Human Psyche In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old

In the story titled “The Man I Killed” O’Brien reflects on the events leading to and following his killing of a Vietnamese soldier via a grenade. He goes on to tell the reactions of his platoon mates as well as his own. The explosion of the grenade left the Vietnamese soldier’s face burned and unrecognizable. This symbolizes the life of so many of the thousands of dead Vietnamese soldiers that too were killed and consequently buried. These dead soldiers went unidentified and failed to bring their respective families closure. O’Brien struggles to cope with

Many of the wives talked about the letter their husband/boyfriend sent home, and their inability to talk about anything other than the "weather". One particular wife stood out though for her husband's story. She said he husband left her a simple note that read “I love you sweetheart, but I can't take the flashbacks", before he went in to the garage and killed himself. In this case, it is obvious that whatever the soldier witnessed in Vietnam greatly affected him. He was unable to take seeing the atrocities that he witnessed in Vietnam anymore, he was willing to go to the extreme of taking his own life- dismantling not only his own life, but also his whole families- just to avoid seeing the visions anymore. This would lead many to assume that events the soldiers saw were horrific, and continued to affect them even after they had already returned home. One soldiers wife said "he lost his soul in Vietnam but it took 7 years for his body to catch up", soldiers were dehumanized by the things they had to in Vietnam and this cause them to "die" even though their hearts were still technically beating.

In the novel “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien introduces the reader not only to the subject of war and physical exhaustion, but also to human feelings and inner struggle soldiers are going through at this war. The soldiers carry not only heavy equipment and necessary things; they carry emotions which strengthen their hope of staying alive in order to continue their mission. Tim O’Brien uses female figure Martha to create psychological escape which distracts a young soldier, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, from the war. However, such distraction leads to death of a group member, Ted Lavender. The illusion of love for Martha and false hopes gradually transform into bitter feeling of guilt and the harsh reality of war. Tim O’Brien masterfully describes

During the war, there are many casualties and deaths, with the loss of many people, especially if they had a close relationship, it was difficult for people to cope. Tim O’Brien has a difficult time throughout the war and many years after, because he never let go of the death of his friends, and he does not know how to handle the death. In the Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Tim O’Brien’s relationship with Linda, and the death of Linda, justifies his reactions to people’s death during the war, by acting in a youthful and juvenile way, because from a young age he lost the person he was close with. Tim and Linda had a relationship when they were nine years old.

In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes a chapter on “The Man I Killed”, which describes the characteristics of a young Vietnamese man in which O’Brien may or may not have killed with a grenade. The novel is not chronologically sequenced, which leaves more room for the reader to engage in a critical thought process that fully bridges the author’s mind to their own. In O’Brien’s chapter, “The Man I Killed”, he attempts to humanize the enemy in a way that draws little separation between the enemy and himself by relating the enemy’s life prior to the war to his, and illustrates the war through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it.

Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried tells a story of how war can change a person. It shows the struggle to overcome sadness (about death) and the struggle to deal with death; it shows the human side of war. This story gives strong feeling of love, hate, guilt, etc. and allows the reader to deeply understand the character. Tim O'Brien allows the audience to feel this feeling of love, hate, guilt, etc. better by writing this book as fiction. (in a true way) O'Brien's choice to write his novel as fiction does leave the reader asking a lot of questions, but this (type of writing or art) allows him to more (in a way that's close to the truth or true number) bring across the feeling of love, hate, guilt, etc.

In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien created several allusions that each character endured during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story were vast representations of the things soldiers carried both mentally and physically. The things they carried symbolized their individual roles internally and externally. In addition to symbolism, imagination was a focal theme that stood out amongst the characters. This particular theme played a role as the silent killer amongst Lt. Cross and the platoon both individually and collectively as a group. The theme of imagination created an in depth look of how the war was perceived through each character which helped emphasize their thoughts from an emotional stand point of being young men out at war.

Many authors use storytelling as a vehicle to convey the immortality of past selves and those who have passed to not only in their piece of literature but in their life as an author. In Tim O’Brien’s work of fiction The Things They Carried, through his final chapter “The Lives of the Dead,” O 'Brien conveys that writing is a matter of survival since, the powers of storytelling can ensure the immortality of all those who were significant in his life. Through their immortality, O’Brien has the ability to save himself with a simple story. Through snippets of main plot event of other chapters, O’Brien speaks to the fact the dead have not actually left; they are gone physically, but not spiritually or emotionally. They live on in memories as Linda lives on in the memories of O’Brien and as many of his war buddies live on through his stories. He can revive them and bring them back to the world through his writings and through these emotions or events he experienced with them and with their deaths can make them immortal. Through the reminiscent stories of Linda and O’Brien’s war companions and himself, O’Brien conveys that storytelling allows people to reanimate others who have died and past selves to create an immortality of humans.

Finally, I would like to comment on how the author and the characters deal with death. Even though the characters were acting in a un-humanlike way, the author points out the minds behind the soldiers. Lavenders death is really a central theme in the story, so much so that the event of his death keeps getting repeated over and over again. The author makes it a point to tell the different positions on death. Lavenders death only affects one person in the entire squad, the leader Jimmy. Everyone else in the platoon carried on as if nothing was wrong. In fact, some of the troops were “smoking the dead man’s dope” while waiting for the chopper to arrive to take Lavender away. At first I was appalled at this fact. If a comrade of mine died, the last thing I would do is try to find something to profit from his dead corpse. I would also be afraid for my own life because someone close to me just died. I understand that these are soldiers, and that they deal with death, and are trained to kill. However, when someone close to you dies, that is a different situation. The author does make a point to mention, “They (the soldiers) carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die”, which indicates that the soldiers did feel some kind of emotion. However, it amazes me that these soldiers can even mask their true emotions in the face of their friend dying.

“My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.” Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, was filled with embellished stories and memories of war veterans. O’Brien’s reasoning for writing that particular book was because he believed that while a memory can die with a person, written words are forever set in stone. In his book, War was every one of the soldier’s enemy; It did not matter which side they fought on. War took men physically and mentally. O’Brien displayed how war stories were based on a certain soldier’s experiences, morals, and personality; Readers never truly knew fact from fiction. O’Brien’s intended audience were readers who were

In “Lives of the Dead”, O’Brien’s own innocence is preserved through the memory of Linda, a memory that remains untarnished by the inevitable corruption that results from life. O’Brien’s writings “save Linda’s life. Not her body--her life” (236). Storytelling and memories preserve the value of Linda’s existence while simultaneously allowing O’Brien to process death and destruction in a way that maintains a degree of optimism regarding his own life and future. Juxtaposing the images of body and life emphasizes his desire to save the idea of Linda while accepting the loss of her physical presence. O’Brien rejects the idea of death as absolute and final; instead he suggests that “once you are alive, you can never be dead” (244). Linda’s death solidifies her importance in O’Brien’s own development; she teaches him about life and real love as much as in death as in life. O’Brien’s paradoxical statement defines the lasting impact of Linda on him; her presence in his stories keeps her alive through memory; memories that even her death

By making a death humorous it may help you or someone else deal with the pain about the death or possibly not think of it as an actual death. Also, when thinking constantly about a person who has died, you can begin to create positive memories about that person and feel as if they are still alive. O’Brien demonstrates this in his quote, “But this too is true: stories can save us. I’m forty three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck.”, he still thinks of them alive.

Tim O'Brien provides his audience with a very descriptive image of both the physical and mental "things" the characters in the story carried. He gives the reader insight as to how the characters are physically and mentally dealing with the turmoil of the war. However, in the end of the story - Jimmy Cross - a round character, reacts to the death of Ted

Tim O’Brien tells the story of him and his platoon in Vietnam as well as a little about what each had experienced before and after the war. He tells each story in different way to elaborate on different things that happened around the same time. This complicated method emphasizes how he and each of his platoon member felt together while in Nam.It may jump from tale to tale in the stroy, but it has a clear message. In the story The Things They Carried O’Brien explains in different ways about being away from home can cause dramatic changes to someone in an alienating or a beneficial way.