143)
Norman Bowker is a disillusioned person because he feels that his service in the war has been meaningless. The quote speaks a lot about what he feels about the people of his town. He has just returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam where he witnessed a lot of bloodshed and violence, which has left deep wounds in his soul. Bowker has gone through a lot of hardship in the battlefront where he has lost his best friend Kiowa to a mortar attack. The townspeople cannot do anything for him because they don't have the memories of the war he has. They have not experienced what he has seen out there. He feels tortured inside because he is unable to share the trauma of his war experience with anyone. At the same time it's impossible for him to erase the horrifying memories on the battlefront because it's very hard. He feels that they all have duped into going to the war by the people of his town and ordinary citizens in the United States who value medals more than anything else. They do not care about what happens across enemy lines as long as there are some medals involved. His bitterness is quite apparent with the quote he makes above. He wishes they understood how tough it was for him to loose his comrades in battle.
In the Field
He'd lost Kiowa and his weapon and his flashlight and his girlfriend's picture. He remembered this. He remembered wondering if he could lose himself." (O'Brien, Chapter 17, pg. 171)
Kiowa plays an important role in unleashing the emotions of Lieutenant Cross and an unnamed soldier. Kiowa is hit by enemy fire after the unnamed soldier uses a flashlight to show him a picture of his ex-girlfriend. This brings out a lot of guilt in him as he believes that Kiowa would still be alive had he not used his flashlight to alert the enemy. it's apparent that he blames his people for letting this tragedy happen. He feels that he is too attached to his memories of people...
The audience has the feeling that O'Brian is presenting them with significant and personal stories from his life. This slowly but surely makes readers feel that they too are connected to the war and to the narrator. It sometimes seems that O'Brian also addresses present day issues in the book, not just happenings from the war. The bond between him and the audience is strengthened through this technique because people
I can make myself feel again (O'Brien, p. 180). And, through story truth, what the story is able to do for O'Brien, it becomes able also to do for the reader. In "The Lives of the Dead," O'Brien further elaborates on his need for stories universally. Through make-believe -- imagination, stories, fiction -- O'Brien finds that he can not only resurrect the dead but also lay a barrier between himself and
Tim O'Brien's the Things They Carried In his book, The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien is allowing the reader to see the negative effects war has on people, especially on soldiers. Through a variety of short stories focused primarily on the Vietnam war, O'Brien illustrates the horror of war through exquisite detail of the violent nature that each soldier seemed to have adopted as time went on in Vietnam. By focusing
It is very difficult to reach a conclusion regarding "The Things They Carried" and the purpose for which O'Brien wrote it. While a first look on the collection of books is probable to provide someone with the feeling that it is easy to read and does not involve a lot of strong feelings, the truth is that this is what the writer intended it to look like. Not only is
W.B. Yeats' poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death illustrates the close proximity life shares with death much like The Things They Carried. Yeats' poem is brief and in the first person describes an Irish military man explaining his decision to fight in a war in which he foresees his inevitable death. This relates to O'Brien's short story in that both protagonists understand their life is near an end due
Furthermore, in environments that are highly conducive to trauma, such as war or a paramilitary educational institution that is predominantly filled with Caucasian males who are permitted to attack one another during a certain period in their careers, conventional morals can also become distorted .The differences of right and wrong that apply to the outside world, the world that was inhabited by people before they left it to take place
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