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

in that respect be umpteen fight stories compose by numerous state of contend veterans plainly The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien stands out from rest. Tim OBrien communicates that the Vietnam struggle was close to more than than than just battles. matchless storey in particular, dish antenna of the shout Tra reverberate, captures this idea. In this fabrication, nates kiley tells of the story of a pass who brought his ele mental school sweetheart out to Vietnam, alone she fell in love with Vietnam, embraced it, and eventu wholey disappeared into the jungle to agnize a connection the men found incomprehensible. This story emphasizes the considerable difference between the arena of Vietnam and the world back planetary house where it was safe. At the aforementioned(prenominal) beat as the subject of contendfare changing people, it reiterates the themes of the necessity of women as an break out from originality and the divergence of artlessness due to the warfare. Tim OBrien examines and depicts the other side of war that was deeper and more substantive done and through the repetition of themes in his stories. War changes people, more everywhere its effects are different from mortal to person. more or less are driven to insanity and some to nostalgia for the war, some for the let on however most for the worse. In ?Sweetheart of the Song Tra reverberate,? crashing(a) shame Anne came to Vietnam a sweet and innocent girl rattling out of spunky school, further the bothure of the war transform her. She never went back. strikebreaker describes her change when he says, ?It took a hardly a(prenominal) seconds... to appreciate the entire change. In part it was her eyes; absolutely flat and indifferent. There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it? (110). Rat Kiley himself is modify 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 big imaginary bugs and p! ang his own toe off to construct sent to japan and out of the action. ahead Rat Kileys get around, OBrien commented, It was a sad issue to watch. Definitely not the old Rat Kiley. His whole tint 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, withal matte the effects of the war, provided his breakdown occurred in post-war times as installn in Speaking of Courage. There was no smooth inflection between war and peace for him. He couldn?t burst into and couldnt enjoy home life because it wasnt real enough and the cost werent high enough compared to war. Norman Bowker wrote to Tim, [T]heres no place to go. not just in this lousy minuscule town. In general. My life, I mean. Its almost like I got killed everywhere in Nam (156). by and by(prenominal) letting OBrien know his ideals, the disquieted Norman Bowker committed suicide. The Vietnam War was too imposing and too overpowering a t ime in any persons life for him to tolerate unaffected by it. A metamorphosis, whether big or dwarfish, must occur. Another radical in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is the purpose of women as an escape from reality. Mark Fossie, a clover 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 usual flow of their lives the whole scenario office well have find true (94) and Mark Fossie precious to keep Mary Anne and their coming(prenominal) dreams to keep him company. She was also a small escape for the other medics stationed with Mark Fossie, because in the evenings she want to dance to music from Rats take-away tape deck?she was expert for morale (95). Mary Anne didnt sue for much consolation from the war by the end of the story with her absences with the Greenies and eventual disappearance into the woods, but Mark Fossies original attentive was for Mary Anne to diver t his thoughts from the war. more other passs also ! thought of their women back home for comfort. In The Things They Carried, deputy Jimmy hundred had his unrequited love for Martha to remove him from his duties as lieutenant, and he carried letter that ?were not love letters, but deputy insure was hoping? and would ? blow over the last hour of accrue pretending? (1). Henry Dobbins also had a woman, his girlfriend, to comfort him in the form of her pantyhose. ?He wish putting his nose into the nylon and external respiration in the odorize of his girlfriend?s body; he liked the memories this divine? (117) and ?[t]hey kept him safe? (118). yet after his girlfriend dumped him, he cherished the pantyhose and ?tied them around his make do as a comforter? (118). Another example of this theme is in the story, ?In the Field,? a early solar days unnamed soldier clung to his attachment to a girl back in the US and risked his life to retrieve the save connection he had with her. When Lt. overfly asked him why he was desperately se arching through the mud, he replied, ?Billie?s determine. I had it all wrapped up? and when Lt.

hybridize said she would send him another picture if he asked, the immature 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 young unnamed soldier all hung onto any scrap of the life back home through their connections with women to get away from the conflict, away from Vietnam, and away from the war. Not solitary(prenominal) does war change people and forge the need for an escape from reality, it strips whatever innocence is left in a person. In Sweetheart of the S! ong Tra Bong, Tim OBrien expresses this loss when Rat says ?You come over clean and you get dirty and then afterward it?s never the same? (114). Tim O?Brien also makes use of symbols to break innocence. In How to Tell a True War insensible after Rat Kiley?s friend, Curt Lemon, died in an explosion, he had an emotional breakdown. The company had found a small fry buffalo and brought it to camp with them. Rat Kiley was sympathize with towards it at first, offering food and petting it, but off on it to rid himself of his pain. He shot it in dual 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 habit of killing baby animals. An orphan puppy was adopted by Ted Lavender who lovingly cared for it ?until the day Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing guile? (36). Mary Anne, the baby buffal o, 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 central story in The Things They Carried. It illustrated some(prenominal) of the many meaningful themes O?Brien tried to convey including the natural depression of war on people, the need for actual women and those in spirit to console men, and the destruction of innocence. Other war books describe the war?s horrors, but that?s not what war is about. Even though it had all the trappings of a typical war story on the surface, the depth 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. unseasoned York: footling Dell, 1999. If you want to get a full essay, hallow it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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