How Does O Brien Bear The Burden Of Guilt

O’Brien structures the chapter the way it is to emphasis the mixed emotions he feels during the present day. He essentially aims to portray how the narrator processes the sudden plethora of emotions and memories, ranging from good and bad during the war.

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

The reader can interpret that the war depicts these kids as adult soldiers who are responsible for the safety of many people. However, the O’ Brien depicts the soldiers in this book as kids. The reader can see that these soldiers are just kids because of how they love playing pranks and blowing things up. Also, this quote gives the reader a sense of human perspective on the war because it still shows how innocent these kids are and that these kids have still not seen the affect war has on someone. In conclusion, the book liberates us from facts and statistics and it provides us with a much broader and more human perspective on the war because of how the soldiers write about their fear and it shows that they are still human and have feelings and not pure soldiers.

However, the man that he killed came to represent the real people behind the war in Vietnam. O’Brien states, “I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy” (132). However, he killed the man because in order to stay alive he had to kill. Vietnam’s victories were based on the kill count, yet the men who made up this body count were real people. By describing a hypothetical life for the man that he killed O’Brien demonstrates that all the men were not just defined as soldiers.

To make the reader question the stories, O’Brien observes that stories can be changed to prove different points. He notes that different stories can make you feel better or worse. However, O’Brien also explains that absolutely true war stories are never as glamorous as their false counterparts, such as those in films. They don’t provide a reader with the confusing nature of war, but rather false stories do because they can be misconstrued to make the reader understand the feelings of a soldier. This answers part of the central question by showing how soldiers feel about

His use of words such as “empty,” “wounded,” and “weak” showed how these soldiers were suffering due to the strain the war had on their bodies. Those words convey how painful the war was on the soldier’s muscles and bones, leaving them unhealthy and begging for a break. Thus, O’Brien was sympathetic towards the soldiers because they had to constantly endure pain with “no volition, no will.” This filled O’Brien was rage towards the U.S. for forcing these soldiers to undergo conditions that “st[u]nk with fungus and decay” because it showed how unremorseful they were for forcing men to stay and serve. If it was the other way around, the government could not survive in those conditions and would demand for more aid or protest their involvement.

Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried” epitomizes the degradation of morals that war produces. This interpretation is personified in the characters who gradually blur the line dividing right and wrong as the motives for war itself become unclear. The morality of soldiers and the purpose of war are tied also to the truth the soldiers must tell themselves in order to participate in the gruesome and random killing which is falsely justified by the U.S government. The lack of purpose in the Vietnam War permanently altered the soldier’s perspective of how to react to situations and in most cases they turned to violence to express their frustration.

During the Vietnam War, countless young men were sent off to war to die. These young men had not much involvement in the conflict, but nonetheless, they were sent off to war by the government. Due to their lack of experience and the brutal methods of warfare used during the war, millions of young men tragically died. Tim O’ Brien – a veteran of this brutal war– wrote numerous stories regarding what he encountered in the war. In the Things They Carried, Tim wrote two stories about a man he killed during the war.

The Vietnam War generates the idea that time in violent environments can impact a person's emotional and physical health causing that person to lose sight of their morals and ethics. This is proven true in Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried. In O’Brien’s novel the author delivers to the reader a variety of war stories from unique perspectives of many American soldiers. By this, the reader can observe that O'Brien's narrations of war stories reveals the difficulties of the war and the purposelessness of it.

Violence and guilt are an unavoidable reality in the brutality of war. In the story, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, violence and guilt are used as two major themes that shape the story that O'Brien tells about his experience as a veteran in the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brian uses descriptive language and the events of the story to help understand violence and guilt, ultimately revealing that many violent acts can leave you with the long-lasting feelings of guilt and regret. One of the stories that O’Brian tells is about a Vietnamese man that he killed.

The narrator’s emotions toward the war contribute to the overall tone of the chapter. The word “coward” (79) applies emphasis to this tone by showing how he feels about his involvement in a war he does not believe in. The narrator also uses the word “detested” (10) in order to demonstrate his feelings for the war.  On these same lines, O’Brien discusses his “hate[red]” (4) for the situation he now finds himself in. The label of the word “coward” (79) is one people are rarely content with; it is a self-deprecating word that instigates the ashamed tone.  This negative connotation can be applied to “detested” (10) and “hate[red]” (4) which are words that cause a feeling of discomfort within a person.  O’Brien “detest[s]” (10) the war, and

While in most war stories people learn about heroism and lessons of bravery, O’Brian focuses on memories and examples of not uplifting and instructive, “He lay face-up in the center of the trail, a slim, dead almost dainty young man. He had bony legs, a narrow waist, long shapely

Bierce goes into gruesome detail about one of the men whose “face that lacked a lower jaw” and “hanging shreds of flesh and splinters.” When people think about the war they do not generally think about how badly a soldier got wounded. The details gave the reader a sort of reality of

O’Brien felt that if he fails to ignore the ridicule, he will lose his peace to war. Ultimately, O’Brien never regains the peace he seeks as the terrors of Vietnam follow him for the rest of his life. The belief in war, in suffering, is continuously questioned in both works as well. There is a doubt in the tone of O’Brien as he speaks of “the things men did or felt they had to do” (O’Brien 34). In my eyes, O’Brien is fighting the idea of this hell he lived through being rationalized.

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought after power and control. It is human instinct to desire to be the undisputed champion, but when does it become a problem? Warfare has been practiced throughout civilization as a way to justify power. Though the orders come directly from one man, thousands of men and women pay the ultimate sacrifice. In Randall Jerrell’s “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, Jarrell is commenting on the brutality of warfare. Not only does Jarrell address the tragedies of war, he also blames politics, war leaders, and the soldier’s acknowledgement of his duties. (Hill 6) With only five lines of text, his poems allows the reader to understand what a soldier can go through. With the use of Jerrell’s poem, The Vietnam War, and Brian Turner’s “Ameriki Jundee”, the truth of combat will be revealed.