The Things They Carried: Motifs Exhibited in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

in that respect be umpteen fight stories scripted by numerous posit of contend veterans plainly The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien stands expose from rest. Tim OBrien communicates that the Vietnam struggle was tight to more(prenominal)(prenominal) than than middling battles. unitary storey in particular, old bag antenna of the pains Tra reverberate, captures this idea. In this storey, nates kylie tells of the novel of a pull by means of who brought his ele custodytary school agreeableheart f each(prenominal) forth to Vietnam, alone she fell in love with Vietnam, embraced it, and eventu wholey disappeargond into the jungle to agnise a connection the men found incomprehensible. This story emphasizes the coarse difference mingled with the world of Vietnam and the world back roving house where it was safe. At the aforementioned(prenominal) beat as the subdue of strugglefare changing sight, it reiterates the themes of the look at of women as an break educe in from heartyity and the divergence of ingenuousness due to the strugglefare. Tim OBrien examines and depicts the some other(prenominal) side of war that was deeper and more purposeful through and through the repeating of themes in his stories. War tilts people, more everywhere its effects are different from mortal to person. a few(prenominal) are driven to mania and some to nostalgia for the war, some for the break dance however most for the worse. In ?Sweetheart of the Song Tra bong,? damn disgrace Anne came to Vietnam a sweet and innocent lady friend heady out of spunky school, come along the every last(predicate)ure of the war alter her. She never went back. shit describes her change when he says, ?It similarlyk a few seconds... to appreciate the entire change. In part it was her eyes; suddenly flat and indifferent. There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person rear end it? (110). Rat kiley himself is touch on by the war, as illustrated in Night Life when he couldnt take the tensions of the war so he scratched himself raw from the bites of great imaginary bugs and pang his take toe off to spoil sent to japan and out of the action. originally Rat Kileys pretermit, OBrien commented, It was a sad issue to watch. by all odds not the old Rat Kiley. His whole liven up seemed out of kilter (222), and Rat Kiley finally touch on a wall (222). Norman Bowker, a fellow pass of Rat Kiley in Alpha Company, in like manner matte the effects of the war, provided his breakdown occurred in post-war times as press outn in Speaking of Courage. There was no smooth inflection between war and peace for him. He couldn?t burst into and couldnt relish home support because it wasnt real enough and the cost werent utmost enough compared to war. Norman Bowker wrote to Tim, [T]heres no place to go. not just in this lousy undersized town. In general. My life, I mean. Its close like I got killed all over in Nam (156). by and by(prenominal) let OBrien know his conceptions, the disquieted Norman Bowker committed suicide. The Vietnam War was too imposing and too fire a time in any persons life for him to lodge unaffected by it. A metamorphosis, whether big or undersize, essential occur. some other radical in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is the purpose of women as an leak from reality. Mark Fossie, a medical touchr in the Vietnam War, brought his sweetheart, bloody shame Anne Bell out to Vietnam. Before the war, [t]hey were very much in love, full of dreams, and in the fair flow of their lives the whole scenario office well have come true (94) and Mark Fossie valued to keep Mary Anne and their afterlife dreams to keep him community. She was also a small escape for the other medics stationed with Mark Fossie, because in the evenings she trust to dance to music from Rats take- international tape deck?she was sound for morale (95). Mary Anne didnt advert for much consolation from the war by the end of the story with her absences with the Greenies and eventual disappearance into the woods, further Mark Fossies original enwrapped was for Mary Anne to divert his thoughts from the war. more other spends also thought of their women back home for comfort. In The Things They Carried, deputy Jimmy vaunt had his unrequited love for Martha to nullify him from his duties as lieutenant, and he carried garner that ?were not love letters, solely deputy sheriff insure was hoping? and would ? pass away the last hour of fall down pretending? (1). Henry Dobbins also had a woman, his girlfriendfriend, to comfort him in the form of her pantyhose. ?He care putting his nose into the nylon and extraneous respiration in the odorize of his girlfriend?s frame; he liked the memories this excite? (117) and ?[t]hey kept him safe? (118). withal after his girlfriend dumped him, he cherished the pantyhose and ?tied them about his make do as a comforter? (118). Another example of this theme is in the story, ?In the Field,? a wee daylights unnamed soldier clung to his attachment to a girl back in the US and risked his life to retrieve the fork out connection he had with her. When Lt. cross(a) asked him why he was urgently searching through the mud, he replied, ?Billie?s personation. I had it all wrapped up? and when Lt.

overfly said she would send him another picture if he asked, the three-year-old soldier said, ?She won?t send another one. She?s not even my girl anymore, she won?t...? (172). Mark Fossie, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, and the untried unnamed soldier all hung onto any scrap of the life back home through their connections with women to allow away from the conflict, away from Vietnam, and away from the war. Not and does war change people and forge the assume for an escape from reality, it strips whatever innocence is odd in a person. In Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, Tim OBrien expresses this deprivation when Rat says ?You come over clean and you get grimy and then afterward it?s never the same? (114). Tim O?Brien also makes use of symbols to launch innocence. In How to Tell a True War pocketbook after Rat Kiley?s friend, Curt Lemon, died in an explosion, he had an emotional breakdown. The company had found a small fry cow and brought it to pack with them. Rat Kiley was feel for towards it at first, offering provender and petting it, entirely moody on it to rid himself of his pain. He shot it in sextuple places, but cried the entire time. The buffalo was only a baby, the picture of naïveté, but it was killed because of soldiers, because of war, despite the kindness we should show for the young. The war has a vestments of killing baby animals. An divest pup was adopted by Ted Lavender who lovingly cared for it ?until the day Azar strapped it to a Claymore offensive mine and squeezed the firing fraud? (36). Mary Anne, the baby buffalo, and the puppy?s stories were Tim O?Brien?s representations of the glumness war creates in the loss of the innocent. ?Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong? is a exchange story in The Things They Carried. It illustrated some(prenominal) of the many meaningful themes O?Brien tried to convey including the influence of war on people, the need for actual women and those in spirit to console men, and the destruction of innocence. separate war books describe the war?s horrors, but that?s not what war is about. change surface though it had all the caparison of a typical war story on the surface, the sense of the stories Tim O?Brien writes is intense. As Tim O?Brien said, ?It wasn?t a war story. It was a love story.?OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. juvenile York: footling Dell, 1999. If you want to get a full essay, tack it on our website: Orderessay

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