and sandals and carrying a bag of rice, a rifle, and three magazines of ammunition (1029) which reminds Sanders of Paladin, the lone cowboy who needed only his gun. In the world of war, that teenage boy was an initiate whereas the US soldiers are mere novices. Sanders acknowledges that by conferring sainthood upon the boy by treating his severed thumb as a holy relic; and it seems to be OBriens view as well as he meticulously describes each piece of equipment he and his men carried into battle, and how each piece becomes less relevant to what the soldiers are doing. The new world is a simple kill-or-be-killed place to its inhabitants, where anyone may go boom-down at any moment.

The Things They Carried has been read as a post-modern novel, a refusal of grand narratives in Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Girouxs words (qt. in Nielson 2), an embodiment of the processive and indeterminate nature of consciousness that makes it impossible for the writer to analyze the political background and anything else that is out of his range of vision. As a result, says Nielson, OBriens imagination is virtually the only reality. OBrien does not contextualize his experience, does not provide us with any deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of this war, and does not see beyond his individual experience to document the vastly greater suffering of the Vietnamese (5). Instead he relies on what Nielson calls a realist epistemology, a belief that there exists a reliable correspondence between experience and knowledge, between reality and representation (7), none of which a postmodernist could accept.

It is true that OBrien refuses the grand narratives but he relies entirely on the ability of readers to connect with his experiences and representations through knowledge and empathy. OBrien says he is experimenting not for the joy of experimenting, but rather to explore meaning and themes and dramatic discovery in order to to include as much as possible the whole of humanity in these stories (qt. in OGorman 1). When the postmodernists accuse him of ignoring the suffering of the Vietnamese, they are not reading OBriens stories on his terms. To explain the world of war, a world he barely understands himself, so that his story makes the stomach believe he depends on his readers to bring what they know to his stories. Only then can they understand the suffering endured by all who enter this world of war.

References

Chen, Tina. Unraveling the Deeper Meaning: Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried. Contemporary Literature © 1998 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Nielsen, Jim. The Truth in Things: Personal Trauma as Historical Amnesia in The Things They Carried. Fortune City. Web.

OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Ann Charters, ed. The Story and Its Writer. 4^th edition. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martins Press, 1995.

OGorman, Farrell. The Things They Carried as Composite Novel. Web.