An Analytical Analysis Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The story of The Things They Carried can be interpreted in many ways. I’ve chosen to analyze the text in the chapter “On The Rainy River” through a psychological lens. As someone in strict opposition of war, Tim O’Brien was not prepared for draft notice. His initial reaction was a literal fight or flight decision. He chose the latter and fled his work and family at home to head toward the border, though a long internal struggle led to a final decision for the supposed greater good.
The summer that Tim O’Brien received the draft notice was one of both confusion and clarity. He spent that summer wrestling with his emotions in an attempt to find a solution. “The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause” (O’Brien, 38). Tim doesn’t truly understand the nature of the war, and because of this

On his final day, while out fishing with Elroy, he made his choice. “Even in my imagination, the shore just twenty yards away, I couldn’t make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassment, that’s all it was. And right then I submitted. I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to. That was the sad thing. And so I sat in the bow of the boat and cried. It was loud now. Loud, hard crying” (O’Brien, 57). This was the moment that his true feelings started to show. Despite his sadness about it, he was going to stay and possibly kill or be killed for a cause he didn’t believe in. After a long emotional contemplation, he concluded that anything he could do to avoid embarrassment was preferable over the peace of mind in not being at