Throughout life people experience many different scenarios good or bad that ultimately results in the formation of the character of that person. Some of these experiences could be the death of a relative or the birth of a loved one which helps create a positive or a negative milestones in that person's life. However despite the sadness or happiness, these moments may bring people still manage to find a way to cope with the emotional baggage these moments result in order to continue to survive their everyday lives. Similar to how O'Brien, Rat Kiley, and Norman Bowker do throughout the war by finding different ways to help themselves overcome the pain of the emotional baggage that they carry within them. Therefore demonstrating that everyone …show more content…
Despite many of the other characters carrying physical objects to help distract them from the cruel reality of the war Rat Kiley didn’t really carry anything that related to a comfort zone. Instead he had a best friend within the platoon that served him as a comfort zone and a distraction from the inhuman war which was Curt Lemon. Curt Lemon was Rat Kiley's only diversion throughout the war the only way for Rat Kiley to look beyond the war and into his past where most of his best memories were at and vise versa for Curt Lemon. Their friendship was one beyond two friends, they had become two brothers who helped one another find comfort within each other in a war where soldiers "carried their own lives" (15). Therefore when Curt Lemon was killed by a grenade Rat Kiley's only comfort was also killed. This lead Rat Kiley to fall into a downward spiral of emotions as he no longer had his only source of emotional protection within the war, forcing him to break the standard emotionless "actor" role within the platoon (20).Which resulted in Rat Kiley bottling up emotions and anger and seeking a way to express them. Consequently, when the platoon ran into the baby water buffalo Rat Kiley used the water buffalo to express his anger and hate for the war by hurting the buffalo which to him symbolized the evils of the war. Therefore in the end Rat …show more content…
Like most of the soldiers Norman Bowker carried many physical items however his heaviest cargo was the emotional baggage he carried. Throughout the war Norman Bowker and Kiowa become close friends. However one day Kiowa is shoot in the middle of a shit field and begins to sink into it. Norman desperately attempt to pull out Kiowa but he is not successful and eventually lets go of Kiowa to save himself from sinking into the field. This leads Norman to become full of regret and memories which he takes back home with him to Iowa. Norman becomes extremely isolated from everyone as he cannot seem to get rid of the memories of the war. This results in Norman driving around his hometown in his dad's chevy in a repetitive pattern which resembles the wars daily repetitiveness. However the driving pattern is obviously a way for Norman to find comfort as he attempts to fit in back into his hometown. Despite Norman attempts to going back to college and getting odd jobs in order to fit back into society he is still haunted by the "ghosts" of the war which is Kiowa' death (10). It is almost as if Kiowas death represents the death of Norman's life before the war as he no longer is the same person after it. Therefore this frustration of not being able to fit back in into his old life ultimately leads Norman to surrender to the wars cruel reality as he hangs himself. Which ultimately exhibits how
In the novel, Eldon and Frank Starlight, who are father and son, have a strained relationship. When Eldon accused Frank of an inability to understand war because he had never fought in one before, Frank said, “‘Not one of my own, leastways.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Means I’m still livin’ the one you never finished,’ (Wagamese 168).” He was explaining to his father that experiences don’t need to be physically experienced; they may also be mentally experienced. Frank knows a different type of war. It is the war where he grew up not knowing anything about his past, other than the fact that he is an Indigenous person. Whereas, Eldon’s war experience was a physical experience with the trauma and post traumatic stress of fighting in the Korean War. Inevitably, Frank ends up realizing that these stories though different, through empathy and an attempt to understand each other, they can bring people together. Wagamese’s strong connection to empathy is a grueling one. In an interview done with Shelagh Rogers, Wagamese spoke about not being there for his children. He said, "The lack of a significant parent is really, really a profound sorrow, a profound loss. It's a bruise that never really heals" (Rogers). With the difficult history of Wagamese’s family, he wanted to be able to pass on those meaningful lessons learned to his children. This is important because having learnt something like that from a parent or guardian is really meaningful to a child; it is a part of the parent and their past that will never leave and carries on through the child. The authors empathetic portrayal of his characters is direct result of the cultural influences of his
Norman Bowker was a soldier who embodied the damage of a long term war after it was over. During the war Bowker was a quiet and a humble soldier, and the death of his friend Kiowa brings a huge impact to his life after the war. In the chapter Speaking of Courage, time has past by and Bowker had returned to Iowa. Bowker drives his dad’s Chevrolet around the lake, and realizes he has nowhere to go. He thinks about multiple things as he drives around the lake like thinking about his highschool girlfriend, his friend drowning in the lake, and also thinks about his father where he would bring home medals from the war. As the sun goes down he imagines telling his dad that he did not have the courage to save Kiowa and was imagining that his father
Many individuals strive to be the best and thrive in this world inhabited by seven billion people, by taking control over their own destiny. However, success requires a sacrifice of personal desires and ambitions at times which not a lot amongst us are willing to give. It is sooner or later that the temporary reformation fails and their true self resurfaces where they are back at where they began. A lot of us are unwillingly left to deal and live with these unfortunate circumstances. The impact that these events leave upon us is very significant and sometimes temporary. The poem, "The tent delivery woman's ride" by Wilmer Mills, and my own experience explains that the significant events negatively effect an individual's ability to determine
The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. When looking at what makes a person who they are it becomes obvious that the struggles they have faced has influenced them dramatically. The individual will find that this development is the pure essence of what it truly means to be
In Colum McCann’s novel, Let the Great World Spin, tragedies strike every character, and the way in which the different characters seek closure and counseling ends up shaping their personalities. While the approaches used to combat their grieving varies from character to character, McCann makes a compelling argument in support of seeking out grief counseling within a community. Many of the characters, such as Lara and Claire seem to initially internalize their feelings, and continually beat themselves up due to their guilt ridden and grieving conscious. Yet when they find their respective groups, which on the surface, seem to differ greatly between Lara and Claire, both characters are relaxed in their element. Claire finds comfort in Gloria, the polar opposite of her, while Lara finds comfort in the reparations she attempts to make with Corrigan’s family, namely Ciaran.
The death of Kiowa is the point in this story, and arguably the entire novel, where the true nature of war becomes evident. His death in any situation would have been tragic, and camping in that “shit field” alone would have been an emotionally scarring experience; however, that these events had to coincide in time only multiplies the gravity of the situation. Interestingly, every soldier has his own way of grappling with such overwhelming feelings of grief for his highly-esteemed comrade. Yet what every man has in common is that in the end he concludes that he alone is the one ultimately responsible for Kiowa’s death.
He made it out of the war alive, but he said, “It's almost like I got killed over in Nam…”(O’Brien 150). No one at the time knew, but Norman showed signs of PTSD. A mental health condition that can develop after a traumatic experience such as war. When writing a letter to Tim O’Brien about how he was feeling the tone would jump from self-pity to anger to guilt, all signs of PTSD. During the time period of the Vietnam War and others before it, everyone thought you could just go back home and jump right back into a normal way of life. For Norman that was not the case. He wrote, “The thing is, there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy town. In general. My life, I mean” (O’Brien 150). Norman had lost his hope. As a result he took his own life. The war stripped him of who he was, who he used to be. In war you're used to thinking at any moment you could die. It had to be hard coming home and trying to relax. Not all men can just forget the draining and relentless circumstances they went through. Now all soldiers are required to get checked for signs of PTSD before being allowed to return
"War is hell . . . war is mystery terror and adventure and courage and discovery and despair and . . . war is nasty (80)." When it all happened it was not like "a movie you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait (211)." O'Brien and the rest of the solders were just ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. They needed to tell blatant lies" to "bring the body and soul back together (239)." They needed to eliminate the reality of death. As ordinary people they were not capable of dealing with the engulfing realities of death and war therefore they needed to create coping skills. O'Brien approaches the loss of his childhood friend, Linda, in the same way he approaches the loss of his comrades in the war as this is the only way he knows how to deal with death. A skill he learned, and needed, in the Vietnam War.
He remembers the times before the war. When he used to drive around the same lake with his friends from high school. He recalls the girl he once dated, Sally Kramer, and the carefree fun they used to have. That was before the war, before he won seven medals, and before he almost won the Silver Star. Now Sally Kramer was Sally Gustafson, married with her own house set on that lake. He thought of what he would say to her if she were to listen to what he would like to say. He thought of how she would react to what was said, as if things were as they had once been before he had gone off to war. He thought of his best friend Max who had drowned in the lake before the war. Imagining what Max would have said if he was there to listen to Norman tell the tales he would like to tell. He would have told about how he almost won the Silver Star. Norman would have told this to his father too, if his father hadn't been so into baseball. There is so much he would have said...
During his deployment in Vietnam, Kiley experienced the dark elements of the war, indubitably changing his perspective of the war and him as a person-- from the deaths of his fellow soldiers to the unresolved issues, nightmares, and detachment from reality. What is left of Kiley is only a shell.
Kiley carries a medical kit along with him throughout the war. The author states that, "Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with...all the things a medic must carry". Kiley's canvas satchel is critical to the role of a medic. It symbolizes his position in the war, and what he must be prepared to face in the midst of chaos. The book
Norman Bowker is fellow soldier in the war, along with Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon, and Kiowa. Among all of these people, Norman Bowker seems to be a special character, with special qualities. Throughout this book you can see a shift in Norman’s personality from a very easy- going and happy person, to a depressed and regretful man. It was very clear that this shift came when his buddy Kiowa died at war. He felt like was partially at fault for Kiowa’s death. His regret is shown in the text when it reads, “ ¨The Truth,¨ Norman Bowker would’ve said, ¨is I let the guy go.¨ ” (Speaking of Courage pg. 127)
Lastly, O’Brien includes a story in his novel that deals with the death of a soldier named Kiowa, a quiet, conserved friend of O’Brien, and how the death brings forth shame for Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker, a humble and silent individual, is reliving the moment he found Kiowa stuck in deep mud. While reliving the horrific event, Bowker is driving around a lake continuously and O’Brien, narrating Bowker’s thoughts, remarks, “Sometimes, like that night in the shit field, the difference between courage and cowardice was something small and stupid” (O’Brien 147). Bowker experiences the feeling of shame when he losses his fellow soldier during the monsoon because he lacks the courage to withstand the heinous smell and save Bowker. Due to the stink
Personally, I think O’brien’s emotions hit hard. You can’t just let go of something and someone like that. It’s something that will always be there in your mind. He said, “I’d wanted to take my daughter to the places I’d seen as a soldier. I wanted to show her the Vietnam that kept me awake at night.”He decided to show her his past, the important things in his life. If those things didn’t matter to him, would he still have took the time to show her? He not only showed her the field he fought on. He also showed her where his friend Kiowa had died. “Now, looking out at the field, I wondered if it was all a mistake. Everything was too ordinary. A quiet sunny day, and the field was not the I remembered”, he remembers it different. I picture he remembers it as a dark, dreary, noisy place. During their time at the field O’brien took his friends Kiowa’s moccasin’s and put them in some sort of “mush” where he passed away. He wanted to tell Kiowa that “he’d been a great friend, the very best”. “In a way, maybe I’d gone under with Kiowa, and now after two decades I’d finally worked my way
According to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, this fictional novel is a group of short stories that blended reality and fiction. Tim O’Brien’s storytelling evokes emotional responses from the audience, and it makes them empathise with the characters’ experience throughout the Vietnam War and after the war. In general, veterans who fought in the war change, and they experience disconnection with their friends and family after the war. Norman Bowker is a teenager who was drafted into the war, and he was one of the only good characters in this story. Through this character, we can see Norman Bowker change as the novel progresses and how war can affect people even when the war is over.