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Overall meaning of the things they carried essay
"the things they carried" literary analysis
An essay on the things they carried
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War defines what type of person someone is. The Things They Carried specifically uses the objects that people carry to explain their personalities. Kiowa carries with him “an illustrated New Testament” as a symbol of his religious beliefs; Ted Lavender carries tranquilizers and “six or seven ounces of premium dope” to help calm himself in times of distress (4). As the story progresses, the objects that people like Kiowa and Lavender carry come to define their characters, both to the readers and to the soldiers within the story. Because of the war, soldiers do not care about each other’s personalities, they only know about the personal objects that they carry with them. Soldiers are not only defined by the physical objects they carry; they …show more content…
Typically, people come out of a war either dead, or scarred physically or mentally . Unfortunately, though, not every person will be damaged to the same extent, for war does not treat every person fairly. The characters in The Things They Carried are each affected differently based on their roles and characterization. The soldiers in the story are physically unequal based on the actual objects they carry. They carry several similar objects to one another, however there were a few objects that only certain people carried. Henry Dobbins carries “the M60, which weighed twenty-three pounds unloaded” (10) whereas the majority of what Dave Jensen has to carry is “toothbrush[es], dental floss, and several hotel-size bars of soap” (2). They do not bear the same physical burden. Some people may argue that although they are physically unequal, mentally they are all treated the same. This is not true. They all have feelings of “Grief, terror, love, [and] longing” (76), however Lieutenant Cross in particular holds “the responsibility for the lives of his men” (7). When Lavender dies all of the men grieve, but Lieutenant Cross feels ashamed and believes that the death was completely his fault. In this aspect the war does not treat all men fairly and equally. Komunyakaa’s poem furthers the idea that war is unfair at its …show more content…
Just as the short story uses physical differences to explain the inequalities between soldiers, so too does the poem. The narrator defines his situation as “hiding inside the black granite” to describe how he died in the Vietnam war (2). Later on, the narrator sees a veteran who “lost his right arm / inside the stone” (28-29). The veteran was physically scarred as a result of the war; however, his situation is not equal to the narrator’s, for the narrator was killed. Another example of the unfairness of war is seen in the final words of the poem. The narrator sees a woman “trying to erase names,” but then realizes that she was “brushing a boy’s hair” (30-31). The imagery depicts a woman who has lost her husband, and a boy who has lost his father. The emotional pain that war causes extends to the family members of victims. Two different men who die in a war may not be equal, for a person who does not have a family will not be affected as greatly as a person who does have a
From this, the soldiers have become robotic due to the war, as they no longer possess any emotion or individuality among themselves and thus are no longer differentiable. In order to restore what’s left of their respective identities, the soldiers must carry items that one may assume are “trivial”, when in actuality they are the most significant “things” they carry. For instance, O’Brien details the story behind what one of the soldiers in Cross’ platoon named Kiowa carries by stating, “Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma” (3). This is the only item Kiowa possesses to reminisce on his
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
In "the things they carried", author Tim O’Brien tries to teach readers that war changes people, by using baggage as a symbol throughout the book. Ultimately, "the things they carried" is literally built on a foundation of the things they carried. Whether it’s the way Jimmy Cross uses the pebble to escape from his duties as a soldier. Or the way that they all look up to the pantyhose as an almost godly relic. All the way to Norman Bowker finally realizing that courage comes from within, not from winning the Silver Star. These things, made up the soldiers attributes, made up the soldiers’ persona, made up the soldier. But they didn’t stop at the soldier; certain items characterized all the soldiers as a collective group. It even went as far as to describe an entire group by the things all of them carried, of course being the green berets. There were no single green berets just a group; nobody made an effort to distinguish one from another. Like the way we make no effort to name each and every cell in our body, they are just smaller pieces that make up one entity.
By allowing the reader the "[privilege of] the soldiers experience" (Chattarji) it shows how difficult it is to get rid of the weight as begins to define you and the more it becomes a part of a person the harder it is to remove an aspect of yourself. In his repetition, O'Brien wants to give readers a deeper meaning into the everyday struggles of soldiers. He portrays the ways that soldiers were effected in the war and focused on the burdens that developed. O'Brien highlights how war changes those involved as "[the individual dreams of soldiers rise and fall and] their hopes riddled by disillusionment, their fantasies broken by shrapnel edged realities" (Timmeran). Wartime altered soldier’s perception and caused them to develop these emotional and physical weights that followed them for years. When many solider returned they were now stuck with daily burdens that had started since the day they landed in Vietnam. Constantly, these soldiers endured the long lasting results of participating in the war and unable to escape or forget the weight that they endure. "The Things They Carried" serves as a constant reminder to readers about the true realities of soldiers and the impact of war. How soldiers are not stable as they return home because of these weights that have become a part of them and how simple acts such as carrying around a weapon has now manifested itself into an emotional burden that will not leave. Often the realities of being a soldier are not portrayed accurately but O'Brien attempts to put into perspective what it really is like to go through warfare by drawing on his own experiences as a foot
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
The narrator in “The Things They Carried” deals with the subjective conditions of war. Throughout the story, straining emotions often brought O’Brien’s teams emotions, especially after a death, causes a “crying jag” with a “heavy-duty hurt” (O’Brien 1185). The fury of emotion associated with death begins to erode the sharp minds of the soldiers and become mentally effective. After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might dies” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taken place in the psyche of the narrator is repressed directly by the war. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is also faced with the task of coping with mental
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a captivating recitation in which Tim O'Brien maintains that all the stories featured in the entire book are indeed true stories. Tim is the protagonist as well as the narrator of this particular story and it is the experiences that he had regarding war that have drove him to write the this story. The book gives a clear depiction of the war in Vietnam by showing the horrors of war but there have been varying views regarding the question of whether the book is an antiwar or not. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to address this particular issue by addressing different views in regard to whether the book is an anti-war on not and this will be supported by specific incidences and arguments as featured in The Things They Carried (Kock 45).
In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien the author tells about his experiences in the Vietnam war by telling various war stories. The quote, "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories.
Symbolism in stories is dependent on how the author writes, the title, and the characters. Titles in literature are very important to the symbolism of a story an example of this is Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. As the story goes on it shows not only the literal meaning of what they carried but also symbolically the burdens that they had mentally.
One of the main points in The Things They Carry, by Tim O’Brien, is that war changes people. This is evident in the behavior of Norman Bowker, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and the character Tim O’Brien. They each started out as kind young men but near the end had become very distraught. These men each shared many experiences but these experiences affected each one differently.
“The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition” (12). Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Dave Jensen, and Kiowa all seemed to have a deal in superstition. Each man carried an object that he thought would bring him luck and never left anywhere without it. These men carried these objects because it connected them to home in some way and made them feel more powerful on the battlefield. All men carried fear. At any moment, their life could be lost and they would never see their friends and family ever again. To any ordinary man, his greatest fear in life is death. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried more than just fear for his own life, but the responsibility of the lives of the men in his unit as well. He often would feel guilt as men died throughout the war. Kiowa often carried distrust towards the other men due to biased opinions on where he came from.”That’s a smart Indian. Shut up” (17). Kiowa carried what many men didn’t have within the unit, sympathy. He cared about others even when he didn’t want to and told the honest truth. The final thing every man carried with him is his own mind. The thoughts and memories of war are not always pleasant and it is something they must carry with them for the rest of their lives. “They were tough” (20). The men were tough and though some struggled with the thoughts of war back home, they still fought for their country
Vietnam War a war that took many lives. A war that change the people,the nation and our views. In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien, symbolism is the key into getting the reader understand life behind the line. Tim O'Brien writing give the readers the vivid image through the fact the war has a deeper meaning than one can believe. In this story we see how everyday life through symbols are used in literature writing.
The theme of emotional weight and its effect on soldiers in the Vietnam conflict is one that O'Brien tackles. By placing physical items next to intangible things like emotions in a list format, O'Brien forces his reader to acknowledge the weight and effect of both of these things on the person who carries them. Lt. Jimmy Cross' inner fear that he was the cause of Ted Lavender's death was symbolized by Martha's pebble and letters. He felt that when he burned the pictures he was conquering his fear, even though no one can simply burn their emotions away. To a certain extent, these men are defined by the things that they carry, "And for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry," (O'Brien, 16).
The Things They Carried is a classic because it approaches the gruesome subject of war in a way that is truly unique and honest. O’Brien’s unique point of view results in a book that is revered by the majority of its readers. “Now and then, when I tell this story, someone will come up to me afterward and say she liked it. It’s always a woman. Usually it’s an older woman of kindly temperament and human politics. She’ll explain that as a rule she hates war stories; she can’t understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore. But this one she liked” (pg.65-66). Many soldiers come home from war and try to hide the brutality of war from the rest of the population. Tim O’Brien allows readers in on the horrid truth of war! Throughout the novel, Tim O’Brien depicts how his fellow platoon members are held captive by their subconscious minds. “He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and then shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo” (pg.75). It would be impossible for someone who has not experienced war to understand how the subconscious mind can imprison a soldier. However, O’Brien’s stories are so vivid that the reader feels that he or