Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried Essay

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Humankind has undergone evolutionary traits that have enabled us to create dramatic change. Our perceptibility to change is what makes us able to grow and become newer, even altered versions of ourselves. However, these alterations, which were meant to be beneficial, can have negative implications. In Tim O’Brien’s accumulated collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, fictional writer Tim writes about Mary Anne, an innocent girl who is exposed to the devastated world of the Vietnam War. Using a chronological system of events from Mary Anne’s “character arc,” O’Brien develops the theme of the negative implications of war. The first instance of Mary Anne developing the negative effects of her wartime surroundings starts when she is first introduced. She is described as an innocent and pure girl, …show more content…
not necessarily a house on Lake Erie,” but before Vietnam, her stance on these subjects was quite the opposite. This understatement suggests that while these things were once important, they are no longer absolute requirements, highlighting the idea that Vietnam’s negative influence caused a significant shift in Mary Anne’s thoughts. This is how both Mary Anne’s behavioral and psychological changes in her “character arc” demonstrate war’s corruptive influence. The final instance of O’Brien developing the theme of war’s negative effects is at the final moments of Mary Anne’s “character arc.” Towards the end of her innocence, she slowly starts to distance herself from Fossie, for “all night long... Mary Anne was out on... ambush... she came... gave Mark Fossie a brisk hug” (65). O’Brien’s subtle use of the word “brisk” could imply that her priorities have now changed from her relationships to her newfound work, which would ultimately take away her life. The duration also started to increase from one night to “nearly three weeks” before she returned. But in a sense, she never returned. Not entirely, not all of her”
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