How Does Norman Bowker Show Idleness In Speaking Of Courage

The Vietnam War that commenced on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, took the soldiers through a devastating experience. Many lost their lives while others maimed as the war unfolded into its full magnitude. The book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman presents a series of letters written by the soldiers to their loved ones and families narrating the ordeals and experiences in the Warfield. In the book, Edelman presents the narrations of over 200 letters reflecting the soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield. While the letters were written many decades ago, they hold great significance as they can mirror the periods and the contexts within which they were sent. This paper takes into account five letters from different timelines and analyzes them against the events that occurred in those periods vis a vis their significance. The conclusion will also have a personal opinion and observation regarding the book and its impacts.

Norman Bowker keeps his thoughts to himself, because of his difficulty expressing his emotions. He could not find the words to show and tell others how he felt from his experiences from the war. In doing so Bowker carries all the damage that war can do to a man during and after the war. The crucial healing process that includes telling one’s stories and thoughts of the war was something he could not do properly. Bowker had a possible chance of some therapy through the story in the book from O’Brien, but the story is not told in the correct way to Bowker’s true feelings, and leads to his emotional burdened death.

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

Speaking of Courage is a chapter about Norman Bowker’s struggles to adapt to life after the Vietnam War. The chapter starts with Bowker driving in circles around the lake while the author describes the town and beautiful lake. One symbol in this chapter is Norman Bowkers truck, which symbols the thought of comfort. A lot of things changed throughout the war but Bowker still had his truck to drive in. Also, Sally is another symbol in this chapter. She symbols time and change. Norman used to be in love with Sally, but now she is married and has moved on to new things in her life. While driving, Norman begins to think about the shit field and how he almost got to silver star. He imagines himself talking to his father and explaining what happened.

In The Things They Carried there are some moments of love and some moments of many other emotions far too many to account for. Jimmy Cross one of the soldiers in the platoon use to carry around a love letter. This “love” letter was from his beloved Martha. His love for Martha was unrequited to say the least however that’s not why he carried this letter full of regret. He carried it so no matter how long the war waged on he would never forget that there was a better place in the world then where he was at right now smelling napalm in the morning or smelling the sweet smell of gunpowder in the air. Although his mind never wavered from the thought of seeing Martha many soldiers who come back their minds never seem to leave the treacherous place called Vietnam. “I almost won the silver star,” these statements made by returned soldiers just prove to me and those who have spoken to them that they haven't forgotten the war. There minds forever wavering in the air over the battlefield thinking about what they had almost achieved during the

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

In the two chapters, Speaking Of Courage and Notes, the story is mostly about shit. The chapter Notes tells us the story from O’Brien’s point of view looking back In both chapters, we see how Norman Bowker is upset with life. He believes that he is stuck in the shit

The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.

Death defines life; it has the ability to reinvent the living for better or worse. “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, provides a non-linear, semi-fictitious account of the Vietnam War that poignantly depicts the complicated relationship between life and death. His account breathes subtle vitality and realism into the lingering presence of the dead, intimating that the memories they impart have as profound an impact as the living.

In O'Brien's chapter "Speaking of Courage", from the novel "The Things They Carried", tension between outward conformity and inward questioning is shown throughout the chapter. In the text the audience is exposed to a post-war insight into the life of a young Vietnam Veteran Norman Bowker and his many struggles. With himself he brings home countless amounts of experiences, memories, and thoughts that place him in a setting abstract from what he remembered as "home." Constantly attempting to determine whether his actions were courageous or cowardly; O'Brien not only places tension on the character's distinction between what took place and the reality experience but also on himself as a character.

Norman Bowker guilt and regret comes from the cowardly act of being unable to save his friend, Kiowa, From drowning and sinking into a horrible shitfield in Vietnam, This also makes him unable to talk about his situation with anyone he feels . Bowker's guilty conscience reminds him about his failure to rescue Kiowa. He sits alone in his car and replays the memory of what happened that day in the shitfield, “He grabbed Kiowa by the boot and tried to pull him out. He pulled hard but Kiowa was gone, and then suddenly he felt himself going too. The shit was in his nose and eyes…he could no longer tolerate it.

As Bowker drives around the lake, he greatly wishes that he had someone to tell his story to, but he fears that nobody will understand,

Bowker's dad being "at home watching

“What’s your name?’ he said. ‘Doug Swieteck.’ ‘Douglas, would you read the next rule?’ ‘Doug Swieteck has a question,’ I said.

Speaking of Courage is about Bowker and his experience when he went back home as well as why he didn’t get his silver medal. I think O’Brien wrote this chapter to show the soldiers that go through the motions when they get back. The motions I feel were represented