Corrupted Morals
The Things They Carried, a novel written by Tim O’Brien leads the readers to believe that a soldier’s imagination can be seen as both harmful and beneficial. This captivating story is set during the Vietnam War. Through the story's narrator, Alpha Company, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, readers get a feel for what the soldiers at that time had to endure. The book speaks of the mental and physical changes that happen to soldiers as days turn into months and months into years. Although the story is set in the Vietnam during the 1960s and early 1970s its relevance is still apparent today with the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, the Department of Veteran Affairs stated that between 1990 and 2007 nearly 74,000 Americans were
…show more content…
Private Leonard Lawrence, the movie’s main character is a substandard recruit. Throughout the movie he is drained emotionally and physically. He changes from a compassionate man to almost an inhuman like character with an unwavering death wish. Eventually he cracks under the pressure and hazing he has to endure from the other soldiers and successfully takes his own life as well as the life of the General whom condoned and encouraged the abuse and hazing (Kubrick). This depiction shows the viewer the same moral corruption that is evident in “Things They Carried.” Another book that analyses the moral corruption of war is “Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers. The story line speaks of a seventeen year old young black man from Harlem named Richie Perry. As the story unfolds the Richie witnesses the ever-escalating levels of destruction and brutality war brings. He continually questions whether there is any straightforward morality in war. In the eyes of a young Richie, the line between good and bad is often very ambiguous. He questions his motives continuously. Is he there because of a true desire to serve his country or did he enlist to escape the conditions of living in Harlem? Richie also becomes disillusioned with his company commander, Captain Stewart and the selfishness he exhibits. Richie along with the rest of his company believe he is more concerned with earning a promotion than he is with the safety of the soldiers under his command (Myers). This again speaks to the moral corruption author O'Brien brings to light in “Things They
In this critical review I would like to critique Tim O’Brien’s characterization. O’Brien’s expression towards each character is very unique because not one of them is exactly alike. They all differ in age and ethnicity, and have different views on the Vietnam War. They bear the weight of their country on their backs, but they also have different emotions weighing on their hearts. “The Things We Carried” takes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his platoon are in the fields of Vietnam. His platoon includes: Mitchell Sanders (Radio Telephone Operator), Rat Kiley (Medic), Henry Dobbins (Machine Gunner), Kiowa, Norman Bowker, Ted Lavender, Dave Jensen, Lee Strunk, and a few other soldiers that O’Brien doesn’t name in the story.
The Things They Carried describes real objects American soldiers carried during the war. They carried an M-60, a .45-caliber pistol, an assault rifle, ammunition, compass, maps, code books, the PRC-25 radio, sandbags, tanning lotion, toilet paper, tranquilizers, rabbit’s foot, Purple Hearts, diseases, the wounded, the weak, and the land itself. Many soldiers experienced horrific events in Vietnam. War affects the mind. O’Brien said, “We all got problems.” (O’Brien 18). O’Brien relates one example of the war’s negative effect when a soldier shoots a baby water buffalo. He not only wants to kill the animal, but to make it suffer. Silence disturbs soldiers. Many times soldiers think they hear something which results in a bad decision. O’Brien describes a group on night watch who hear noises, go crazy...
Both, he and Sonny go off to war to escape poverty. “Fallen Angels” is written by Walter Dean Myers, a famous African American writer. Born and raised in the projects of Harlem, New York, Perry joined the army as an escape out of Harlem: "My plans, maybe just my dreams really, had been to go to college, and to write like James Baldwin. All the other guys in the neighborhood thought I was going to college. I wasn’t, and the army was the place I was going to get away from all the questions"(15). The main reason he decides to go off to war is because he could not afford college, and Perry thought the best escape would be joining the army. Although racial equality within the army and the nation was already established before the Vietnam War, racial tension still caused Perry to join the
Experiences and Emotions in The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. “It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war” (King 182). O'Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, O'Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point.
The title of the book itself couldn’t be more fitting. The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Tim O'Brien about soldiers trying to live through the Vietnam War. These men deal with many struggles and hardships. Throughout this essay I will provide insight into three of the the numerous themes seen throughout the novel: burdens, truth, and death.
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. Author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the burden of guilt when he loses one of his men to an ambush.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
Through The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien moves beyond the horror of fighting in the Vietnam War to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear. Included, is a collection of interrelated stories. A few of the stories are brutal, while others are flawed, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. All the stories, however, deal with one platoon. Some are about the wartime experiences of soldiers, and others are about a 43-year-old writer reminiscing about his platoon’s experiences. In the beginning chapter, O’Brien rambles about the items the soldiers carry into battle, ranging from can openers, pocketknives, and mosquito repellent o Kool-Aid, sewing kits, and M-16 assault rifles. Yet, the story is truly about the intangible things the soldiers “carry”: “grief, terror, love, longing… shameful memories (and) the common secret of cowardice” (Harris & O’Brien 21).
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
The Things They Carried represents a compound documentary novel written by a Vietnam veteran, Tim O'Brien, in whose accounts on the Vietnam war one encounters graphical depictions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Thus, the stories "Speaking of Courage," "The Man I Killed," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Enemies" and "Friends," "Stockings," and "The Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong "all encompass various examples of PTSD.
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War, but in reality, the book centers around the relationships the men make, their connections to the world they left behind and the connections that they formed to Vietnam. The stories are not war stories, but stories about love, respect and the bonds made between men when they spend day after day fighting just to stay alive.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien offers readers very unique and interesting view of the Vietnam War and the mentality of a soldier.