The Things They Carried :: essays research papers

In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien the author tells to the highest degree his experiences in the Vietnam warfare by telling various war stories. The quote, "It has been tell of war that it is a world where the past has a strong range on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to arrive more will power than me, where decent boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting pitying and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories.The prototypic part of the quote matches with the first humbug, The Things They Carried. The story told close the items that each soldier took with them to the war. The quote says that the past has a strong grip on the present. The items that the soldiers excite with them remind them of there past. Sometimes the soldiers have to let go of something they have because of certai n conditions. For example Jimmy Cross had a good hazard from his girlfriend Martha, it was a pebble that was from the Jersey shoreline. She sent it to him because it reminded her of how they are "together precisely separate". Jimmy took this everywhere during the war and kept it in his mouth. When integrity of his friends got killed during action he got rid of the pebble because he thought it was a distraction.The secondment part of the quote, which says, "Where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me" Relates to the story "The Man I Killed". In this story the author talks about the man he killed. He starts out by describing the dead individual then he starts to regret it. The quote states than in war a machine, which could be a gun, sometimes has more power than a soulfulness does. The author discover this by and by he killed the enemy soldier, he noticed that it was the gun that killed the person and not him. This made him feel bet ter after a while, but never forgot about the person he killed.The war story named "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" relates to the third part of the quote, which says "where keen boys (girls) were attracted to them". The story was about a girl that was changed dramatically by the Vietnam War.