The Hurt Locker Essay

Since the beginning of mankind, war and the horrors that come with it have had devastating effects on both the minds and the bodies of human beings. Mentally, war drains soldiers of their ability to think properly. During a battle, soldiers witness bloody battles which frequently result in demise. Day after day of witnessing deceased fall to the ground, a soldier can do nothing but think about blood, gore, and his or her fallen comrades. Additionally, a war can be physically taxing on whomever takes part in it. Dodging or being hit by fists, swords, or bullets will inevitably cause pain and may disable somebody for the rest of their life. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque demonstrates through characterization, imagery,

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

In the fictional novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien vividly explains the fear and trauma the soldiers encountered during the Vietnam War. Many of these soldiers are very young and inexperienced. They begin to witness their acquaintances’ tragic demise, and kill other innocent lives on their own. Many people have a background knowledge on the basis of what soldiers face each day, but they don’t have a clear understanding of what goes through these individual’s minds when they’re at war. O’Brien gives descriptive details on the soldiers’ true character by appealing to emotions, using antithesis and imagery.

The psychological effects, the mentality of fighting and killing another human, and the sheer decimation of human values is what makes war atrocious. War is not only fought on the battlefield though. This book also describes the feelings of a soldier fighting his own demons that war has brought on. The battle that the soldier has with himself, is almost if not more damaging than the physical battle of war. He will never forget his experience with battle, no matter how hard he tries the memories of artillery, blood, and death cannot be erased. “I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.” (Sledge). This struggle still happens to soldiers today. Sledge’s words of the struggles still captures the effects of warfare that lingers today. The other effects that war has on the men is the instability that surrounds them at every hour of the day. They are either engaged in battle having bullets and artillery fired at them, or waiting for battle just so they can be deposited back in the pressure cooker of survival. “Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.”

“It’s not pretty exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you,” (81) is a quote from Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried. This quote shows how war can affect an individual through taking over one’s body and mind. War affects everyone in different ways, but it is impossible to understand how war affects each and every single person. The texts and forms of art communicate different ideas to the viewer. It is through interpreting these texts that humans get a better idea of the overall impact of war. When individuals experience war, they lose their innocence and morality. This will be evident through “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Wound,” and “Machine Gun.”

The horrors of war were depicted by the constant threats to the characters lives, the brutal conditions of the bad weather, hunger and combat. Soldiers had to battle the enemy along with nature. Soldiers would become stressed, paranoid and start losing their personalities. As Captain Miller says, “I just know that every man I kill, the farther away from home I feel.” This quote shows the mental toll on these soldiers.

In the book “Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, it shows the horrific reality of war and it clearly depicts the soldiers experiences while fighting in the war. For example the book takes place during the Vietnam War and the reality of that war was that “there were over 2 million wounded soldiers in total by the end of the war”, according to historynet.com. On top of that all the sounds of war deeply affected the soldiers so badly to the point where even if they survived

For the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in “The Things We Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now still feel when they are on a mission. “The Things They carried” shows a deep vulnerability of everyday human’s thought process during times of great stress, that before, wasn’t considered by the general public and media when speaking about what it

Memories and stories swarming the mind and twisted by imagination are the only glimpse of humanity a man can hold on to while at war. Through stories, men at war can share their thinning humanity with one another. The deafening silence of war defeats the human spirit and moral compass, thus it is not only man against man but man against sanity. Tim O 'Brien 's “The Things They Carried” provides a narrative of soldiers in the Vietnam War holding on to the only parts of themselves through their imagination. O’Brien employs symbolic tokens, heavy characterization, and the grueling conflict of man to illustrate how soldiers create metaphorical stories to ease the burden of war.

War can be and has been proven to be a deeply scarring experience for many soldiers. Evidently, nothing can prepare them for warfare, seeing close friends die, and narrowly escaping death themselves. Yet, the worst part of it all is having to live with those memories for a lifetime and the inability to forget. “But the thing about remembering is that you don 't forget” (O’brien 34, 1998). The war which is fought in the minds of soldiers lasts a lifetime, and its effects stretch far beyond the actual battle that is being fought. War can significantly affect a soldier mentally, as seen in the novel “The things they carried” by Tim O 'brien, an interview with Richard Dlugoz, and the poem “Coming Home” by Joe Wheeler.

Since 1968, there have been at least 25 films made that portray the events of the Vietnam War. Historians have to ask themselves when watching these films, "Did the fictional character represent historical figures accurately? Is this how a soldier would react in this situation?" The point of view of the director of the film can change with simple alterations in camera angles. For example, a view from the ground of a battle seen can show how the innocent people had the war in their own backyards. The view from a helicopter can show Viet Cong firing rounds at American troops and the troops can't tell the difference between the innocent and the enemy. The audience feels empathy and sympathy for the person from whose point of view the

The soldier describes the gruesomeness of war as, “obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores.” War is unforgettable and scarring. The experiences a soldier intakes are nowhere near attractive. Clearly, the fantasies of war are sensationalized to those that go to war considering they describe it as the complete opposite of what our society portrays it

The opening scene establishes a three man bomb defusing team confident in their skills baiting us to relax for the moment. However, through the multiple different shots we witness things that begin to create some uneasiness, including shots from ground looking up at some Iraqi people looking through windows, balconies and rooftops. The point of view camera angles causes us to

“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” This quote is the first thing that flashes across the screen as viewers begin their journey into The Hurt Locker, a critically acclaimed war movie written by Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt). The quote was written by former New York Times war correspondent, Chris Hedges and it perfectly sets the stage for a story that depicts just how potent and addicting war can be (Corliss). The 2008 movie won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actor in a Leading Role (“Nominees & Winners”). The Hurt Locker is an exceptional movie that contains everything one would expect from an award-winning film:

"You just don 't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don 't know what it 's all about. Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have it there inside me. That 's how I feel. It 's like . . . this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it 's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I 'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it 's like I 'm full of electricity and I 'm glowing in the dark—I 'm on fire almost—I 'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn 't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can 't feel like that anywhere else."” (O’ Brien 80-81). Tim O’ Brien shows how being in contact with the war can change a person so pure and innocent to a person who isn’t in connection with themselves and is forever trapped inside their own mind. Also it shows how the people who can’t handle the rough environment of war can have a terrible reaction and loose themselves. He also shows how the war changes you mentally making it hard for you to tell if the is the real you or just a persona you took when you couldn’t handle it anymore and needed to mask your broken soul.