Tim O’Brien, having experienced the Vietnam War, addresses the violence of war and its hellish, inherent effects on the people’s mind through portraying Paul Berlin as fearful and mad. Throughout the story, Paul was always seen expressing fear. At the beginning of the story, as Paul and the other soldiers were on their way to the ocean, he became too fearful and started regressing Paul pretended he was not a soldier, but an innocent boy doing a campfire while chatting with his father (page 131). Another example would be the time Paul started counting his steps and pretending they are dollar bills to fight fear, which shows he was fearful (page 134). The fact that Paul regresses and starts counting his steps, which shows before entering the war he was carefree and wasn’t used to fear, explains how the violent war poses such inherent effects on Paul’s mind by turning him from such a carefree, to a fearful person.
(Cleveland Clinic) PTSD wasn't diagnosed until after the Vietnam War, this shows that Vonnegut grew up in a time where no one really understood why soldiers found it so hard coming back from war and soldiers didn't receive aid to come to grips with their experiences. Vonnegut has clearly experienced similar events associated with PTSD whilst being a soldier in Dresden which is why he expresses them in this novel as part of his exposure therapy. The novel does take many twists and turns along the way with the aliens, time travel and the wild 60’s sex revolution, however under all the sub sections of Vonnegut’s true life experiences in an attempt for him to come to terms with his painful wartime memories. The novel seemed the only way to get his thoughts out of him about Dresden, he had tried years earlier with his war buddy O’Hare, however Vonnegut speaks of how O’Hare was reluctant to speak about events due to how traumatic he found his memories of Dresden. “He was unenthusiastic.
When Maggie Glenn, an upstate South Carolina photographer, takes an almost propagandist picture of Mr. Kowalsky looking sad staring at the river of where his passed daughter rests this story picks up fire and politicians from the surrounding area get involved to help get this man’s daughter out of the river, which maddens the locals who would not like to see the only free flowing river in the state be tampered with. Installing a temporary dam in the Tamassee River to retrieve the body of twelve year old Ruth Kowalsky seems like a good, safe way to securely recover this little girl’s body, but the law clearly states “certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.” Then it states “alteration of modification of the streambed will not
We can tell that the writer resents and is frustrated by his father as it says “and he being him can’t help but say.......... and I, being me” which shows that he is frustrated at their relationship. However the Harmonium is used to describe his father so therefore his family life whereas in Nettles it is reversed. The Nettles, that had caused pain for the boy, is actually describing soldiers and war therefore the underlying message is not about family but about war and the underlying message
They do not want to communicate with each other. They quarrel. Then it evolves into violence. Nevertheless, a midnight run to Gettysburg changes the situation. Boys are woken up, sleepily with eyes half-closed at 3 am, ordered to run to Gettysburg, a place that buried 50,000 men who died in America Civil War, and that is where they learn a profound lesson from Coach Boone and reflect on themselves.
In his epic collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien moves past the physical atrocities of the Vietnam War to assess with sensitivity the psychological transformations of his many characters. Throughout each story, we are introduced to a number of individual soldiers from the Alpha Company, each with their unique qualities and traits that they “carry” with them through the ambiguous fields of war. As they become confronted by the “garden of evil” that is “Nam,” each man and woman is irrevocably changed by their experiences. We see soldiers expose their inner animal instincts as a result of their yearning to survive, as well as leadership qualities drawn out of young and immature individuals. Overall, O’Brien gives us a glimpse of the mental side of war as we witness the immense changes to young soldiers brought to Vietnam to fight for their country.
Throughout his book, O'Brien tells several different stories with various themes ranging from physical and emotional burdens, the deaths of Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Kiowa, and Linda, shame used as a motivation, Curt Lemon and the dentist, to name a few. O'Brien also recounts many other stories, the pagoda his group stayed at, the VC soldier he had killed, the trip he and his ten-year-old daughter, Kathleen, take back to Vietnam 20 years after he left there. However, how much of each story is true? Did this happen, did that happen? O’Brien didn’t remember everything that occurred while he was in Vietnam, so he added to the story to make it better, or to fill in the gaps.
8. Tim O’Brien and Huck Finn are similar because they both are conflicted between doing the right thing and being selfish. Huck felt a loyalty towards Mrs. Watson and Jim so much that he so conflicted between being faithful towards Mrs. Watson for taking care of him and towards Jim his friend that helped him a lot. O’Brien’s situation is very similar because he doesn’t want to go to war yet he doesn’t want to be considered a coward; but going to war is considered the right thing to
Chesterfield is making his words feel unnecessary and not worth the time to read. He feels that his rambling won't help his son achieve anything more then he already has, and that his advice can be compared to the garrulity of old age. However, his tone quickly shifts into a much harsher one, as he starts to go off and start tell his son that without his advice, he wouldn't be able to succeed. Chesterfield shifts his letter from a seemingly apologetic mood to a threatening, cold-but-true mood to make sure it catches your eye. Now, he's almost making threats to his son, claiming that if he doesn't listen to his advice, his son will be a failure.
This way of storytelling shows that O’Brien is trying to say that a true story is usually unbelievable and that certain other aspects must either be added in, taken out, or changed in order to make the story more believable. One of these war stories that O’Brien “contemplates” is that of the baby buffalo, a story that he adds to that of the death of Curt Lemon. The story of the baby buffalo revolves around Kiley, a soldier who was friends with the deceased Curt Lemon, and how he nearly destroyed or mutilated a baby buffalo that was somehow barely alive after the amount of “abuse” that it received. Yet through the amount of detail that was put through the story, O’Brien mentions that this story did not actually happen. In fact, O’Brien changed quite a few things about the overall story that he is trying to convey in order to make it more truthful.