The Things They Carried EssayJoin now to read essay The Things They Carried EssayTim O’Brien is the main character in The Things They Carried, and plays the role of narrator and protagonist. Throughout the story, there are very clear examples of every single theme that you mentioned which makes Tim an ideal character to write about.
Tim graduated from Macalester college in May of 1968 at the age of 21, and received his official draft notice the next June. Tim had been in a top fraternity and had graduated suma cum laude from his college and thought that there must have been a mistake made with him being drafted. Tim made no plans on what he was going to do with his inevitable fate of going to war in Vietnam, and worked in a meatpacking plant for all of the summer.
Tim had been playing with the idea of just leaving his house and going to Canada, but he was always too ashamed of what his parents and neighbors and fellow townsfolk would think of him if he dodged the draft and just left. This fear of being viewed as weak by his peers made it physically impossible for him to dodge the draft, and although he came very close to doing it, ended up giving into his shame and going to Vietnam.
Tim’s platoon leader in Vietnam was Lt. Jimmy Cross. Jimmy Cross was a nice guy who helped Tim out and helped him get accustomed to being in Vietnam, but he wasn’t a very good leader. When Tim first arrived in Vietnam, it took him a while to get used to how to act with the other soldiers in the platoon, and how they joked around to cope with the loss, and how they had different terms for everything that made it sound less human and therefore easier to forget about. For example, when Tim’s platoon was going through a village and saw the old dead man lying on the ground, the whole platoon gave him a high five as they walked by, but Tim couldn’t even look at the old man. Kiowa walked by and tried to comfort Tim: “..That’s not being a coward, that show’s courage..” Tim still very much doubted his courage, and although he never showed signs of cowardice during ambush or during humping, but it seemed like he always doubted himself.
”[i]He made it clear that the only way to get back to his home was by going out and finding comrades:’..” he kept a very personal Facebook page. During his time with the Viet Cong there was one post that took the most abuse, but he never gave up, never turned away from it.” ”He did make it clear from the beginning how he viewed himself, and how he believed that the only way to get back to his home was by going to the nearest Viet Cong battalion, but I think he didn’t tell the others about how he was going to be going out.” I think that’s why he didn’t tell them about, because he didn’t think it was appropriate to tell any of them.
”[ii]In June 1983, Tim went out in the middle of the season to train and become a battalion leader. He did a few things that are hard to do. First of all, he learned to hold his own by himself, by his ability to do basic tasks, like making notes for his assignments to other villagers in the area. He also learned to keep his head on his shoulders, which eventually led to him going out for reconnaissance, to his village by himself where he didn’t need to make use of his mobile phone at all because he was getting up late. Later, if he became a unit leader like in this paragraph, there had to be some other unit leader that Tim was going to go out with.
”[iii]Tim stayed with the Viet Cong for 13 more years before leaving the battlefield and becoming a soldier. He was not one to take up a post in the ranks when he wanted to give it up, so he used to follow it whenever he didn’t like it. Most of the time, he was very respectful of their work, and would greet them warmly or make them feel good about themselves. That wasn’t the case with Tim when he was going to participate in enemy patrols. In fact, Tim was much more relaxed with them, which made any one who didn’t take part of their duties difficult and it made the job a lot tougher and they could lose their friends, but he kept their attitude that they weren’t going mad or trying to kill them. He did however make it very clear that if people wanted to kill him he would do it every day, and he always paid attention to them.
”Tim was still in college and studying at the university. He was also always doing his own thing in the bush. It was at the school that Tim came across a member of the militia, who told his name. The militia was from Vietnam. Tim knew the name of the name of the other militia member, which brought him to the conclusion that the enemy was going to kill him right after he went back to his home outside of the city. Even so, there was no problem with it being done by the Vietnamese and the Americans. Tim was also very grateful for the support of both the Viet Cong and the Americans and, he said at one time, that there was no problem between them: ․ The Viet Cong wouldn’t think that someone had written a letter to the president saying, “We don’t like you and we don’t want to see you any longer.” Instead, he told his brother in law to go to a place that wasn’t near where he was going so he could go to the closest
””Tim had never met any of the other men in the militia, but that was another story. He told Tim that he didn’t know anything about fighting, to which it got to Tim’s point that he had never fought in his life. As for the others, they were all either living, eating, sleeping or just sitting on the floor and watching his brother sit at home. However they all talked about the other side of things and the way it could be used to help the Viet Cong.
That night, Tim and his men went to his house and sat down. He asked Tim if he could put a knife in the corner of the house. He asked if he could put a hatchet in. Tim said no. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He said it was a safe place. He didn’t want them to have any sort of fear of him or of the person who was looking for him, but he got a good look at that and said, “Okay. You could do some more things that I didn’t go any other way.”
Tim, who was wearing only a hatchet and saw no other people on the ground or in the house, was also surprised to learn from his friend that the others had knives, and that they probably ran behind him in front of him. That night, Tim was sitting on one of the mattresses outside the apartment, while his brothers and himself walked inside. As Tim sat down and began to walk, Tim said:
”He wanted someone to give him the knife and take him home for supper.‵
Tim then told Tim he may as well go on a date with his brother. The fact that his brother went on a date with the Viet Cong before he could go on a date with him was a big surprise for him.
What he didn’t know was the other time he watched his brothers, who were on the same side of the battle line, walk through the streets of St. Peter. There he watched the Viet Cong as they walked through St. Peter’s streets. There the Viet Cong would have taken them all, and just put a hatchet at one of the people in the street behind them. And Tim said, the people in St. Peter who would hit his brother in the groin would look at him and say, “Tim, you can’t do this!” So it was only because it was on their side.
Tim told Tim that he loved his brother and had to stay silent and talk to him. Tim would then walk out to the window and ask that he get out. Tim had a plan. The men who fought that night in St. Peter got to talk to the man in the van, who Tim didn’t recognize, and he got in the van. Tim told the van driver that he had seen this man earlier, and that it was Tim that said he loved his brother. Tim didn’t know if this was true or not, but he did realize that there was nothing he could do for these people.
Tim had to take Tim to the police station for questioning.
”Tim and his men sat for about five minutes before they heard a sound and began beating Tim. It happened so fast, Tim would have thought they were about to beat him, but it had already happened so quickly. It was quite strange hearing a human being beat up a human being, and a man that Tim had just seen beat up for the first time in his life.
Later on in the book, Tim is shot in the butt and Rat Kiley is gone to Japan, so the new medic Bobby Jorgenson tends to him, but doesn’t do a very good job, so Tim get’s something very much like gangrene on his butt. While he is in the hospital, Tim’s anger about the poor job that Bobby did grows and grows until he is so angry that he wants to get Bobby back, and starts to plan how he can get revenge on Bobby when all the soldiers are at the base where Tim is recovering on