Tim O Brien's The Things They Carry

How does surviving a war change a human being? Throughout the short story, “The Things They Carry” by Tim O’Brien, many people have an insight as to what the war was like and how it affected people during and after the Vietnam War. O’Brien used different symbols and images to communicate the effect of war on soldiers. This short story is about a man’s accounts, that is known to be based on O’Brien’s experiences himself and his journey through his deployment in the Vietnam War.
A number of the men mentioned in the book continued to be affected by what they saw after they had come back from the war, which can also be known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly known as PSTD (nimh). Men were left emotionally scarred, even when they managed to …show more content…
While the soldiers did carry heavy physical loads, they also carried heavy emotional baggage. The men are faced with the heavy burden of fear and the weight of their reputations. Although every member of the company experiences fear at some point, showing fear will only show vulnerability, and in the eyes of men that is showing weakness not only to the other side but also to their fellow soldiers. Those who survive carry guilt, grief, and confusion, and many of the stories in this book are about the survivors’ attempts to come to terms with what they experienced.
The death of Lavender and its effect on his fellow soldier’s, shows the horrors of the war can make men irreversibly cynical and gloomy. Before the death of Lavender, Cross is consumed by thoughts of Martha but after his death, he burns her letters and it almost seems like he gives up on the idea of love. The emotional burdens that the soldiers bear are intensified by their young age and inexperience, which makes them more impressionable to the effects of war and how it negatively affected them and ultimately changed them as human

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Summary Of Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carry'

Courage And Weaknesses In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carry