Similarities Between I Know Why The Caged Bird Friends And The Things They Carried

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What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger Pain. What is pain but a state of mind that only the one’s who endure it can control? Does the pain ever truly go away or does it just stay submissive inside of you? Maya Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tim O’brien’s fiction The Things They Carried both take you on an emotional adventure, in which the authors highlight the pain and heartbreak of their characters and the many situations they are forced to cope with. Tim O’brien’s novel revolves around the soldiers of Vietnam and the turmoil that war brings to the people fighting and living there. In contrast, Maya Angelou does not depict a world of war but instead a world of segregation and sin. Although Maya Angelou is only …show more content…

Friends and relatives are forced to watch one another die in combat and are left with nothing but the feeling of helplessness. As a soldier in Vietnam, Tim O’Brien’s character, Norman Bowker, experienced this feeling when a fellow soldier, named Kiowa, died in front of his eyes. Norman had thought about “How he had been braver than ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be” (147). As he lay in a field of manure being bombarded with shrapnel and bullets, Norman watched Kiowa slowly sink into the mud, barely alive but still living. It had crossed Norman’s mind that Kiowa still had a chance of surviving if he was pulled out of the line of fire. However, the fierce attack by the Vietnamese army forced Norman to retreat and made him leave his friend behind in the process. When Norman came home from war, he began talking to his dad about everything that had happened. He explained that he had felt brave for living and fighting in the war but felt an immense guilt for not being brave enough to save a fellow soldier. This was surprising to hear because when someone tells a story of war, typically they make themselves out to be a hero. However, Norman describes himself to be almost a coward and puts himself down for his actions. This guilt was something that he may have never had to deal with before if it wasn’t for the war. Norman now carries the weight of his friend’s life on his shoulders. Another example of this was demonstrated with an additional character in the novel, Dave Jensen. When the war began, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk made a pact that included a promise to kill the other person if something were to happen to them that may make them suffer. One day when they were walking through Vietnam, Lee stepped on a mine and took his own leg off. According to the pact, Dave Jensen was supposed to kill Lee but when Lee begged

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