PROMPT #2

In many pieces of literature, the characters can be psychologically impacted by events of the
novel, play, short story, or poem. In a well-written essay, explain how the characters of Tim
O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried are psychologically impacted by the events of the
Vietnam War and how the complexity of the Vietnam War and those psychologically impacted
by it relates to the main themes O’Brien conveys.

Notes:
- Tim had dreams
- Kiowa died in the war, drowns in a sewage field
- Theme: weight of memories
- “They all carried ghosts.”

In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien he desribes the lives of a gorup of
American soldiers during the Vietnam War, and the following impacts that it had on their mental
stabilitty and physical state. Through war follows the inevtiable descruction of lives and morals,
the visible decompositon of innocence, and all of which create the battle scars that leave
American soldiers with scarring memories and purple hearts. In the book, we see the mental
game that is played throughout relationships and war, in this the connections that are put
through turmoil and their minds in which carry the deficits of war, for better and worse of the
complicated mind.
When the idea of going to war was first proposed to Tim O’Brien his response was not
immediate, and fear overpowered his decisions. Throughout the beginning of the book Tim
made the fear within himself apparent, his fears contradicted each other, as he was scared of
war and the unknown harm it would bring, but oppositely scared of being seen as weak in a
society that advocates for brave strength. Though Tim came out victoriously stronger than he
came into the war, his conquering was slow and processed and his decision was subjected
when he describes, that he ¨feared the war, yes, but [he] also feared exile”. Though this anxiety
wasn't directly caused from events during the war, in this moment his attitude changed the way
he looked at himself, and in turn the way people saw him, changing his psychological cycle.
Though he had conquered his fears, after and throughout the war, Tim exemplifies serious
mental diseases such as PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder, a common mental disability
for soldiers after a trying war. His symptoms of post traumatic stres were dreams, in which the
death of his closest friends haunts him as he sleeps, conversing thoroughly with him throughout
the book. Though this is a common symptom of his PTSD his conversations and beliefs on
these interconnections are often morbid as he describes “a story, which is a kind of dreaming,
[in which] the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world”. Without recallance to
an extact memory Tim almost praises the dreams he has acquired from PTSD after wartime,
and in this determines the people who resignated with him the most in order to hold an
intellectual fantasy of conversation with them. Through the conquering of fear to the after affects
of the war it exemplifies the big change in which the traumatic experiences can affect a single
person, as now TIm’s problems of education versus fighting for the country becomes a
meniscual sentiment compared to the tragedies seen in war.
 In the book not only we see the baffling firsthand experiences of Tim O’Brien and his
coping mechanisms to these events, but also the inside dynamic of his friend group, the people
he forms connections to, and the way the war affects them individually as well. More specfically
people suh Bob Kiley, often known at “Rat” in the book for his infamous deception in storytelling.
In war, he is a medic, a man who “wears his heart on his sleeve”, and in some cases
short-tempered, but through this he exemplifies devotion to those he cares about. A friend
specifically named, Curt Lemon, often careless in the Alpha Company but respected by Rat,
comes across a grenade, accidentally stepping on it and leaving Rat Kiley in pure distraught.
TIm recalls “Rat pour[ing] his heart out. He says he loved the guy. He says the guy was his
best friend in the world”, with these words and the observations of even the outside eye of Rat
and Lemon’s relationship it leaves Rat with strained emotion, guilt, and anxiety. Though the
carelessness of Curt caught him in death, his death became the great deficit for Rat and Rat’s
next actions were a direct response to his death. As his mind became unpredicatable he worried
what he was capable of doing and for this reason “[h]e took off his boots and socks, laid out his
medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot” in order to be sent home. Not
only does the effects affect the mind of Rat Kiley and Tim the point of insanity it has brought
them makes them willing to do anything to get out of this uncontrollable position.
In the book it continues to exemplify all the weight that each and every soldier carried, no
matter what their extesential views were or how decent they were as a person, the war affected
everyone and “[t]hey all had ghosts”. Even the most genuine people, such as Henry Dobbins, in
which O’Brien describes in order for the audience to almost pity the way his verital beliefs were
demoralized throughout his experiences. When introducing Dobbins he describes as “big and
strong, full of good intentions”, and often mentioned the comfort it brang to wrap “his girlfriend's
pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush”. He is described as the most
genuine person in the book, believing the luck that he holds through his memories back home,
and although Dobbins remains quite stable throughout and after the war, he represent hope for
the entirity of the group, in which his connection to home keeps him in tact. Through this it
reminds readers how vulnerable these soldiers are at war both physically and mentally as they
have no control of what happens outside of the field, and must continue to fight even when
Dobbins receives tough new that his girlfriend had broken up with him. In this the war physically
changes his relatioship at home, they became less attached to their relationships and learn to
take their emotional blows as a sign of hope for when they are out of the war. In the end, the
book just highlights the turmoil that soldiers must go through, the relatonships they loose, and
the mental traumas they must endure, and with this all the things they carry through and after
the war, an anxiety that’s relatable and in this extreme.