Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried: An Analysis

Tim O’Brien represents in his book The Things They Carried very well how the war changed the life of the soldiers. When they came to the war they were teenager, who were in one way very excited and proud to fight. The war did not just changed the view of the soldiers about the war, it also changed how the soldiers perceived what happened. The perception from soldiers change during the war, because soldiers started to perceive happening differently than it actually happened in reality.

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.”

In chapter one of The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien discusses how war influences soldiers psychologically. The vivid description of the “things” each soldier carries tells a story. Thoughts, memories, and physical items are extremely valuable in their abnormal situation. These possessions are the only things the soldiers have and mean everything to them. No training or life experience could have prepared them for what they endure in war. Soldiers grasp onto these shreds of hope from their past as a reminder of the outside world. There is no escape from this place of constant fear and death. Here, death is unpredictable and sudden and the soldiers are forced to carry on. For example, when Lavender is shot dead by a hidden sniper,

This quote explains the physical dangers of war. Along with that, it shows detailed imagery of a violent bombardment. "It has reinforced us with dullness so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought" (274). This quote explains the psychological part of war. The soldiers are breaking to pieces over the horrors of war, but the adrenaline has left them without

War was brutal. War was tough. War was death. Being away from home for a period of time became hard, and you needed something to carry from home to get you through the war. Many of the soldiers carried embarrassment, fear, and uncertainty in the novel, The Things They Carried.

War is full of different emotions; happiness, sorrow, pain, anger, excitement, and most of all, fear. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien focuses all these emotions throughout the story, especially fear. He paints a vivid picture of what the fear was like that they faced. How it still affected their lives afterwards, and what that fear did to the soldiers and their thoughts.

In the novel, The Things They Carried, the war stories of the characters are nothing like the glamour-filled heroic tales. Men had enlisted in the Vietnam war in honor of serving their country despite the uncertain outcomes. The silent truths of the war remain hidden until resurfaced through trauma. The narrator, Tim O’Brien shows the readers how the results of war can be unsettling and scar the soldiers forever. Though the soldiers have survived physically, mentally they are dead. Every time a death takes place in the story, guilt takes over the soldiers rational thoughts. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien clarifies the misconceptions of war being honorable to portray the truth of the Vietnam War and how it has psychologically self-destructive

War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and

When people think of war what comes to mind is death, torture, and destruction. War instills fear since everyone dreads involvement in the ordeal (Mazlish 10). The experience of war leaves people with physical and psychological scars. Tim Obrien in “The Things they Carried” brings to light the tribulations faced by the soldiers in their quest to restore peace. He asserts, ‘war is hell (Brien 8).’This is an exhilarating story that brings to light the fact that, despite their participation in the war, soldiers are still human. Stanley Kubrick echoes Obrien’s sentiments in his award winning film the Full Metal Jacket. Both highlight the ugly truths of war as full of cruelties and absurdities. The experience of war for the soldiers shows that they are still human with feelings and emotions (Mazlish 11). For some, their emotions grow stronger while others undergo mental anguish and breakdowns, but whatever the case nobody is ever the same again.

War is courage. War is sacrifice. War is heroism, to the outsiders at least. To the young men fighting for their country daily, a decision that is far beyond their control, war strikes entirely different emotions in their minds. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, “The Things They Carried,” he reveals that soldiers carry much more than meets the eye. Yes, soldiers carry loads of physical items needed for survival, but what about the emotional and psychological aspects war leaves for the young soldiers to carry in their minds? In this segment of O’Brien’s novel, he exposes that what these young men experience in their time at war changes them forever. A soldier before and after the war are two completely different people, simply because war is powerful, and it has the ability to alter your mind and feelings permanently. O’Brien shows this through themes of distraction, guilt, and lost love.

Many people lack the understanding of the burdens, or the dangers associated with lack of focus, in battle, and the emotional baggage gained by these wars. Many times, during major wars, the majority of soldiers are younger adults, so they are naïve to many experiences, and they are forced to ignore those traumatic experiences. As a result, of war and those experiences, many are lucky to come back alive, but even those who survive, still suffer deep emotional wounds and have emotional problems. Therefore, Soldiers who are successful in returning safe, make an effort to stay focused on the moment, because when they lose mental focus they will die. Similarly, in the story The Things they Carried, by Tim O’Brien, he tells of the baggage associated

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

In “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, it is evident that the psychological impact of what the soldiers went through was heavier than all of the supplies and equipment they carried. Wartime can be much harder on some men than others, it is a true test of resilience. Some soldiers were driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to have a reason to continue to fight. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery. Sadly, it is not until the completion of the story where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is brought back to reality by the tragic death of his soldier and friend, Ted Lavender, and ready to face the tasks

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

"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.