How Does O Brien Show Courage In The Things They Carried

In this chapter he faces the splitting conflict between the guilt of avoiding the war and the guilt of killing other humans, resulting in him to feel like a coward in both decisions. Due to his fear of the law, he chose to go to war, because he knew societal pressures controlled a moral influence that overpowered his own aversion to the war. At the end he says, “I was a coward. I went to the war,” (O’Brien 61) indicating that because of the guilt and rejection he would face if he didn’t go to the war, he made the decision even though he thought it wasn’t the right thing to do.

O'Brien's The Things They Carried O’Connor remarks “The Things They Carried” is a short story that is written “as an experience not an abstraction” and that “the meaning has been embodied in it”. These quotations are truly pure in description and interpretation of the short story as the reader, must look beyond the crude physical properties of the objects and actions chronicled and focus more upon their hidden meanings and messages. O’Brien uses the physical characteristics of weight to make an impact upon the reader to relate with the men. In emphasizing the soldier’s everyday burden, the reader can easily relate to the situation in general. As the story progresses, the main attention of the

This helped us see that the narrator thought the war was traumatizing. To begin, O’brien used the literary device, Man vs. Self, to relay that war is a traumatizing experience. One thing he said that shows this is, “when I’m reading a newspaper or just sitting or just sitting alone in a room I’ll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog.” He is trying to cope with it everyday that he had to kill a man that had done no harm to him. He sees the young man walking past him often as constant reminder.

In the short story “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien, metaphors are used throughout the story to emphasize that a passing of time does not make it any easier for soldiers to convey their thoughts and attachments to the war to those around them. The story takes place after the war is over on a Sunday at a lake. Norman Bowker, the main character, is seen driving continuously around this lake while thinking about his childhood. He drives around so much that has already passed two young boys on the same road “six times, forty-two miles, nearly three hours without stop” (O’Brien 133). As he continues to circle the lake, the reader is able to discover more about Bowker’s past in his hometown. “Before the war, they’d driven around the lake as friends, but now…the high school girls were mostly

Towards the end we see again how O’Brien bashes himself because he killed a young man, he believes that war is made up of acts of brutality and cowardice. O’Brien continually bashes himself for his acts of “cowardice,” or at least that is how he views these actions. There are also other acts in which courage or at least the thought of coming off as a brave more solid put the men into scary situations. Lemons behavior is a perfect example of this because he was known for his fear of the dentist, and he fainted even before the army dentist examined him. For Lemon to get over his embarrassment he got a perfectly good tooth removed, this is viewed as not an act of courage but an act of cowardice. At first, courage is played out to be something fundamental and severe for a person to have and everyone at home views the soldiers that went off to fight like heroes. However, in Vietnam, the idea of courage becomes almost laughable. They all fear everything, any little noise any sudden movements, any tiny bit of pain and even incest and diseases.

Furthermore, O’Brien himself admits he went to war not out of courage, but out of embarrassment and cowardice. In the chapter “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien received a draft letter for the Vietnam War. He was in shock, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it. A mistake, maybe—a foul up in the paperwork. I was no soldier… I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness” (41-42). Obviously, O’Brien did not want to go to war. However, he was

We see this in the beginning of the story, when O’Brien himself was drafted into war. He didn’t want to go, He wanted life to stay normal, to run away from the madness; he wasn’t ready: “I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war”(79). However, he was weak and gave in, and went to the war. If he were strong, he would have ran and took on any challenge his way. Towards the end of the story, Strunk looks very weak. He gets his leg shot off, and earlier in the story, he made a deal that if this were to happen, the other would end it. Well, Jensen backs out and doesn’t kill him, showing weakness. Also, Strunk sounds extremely weak as well, as we see when he states “"Oh, Jesus," he said, and moaned, and tried to slide away and said, "Jesus, man, don't kill me" (Enemies.2). We see the fear of weakness again when it states “They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture” (The Things They Carried.77). In this, the “heaviest burden” indicates that this fear of weakness follows them everywhere and is always in the back of their heads. Because of fear of weakness, O’Brien went to war instead of overcoming running away & Strunk lived handicap, thus showing how fear was a hinderance and a setback for

In the chapter titled “The Man I Killed”, O’Brien shares the story of the time he killed another man in Vietnam. During the chapter, O’Brien seems to be going off on multiple tangents talking about random things like how, “He wore a black shirt, black pajama pants, a gray ammunition belt, a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand.” (O’Brien 118) O’Brien also keeps repeating phrases such as, “His jaw was in his throat” and “One eye was shut and the other was a star-shaped hole”. (O’Brien 118-124) In “Speaking of Courage” O’Brien tells a story of how when Norman Bowker was discharged, he returned to his hometown finding he could not acclimate to the ‘normal’ world.

On the Rainy River is the name of a chapter in Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried. O’Brien tells the story of one of his life experiences: how he almost ran from the Vietnam War and almost tried to escape to Canada. This story uses the first person as O’Brien recounts a personal story using “I.” He uses a lot of imagery, characterization, and even a bit of foreshadowing. However, the use of these devices help the story that he is telling to seem so much more true, so much more realistic. Imagery can be seen throughout the story, and it is apparent when O’Brien describes the people he is imagining.

A second significant theme that O’Brian presents in The Things They Carried is guilt, the emotions that hung over the soldiers after tragedies occurred. O’Brien develops this theme in the novel through Imagery and symbolism. The first example of guilt is presented in the chapter title “The Things They Carried.” After Ted Lavender was shot in the head during their mission, the author shows the guilt that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was feeling through the use of Imagery. O’Brien write, “ On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters. Then he burned the two photographs. There was steady rain falling, which made it difficult, but he used heat tabs and Sterno to

The war has changed O'Brien in many ways, it has taught him lessons, shown him things he has never seen before, been in situations that were virtually difficult situations to be in. He entered the war as a younger man who was scared of what would come to be if he tried to dodge the draft and war. He was afraid of the shame it would bring to him and his family. Although he contemplated dodging the war he ultimatley came to going to Vietnam and joining the fight. From this, O'Brien comes out of the war with horrific stories and events that took place reselling them throughout the novel so that the reader could get a clear understanding of the misconceptions of war and what it truly is. As said, " In a true war story, if theirs a moral at all,

After being in these conditions for so long, the only thing that they want is to get out as quickly as possible. Tim O’ Brien’s opinion towards war is also shown through this passage. It shows how tired of the war he and his company were.

Fear is the most powerful emotion humans can feel. It is so powerful that, someone who is extremely fearful or lacks fear, is said to have a mental disorder. Fear is vital, a necessary response to danger that protects us from danger. Yet fear can dictate how you live your life and can motivate you to do questionable things. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien shows that a soldier’s greatest fear is the fear of shame and that this fear can sometimes cause soldiers to act against their own principles. Tim O’Brien shows this fear through the different characters in his platoon and how they all share a common fear, only differing in the way they show it. While O’Brien told us about a soldier’s physical burdens, he told us that “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.”

Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.” (38). The fact that O’Brien hates this war so much is just one of the reasons that sparked his plan to evacuate to Canada. He just simply doesn’t believe that there is a unity of purpose when it came to history or law. This leads into the beliefs he has when it comes to politics and how he claims he is politically naive, as well as being a liberal. But hate isn't the only characteristic shown. O’Brien displays how fearful he is as well.”It was a moral split. I couldn’t make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile.” (42). He explains that he didn’t want to just leave his family and friends and he feared losing the respect of his parents.Law and ridicule was feared as well

In this passage O’brien demonstrates his own character traits. As a writer, he has a strong ability to understand what others are feeling and sympathize. When he kills the young soldier, he creates a story around him, imaging the soldier as having similar struggles to his own. He deeply regrets the soldier's death because he feels that neither of them really wanted to be fighting in this war and relates his own life story to the fictional one he creates for the soldier.