O Brien Loss Of Courage Analysis

Historical- This story was written in the 1970’s about war, the Vietnam War to be more specific. The reason I know it was that war is because the author himself fought in the Vietnam War. In 1968, after graduating from college, O’Brien gets a paper saying he’s being drafted. He was going to flee to the boarder of Canada but he went to war. Coming back after the war he attended Harvard and became an Award winning novelist. The text is saying briefly it was a hard period in time. There were parts where he talks about the character Paul and he says “He was pretending he was a boy again”, I’m guessing deep down he didn’t want to be there fighting.

He doesn't want to go to war, but is afraid the community at home will be ashamed of him. The text says, “in June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated.” (O’Brien 38). This quote shows that O’Brien doesn't want to go to war; he doesn't immediately flee to Canada but rather he considers both sides and eventually chooses to go to war. O’Brien says, “it was easy to imagine people sitting around the table at the old Gobbler Café on Main Street, coffee cups poised, the conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O’Brien kid how the damned sissy had taken off for Canada” (O’Brien 43).

Life can bring unexpected events that individuals might not be prepared to confront. This was the case of O’Brien in the story, “On the Rainy River” from the book The Things They Carried. As an author and character O’Brien describes his experiences about the Vietnam War. In the story, he faces the conflict of whether he should or should not go to war after being drafted. He could not imagine how tough fighting must be, without knowing how to fight, and the reason for such a war. In addition, O’Brien is terrified of the idea of leaving his family, friends and everything he loves behind. He decides to run away from his responsibility with the society. However, a feeling of shame and embarrassment makes him go to war. O’Brien considers

With this part of the story, O’Brien is able to inject the theme of shame motivating the characters in the book. This chapter is about how the author, who is also the narrator, is drafted for the war. He runs away to the border between Canada and the United States, he stays in a motel with an old man for about a week and finds that he should go to war for his country. In the beginning it was about shame, he didn’t want to look like a coward because in truth he was scared. He was afraid to face the pressures of war, the humiliation and the fact of losing “everything”. This man was an average person who lived an average life with no problems, until he got the notice about the war, which caused the shame and fear of being seen as a bad person to come out.

Through The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien moves beyond the horror of fighting in the Vietnam War to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and fear. Included, is a collection of interrelated stories. A few of the stories are brutal, while others are flawed, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. All the stories, however, deal with one platoon. Some are about the wartime experiences of soldiers, and others are about a 43-year-old writer reminiscing about his platoon’s experiences. In the beginning chapter, O’Brien rambles about the items the soldiers carry into battle, ranging from can openers, pocketknives, and mosquito repellent o

Prior to learning he was drafted into a war he hated, we are told that he had recently graduated from college (38). O’Brien says, “I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong” (38). The previous quote shows his confusion towards the war, he then goes on questioning the war by saying, “Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression?” (38) which furthermore provides an example of his uncertainty towards the war. While facing confusion, O’Brien also believed he was “too smart, too passionate” (39) for the war, he claims his drafting was “a mistake, maybe— a foul-up in the paperwork” (39). Both of the quotes show man vs. society conflict. Since O'Brien had recently graduated and received a full scholarship at Harvard, he felt like he was on top of the world, like any other person would if a war was not going on then, society was focused on something he didn't believe so he did not want to accept the harsh reality that he had just been drafted. The narrator also faces man vs self conflict, O’Brien wants to get out of the draft but, he says, “There was no happy way out...my health was solid; I didn't qualify for CO status — no religious grounds, no history as a pacifist” (41). O’Brien knows that it would be illegal to not follow the law of the draft but he also knows that he does NOT want to

The Vietnam War had a life changing effect on the soldiers, including O 'Brien. They came into the war as boys as young as seventeen and left either in body bags made of their own poncho or they came out alive. But were they ever really alive? No, they had their innocence ripped out. They weren 't young boys anymore. Their young selves were killed out in that jungle and all that was left was a carcass of gruesome memories of the tragedy of war, the deaths of their fellow soldiers. They changed as people. O 'Brien came into the war as a young man against war. A young soul believing that the Vietnam War was wrong and there was no need for fighting or killing. However, toward the end of the book he tells us the story of how he got revenge on a fellow soldier. This soldier, while in the middle of war, took too long in treating O 'Brien for a bullet wound and also should have treated him for shock. O 'Brien almost dies on the field but fortunately

The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien begins by Mr. O'Brien describing his dramatical events that happened during the middle of his Vietnam experience while he was fighting in the war. Mr. O'Brien received his draft notice in the month of June in the year of 1968. When he received this notice Mr. O'Brien had feelings of confusion, and that drove him to go north to the Canadian border, and it had him contemplating if he wanted to cross it or not because he does not want to be forced to fight in a war he really does not believe in. However, Mr. O'Brien finally decides that he would feel guilty if he avoided the war and he also feared that his family would be disappointed. Not only does this novel tell us readers about his

Courage tells us a lot of things and makes us think because without courage we shouldn’t live and walk around others with our full emotions and not been not bad and nice but normal “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is what it takes to sit down and listen” (winston churchill). And I think it is the best behavior that a human can have in his life. And there is more good things that we write or learn.

People would think that O’Brien would take pride of being drafted to war, but instead he is having a difficult time in his life. O’Brien decides go across the border to Canada where he meet Elory. While up in Canada, O’Brien was able to realize how ashamed and embarrassed he would feel and how all his family would be disappointed if he didn’t go to war. “All those eyes on me—the town, the whole universe - and I couldn't risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my Iife, that swirl of faces along the river, and in my head I could hear people screaming at me.

In O'Brien's chapter "Speaking of Courage", from the novel "The Things They Carried", tension between outward conformity and inward questioning is shown throughout the chapter. In the text the audience is exposed to a post-war insight into the life of a young Vietnam Veteran Norman Bowker and his many struggles. With himself he brings home countless amounts of experiences, memories, and thoughts that place him in a setting abstract from what he remembered as "home." Constantly attempting to determine whether his actions were courageous or cowardly; O'Brien not only places tension on the character's distinction between what took place and the reality experience but also on himself as a character.

He packed a few things got in his car and left his old life and family behind “Everything sparkled. My house, I thought. My life.” (O’brien Pg 177) It takes a great deal of courage to march out into the world all alone and leaving everything behind to maybe never see it again. That's a great example of what role emotional courage played through O’Briens journey to Canada and ultimately keep him level headed enough to make a

Throughout this book the three girls show their courageousness. In the beginning they all have the courage to leave their homes to seek out one another. They also have the courage to go to a mysterious town, free the citizens, and fight a border guard to get into Fairytale. The characters continue to demonstrate courage throughout the story. Two key events demonstrating courage is when the birds of prey protecting Oonagh's home use their power of fear to freeze the girls. The three girls have the courage to escape into the cave that Oonagh lives in, despite difficulties. Also all three girls have the courage to jump out a window and sacrifice themselves to save Fairytale. Joa also has the courage to call Eli Ador, her boyfriend, as she dies.

While this change could be good or bad during the war as shown by Tim and Mary Ann, it often lead to the soldiers having trouble readjusting to a peaceful life after the war. In the Stories “Speaking of Courage” and “Notes” this difference between a soldier and who they use to be is highlighted very clearly. In “Speaking of Courage” Norman Bowker is reminiscing over a silver medal that he could have won if he had saved his friend Kiowa from drowning in a shit field. Bowker throughout the story is driving in circles around a lake, unable to escape the constant loop of thoughts that kept on leading back to Kiowa. His outlook on life kept him separate and distant from the rest of the town as he felt that he no longer fit such a normal life.

How maybe he was a scholar and maybe his parents were farmers.  Then O'Brien goes on to talk of maybe why this young man was in the army, and maybe why he was fighting;  these are something’s that are taught in the schools.  O'Brien states that the man may have joined because he was struggling for independence, juts like all the people that were fighting with him.  Maybe this man had been taught from the beginning that to defend the land was a mans highest duty and privilege.  Then on the other hand maybe he was not a good fighter, and maybe in poor health but had been told to fight and could not ask any questions.  These reasons are all reasons that are taught in textbooks; they go along with the idea of the draft.  Some people go fight because they want to and others go because they are told they have to. How do you tell these people apart in the heat of battle or when they are dead?  The way that O'Brien starts to describe the young man as someone who was small and frail, and maybe had plans for a bright future puts sorrow in the readers heart, in that all his plans can not happen for him or maybe the family that is longing for his return.  It also shows the regret that maybe going on in the killers’ mind.  For O'Brien to be writing on how this young mans life has come to a sudden end and his plans for the future is over is intriguing.  Then to add to that he had the story written through the eyes of the soldier that ended this young mans life.  The