Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

There are no morals in war. Killing is not something to be ashamed of nor is it consequential when it comes down to the battlefield. The Vietnam War was fought by men who today remain emotionally traumatized and/or physically disabled. Tim O’Brien, an ex-Vietnam soldier, expresses both gruesome and peaceful vignettes throughout his novel, The Things They Carried, to depict the obscenities and the lack of morals endured by the soldiers in the Vietnam War. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” this is especially shown through the use of vivid imagery, important symbolism, and paradoxes. However, despite the falsity of most of the stories, the fictional aspect is used to emotionally submerge the reader in the improprieties of the war

Some events he depicts with repugnant imagery and others with beautiful and peaceful imagery. This contrast serves to show and tell different perceptions of war. Gruesome imagery is especially present when Rat Kiley releases his anger and grief by harming a baby water buffalo. Rat “shot it twice in the flanks...He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away” (75). Although gruesome imagery used in the above example is a more accurate description of war rather than pleasant imagery, the use of pleasant imagery may appeal to a broader or different audience. O'Brien wants to capture the audience so that his stories are read and understood. For example, when Lemon died, O'Brien writes that “it was almost beautiful.” The reader might be more receptive to the imagery about “the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms” (67), than the true reality of the events. Another example of O'Brien's use of imagery is how he describes the war. He says, “you admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket’s red glare” (77).

The mountains of Vietnam are referred multiple times and described as “mysterious,” “unknown,” and, “spooky” by the soldiers (69, 70). The mountains symbolize the unknown in Vietnam and the men’s fear of the unknown during the war. For example, Sanders’ tells a story about a patrol sent to the mountains to listen for the enemy became crazed when they started hearing odd noises within the mountains. “They lose it...They make those mountains burn...the mountains are absolutely dead-flat silent...Everything’s all sucked up inside the fog. Not a single sound, except they still hear it.” (71). The lingering sounds the men hear will never go away because the war has not concluded and therefore the men continue to fear the unknown. Even the fog in the mountains, “thick and permanent” (78), highlights the permanence of the eeriness and never ending voices of fear in the men’s minds. (Tie to thesis). Although Sanders confesses the noises were false. Sanders purposefully changed what the soldiers heard to odd and non scary noises such as an opera or a glee club. Sanders wanted to connect this story with Tim. Tim “could tell how desperately Sanders wanted [him] to believe him, his frustration at not quite getting the details right, not quite pinning down the final and definitive truth.” (72). This is what O’Brien wanted to avoid. He wants the reader to