Development Through Lists and Repetition In The Things They Carried The Things They Carried is a story by Tim O’Brien that is comprised of many short stories that all come together to tell a winding tale from many viewpoints of one war story through the Vietnam war. The first story in the book, also entitled The Things They Carried, is literally a story about what the soldiers carried with them, both physically and emotionally. As an introductory story to the entire novel, O’Brien uses the opportunity to introduce the setting and characters in a very non-traditional way. O’Brien uses lists and repetition to show how tedious each day of work is for a soldier, but also how the soldiers perceive what is to us extraordinary as a normal day’s work. The lists also describe the emotional baggage each soldier carried, such as First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s (the leader of the squad) love for a girl back home.
“The Show”, for example, dehumanises soldiers within the battlefield and arguably has no sense of “passive suffering” whatsoever. Whereas the likes of poems such as “Exposure” and “Spring offensive” show many examples of what could be interpreted as feelings of acquiescence towards the pain that the soldiers he is writing about are going through. In “Exposure” there seems to be large sense of complacency not only in terms of suffering but with the war as a whole. “We only know the war lasts” indicates this idea of submissiveness as it shows this idea of the soldiers understanding the fact that the war is happening and the harm that it brings but also that they themselves can do nothing about this. The subsequent line “But nothing happens” shows the theme of “passive suffering” through the idea that the word “nothing” brings a sense of the soldiers suffering for almost no cause whatsoever, the fact that it is again, repeated in almost every stanza after puts emphasis on this idea.
Disabled by Wilfred Owen deals with the realities of war and the changes that individuals undergo. The poem manages to convey a sense of age and the harshness of the war. The realities of war seen in Owens poem are the injuries and hardships faced by the soldiers, the loss of innocence and aging of the individual and the impact war has on the individual once they return to the home front. Owen portrays these realities through the use of alliteration, rhetorical question, hyperbole and simile. War is not depicted as glorious or patriotic but rather as the destroyer of young lives as the realities of the hardships faced are exposed.
Affield’s memoir illustrated the very real and raw aspects of war. Wendell’s personal account of life as a soldier started with the horrors of boot camp, eventually explained the terrors of war and finally ended with the rejection and ridicule that he and other soldiers endured on his return home. His detailed accounts helped readers better understand the situation and events that occurred during and after the war in Vietnam. Once Affield enlisted with the United States Navy he was originally stationed on a gunner Naval ship, USS Rogers, and traveled to Vietnam to aide in fighting the Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. This West Pac cruise was difficult, yet it ended up being one of the least devastating assignments of his Vietnam experience.
Although both Homecoming and Weapons Training are based on an anti-war theme, Dawe writes about the different aspects that involve war such as death, weapons, lives lost, soldier’s, families and disrespect. He uses titles that have very strong meanings to people that have been involved in war such as homecoming which every soldier hopes to be able to come home to their families again and weapons training where they are taught to use weapons before the war to prepare to kill the enemy. His poem Homecoming about the Vietnam War; the title itself creates the image of a happy and joyful journey; however Dawe ironically uses this to describe the sadness and sorrow of the dead soldier’s journey as they are transported home back to their families. A soldier’s return from war is supposed to be heroic but these soldiers are treated with a lack of respect.Dawe tries to convey the message to the reader that war is futile and that lives are wasted at war. On the other hand the title of Weapons Training creates the idea that the soldier’s are being trained to use the military weapons although the theme suggests that the soldier’s are actually the so called weapons being trained.
James Rigney Prof. Schneider The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of stories that revolves around the young men of Alpha Company during the Vietnam Conflict. O’Brien begins his book by describing each item all the men are carrying, but not all of the items are physical. Many of the items he describes are both imaginary and emotional that each man must carry while traveling through the Vietnamese country side. O'Brien uses truth in fiction to help tell the stories of Alpha Company from the first page to the very end. He talks about why each of the men carries the things they have on them, the deaths of three men in his group, Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, and Kiowa, as well as the death of his first love, Linda.
Throughout history, many soldiers faced life-threatening or traumatic events during war, as it took heavy tolls on them. Some events would cause them to relive these experiences through either nightmares or flashbacks. Tim O’Brien, a veteran who has received a Purple Heart, knows how traumatic events can affect soldiers as it makes them do things “brand-new and profound” which, in his story, “How To Tell A True War Story”, shows his characters “a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it”(293). There are many terms used to describe this behavior, as war has always had an impact on people, but the most common is called Post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD. It was the new name for an old story, and thanks to the Vietnam War, this disorder has been examined more closely.
There are different ways one could go about interpreting this story. The setting of this story contributes to the ultimate meaning whether it being the same as the person next to you reading the same story or not. For instance, the war references in the story could have someone’s conclusion about the story have something to do with The Vietnam War. Walker states in his article, “Rather, they are unwitting soldiers in a Vietnam of their own making” (Walker). With consideration to the current setting of this story being in this sort of war zone, swampy, tall grass, eerie type of environment, yields similarity to the war zone in Vietnam.
“A good poem may lead to sadness, joyful or simply wandering, but it always leads us to think more deeply about life” Discuss this statement with reference to at least two Sassoon’s poems. A good poem may lead to sadness, joyful or simply wandering, but it always leads us to think more deeply about life. A War poem is a poem that is written on the subject of war. It is applied especially to those in military service. The nature of war poem is to show how horrible and disgusting war is.
"Owen's war poem do not always deal with the horrors of the battlefield but with life before and after the fighting." With close reference to at least two of poems explore this aspect of his poetry. Wilfred Owen's poems Disabled and Wild With All Regrets both deal with the aspect of life before and after the fighting. These aspects are presented differently with different themes, where Disabled highlights the physical impacts of war and what one misses out on such as due to them such as sex and love. Wild With All Regrets showcases the friendship and camaraderie between soldiers though the poem is about a soldier on his deathbed saying goodbye to a friend.