The physical items a soldier carries into war may not seem important at first, but they are crucial to the short story “The Things they carried” written by Tim O’Brien. On the surface, the various items are carried along for numerous reasons. Initially, they are largely determined by necessity. After that, they serve partly as a function of rank and field specialty. An item may also present itself as a means of killing or staying alive. Others were determined, to some extent, by superstition. The items also varied according to the mission. However, the soldiers also carried the mental and emotional baggage of men who might die. Similar to the Greek God Atlas, “they carried the sky” (O’Brien 343). Atlas carried the entire weight of the sky on his shoulders. Incidentally, Atlas was also a soldier of war. The mental, emotional and psychological burdens were much heavier than any piece of physical equipment these men carried, much like carrying the weight of the world. That being said, the function of the items that the soldiers carry is to establish power in an unstable environment, but, instead, they reflect the soldiers powerlessness in war fueled by a panoptic society. Panopticism is powerful in many ways. One of these ways is how its power lies in its ability to frighten and in the knowledge of what it could potentially do. The soldiers of “The Things They Carried” are too frightened to even be cowardly. More specifically, they are afraid of what society will think of them if they do not assume their masculine role and fight for their country. This notion is “what brought them to war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor” (O’Brien 348). The blush is representative... ... middle of paper ... ...rdens, however, are intangible and cannot be helped. So often the men wished to be released from their burdens. They dreamed of a “flight, a kind of fleeing, a kind of falling, falling higher and higher, spinning off the edge of the earth and beyond the sun through the vast, silent vacuum where there were no burdens and where everything weighed exactly nothing” (O’Brien 349). These burdens are almost unbearable, and yet, they appear to have required the perfect balance and posture. That is, essentially, the goal of the panopticon. The power of observation, placed on them by the social structure of society, is so immense that the soldiers are forced to respond by monitoring themselves. For fear of being ashamed or embarrassed, the soldiers over-monitor to the extent that they have given up complete control. The power of their actions at war no longer belongs to them.
Necessities in The Things They Carried In The Things They Carried, the characters themselves probably could not tell you why they carried many of the things they did. The things they carried can be divided into three basic groups, the things that everyone had to carry in order to survive, the things that individuals choose to carry, and the mental burdens that many carry without choice. The necessities that the men were forced to carry were, for example, P- 38 can openers, pocket knives, matches, C-rations, water, nylon covered flak. jacket, an M-16 assault rifle, and for Henry Dobbins, an M-60, which weighed 33-. 38 pounds of ammunition.
In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien shares several different experiences during the Vietnam War that had a great impact on the soldiers that fought along side him and himself. Although not all the stories are connected to one another, some intertwine. Attempting to show the reader who he is then and who he is now throughout the book, O’Brien flips back and forth between the past and the present: sharing his experiences during the war and his current time being a post-war father. War takes a toll on a man in more ways than one. Many seek comfort in bringing personal items with them to battle to remember where they came from and what they have to look forward to when returning home.
Vietnam War was one of the hardest wars ever fought. There are several reasons for this statement. It was basically impossible to conquer the territory because there were no boundaries. The soldiers had to put up with the climate, land, diseases and most importantly themselves. This essay is about yet another reason: the relationship between the soldiers and the officers.
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).
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 soldiers. 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.
Everyday individuals face decisions in which they must choose whether to do what is appealing to them or to choose a more suitable and compliable choice. In the fictional work of ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’ Brien, certain characters such as Tim O’ Brien himself must face decisions similar to these. The novel demonstrates that when an individual is faced with a decision in which there is a choice that he may have to conform, the individual tends to conform due to not wanting to embarrass themselves or to not be portrayed as a coward to others. However when the individual is challenged with these types of decisions, the choice does not matter since the outcome will be what the individual was trying to avoid. That is to say that in the excerpt “The Rainy River” Tim O’ Brien was going through a conflicting decision on whether or not he should go to the war. Yet, as we see it turns out that either choice will lead to either shame or cowardice. If he goes to the war he feels that he will be a coward and that he gave up his own morals and values and accepted something he does not believe in, but if he does not go to war he will be shunned by society and will be labelled as a coward because he will not fight for his country.
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
Imagine walking through a rainy, humid tropical rain forest with forty to fifty pounds of precious luggage strapped to your back wondering where and when the next shot will be fired. Wondering whether or not you will live to see another day of combat with your brothers. American soldiers carried this burden with them every day while in combat during the Vietnam War. In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he explains the positive and negative effects of the things that soldiers carried with them during the Vietnam War.
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.
The weights of desires, fears, and responsibility place great amounts of pressure on an individual. The soldiers in “The Things They Carried” all around lug a great deal of heavy weaponry and equipment. But the heaviest items are intangible things such as their emotions, shame and reputations. These intangible items cannot be discarded and thus, the men continue to “hump” by enduring their weight for the remainder of their lives. Lieutenant Cross realizes that the men “carry these things inside, maintaining a mask of composure” (369) and that unfortunately, the only way to release these things is death.
Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried in 1990, twenty years after the war in Vietnam.In the novel,Obrien takes us through the life of many soliders by telling stories that do not go in chronical order. In doing so we get to see the physical and mental things the soldiers carry throughout the war in Vietnam.Yet the novel is more than just a description of a particular war. In the things they carried Tim O’Brien develops the characters in the book slowly, to show the gradual effect war has on a person. O’Brien shows this by exploring the life of Henry Dobbins, and Norman Bowker.
The Vietnam War was a challenging time for soldiers both physically and mentally. They often didn’t have a choice on whether they were going to war due to the drafting system that had been in place. Many had tangible and intangible things that they carried with them for the sake of their sanity or their job in the unit. The chapter, “The Things They Carried”, in the novel The Things They Carried, captures this immaculately. The author, Tim O’Brien, speaks of the things each man within his unit carried with him. Each man did not just carry tangible objects with him, but also intangible objects as well .
The novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien takes place in the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Lieutenant Cross, is a soldier who is madly in love with a college student named Martha. He carries around photos and letters from her. However, the first few chapters illustrate how this profound love makes him weak in the war.
The word "hero" is so often used to describe people who overcome great difficulties and rise to the challenge that is set before them without even considering the overwhelming odds they are up against. In our culture, heroes are glorified in literature and in the media in various shapes and forms. However, I believe that many of the greatest heroes in our society never receive the credit that they deserve, much less fame or publicity. I believe that a hero is simply someone who stands up for what he/she believes in. A person does not have to rush into a burning building and save someone's life to be a hero. Someone who is a true friend can be a hero. A hero is someone who makes a difference in the lives of others simply by his/her presence. In Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, the true heroes stand out in my mind as those who were true friends and fought for what they believed in. These men and women faced the atrocities of war on a daily basis, as explained by critic David R. Jarraway's essay, "'Excremental Assault' in Tim O'Brien: Trauma and Recovery in Vietnam War Literature" and by Vietnam Veteran Jim Carter. Yet these characters became heroes not by going to drastic measures to do something that would draw attention to themselves, but by being true to their own beliefs and by making a difference to the people around them.
The Things They Carried is a funny little book in the sense that it isn’t told how most books are. It goes from war to camping on the borderline of Canada, back to war, and then into present day times. It works marvelously well, showing you what actually happened and then what he thought about what happened and what he could have done to change the outcome. There are many things that I think people can learn from his experiences in the Vietnam war and the way he tells those stories and lessons really bring you along for the ride.