OBriens Things They Carried Essay: Experiences and Emotions :: Things They Carried Essays

Experiences and Emotions in The Things They Carried Tim OBriens The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. It is a history about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war (King 182). OBrien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an impressive antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, OBrien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point. The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of OBriens predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that introduce the drastic change in manner within the men, OBrien creates within the reader an understanding of the transactions of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen(OBrien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed riffle as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent youthfulness man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device(OBrien 39). Azar has become demented to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is ho rrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order affirm within the group. OBrien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror therefore fulfilling OBriens purpose, to convince the reader of wars severely negative effects.