The Things They Carried Essay
Jeff Jackson
Instructor Barbara Manuel
English 112
3 March 2013 Shell Shock: A Bloodless Battlefield A storyteller of war, Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, keeps the reader mesmerized with PTSD stories of the Vietnam War. This novel represents a compound documentary written on accounts of the Vietnam War. Many of the stories in this book encompass various examples of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are graphical depictions of PTSD symptoms with references to recurring nightmares, intrusive thoughts, hypersensitivity, avoidance behavior, memories, and feelings. These signs of stress disorder are evident in the author and his characters in almost all of his short stories. In the story “Speaking of Courage,” Norman Bowker has dreams and fantasizes about talking to his ex-girlfriend, who is now married to another guy. As he drives around in his neighborhood in his father’s Chevy, he imagines talking to Sally. “How’s being married?” he might ask, and he’d nod at whatever she answered with, and he would not say a word about how he’d almost won a Silver Star for valor” (134). In this statement, Norman Bowker is having intrusive thoughts about Sally Kramer. This is one of the many occurrences that Bowker suffers during this chapter. He has multiple hallucinations about how things would have been like if he had not suffered through the war. He desperately needs someone to talk to. Since Sally is married, and his best friend Max Arnold is gone because of a freak accident, the only person left is his father who pays little attention to him. This comes out when he thinks to himself, “If Sally had not been married, or if his father were not such a baseball fan, it would have been a good time to talk” (134). This is evidence that Norman feels alienated from all of the people he in his life. He tries to justify and compensate the loss by questioning and answering himself. One particular instance
Instructor Barbara Manuel
English 112
3 March 2013 Shell Shock: A Bloodless Battlefield A storyteller of war, Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried, keeps the reader mesmerized with PTSD stories of the Vietnam War. This novel represents a compound documentary written on accounts of the Vietnam War. Many of the stories in this book encompass various examples of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are graphical depictions of PTSD symptoms with references to recurring nightmares, intrusive thoughts, hypersensitivity, avoidance behavior, memories, and feelings. These signs of stress disorder are evident in the author and his characters in almost all of his short stories. In the story “Speaking of Courage,” Norman Bowker has dreams and fantasizes about talking to his ex-girlfriend, who is now married to another guy. As he drives around in his neighborhood in his father’s Chevy, he imagines talking to Sally. “How’s being married?” he might ask, and he’d nod at whatever she answered with, and he would not say a word about how he’d almost won a Silver Star for valor” (134). In this statement, Norman Bowker is having intrusive thoughts about Sally Kramer. This is one of the many occurrences that Bowker suffers during this chapter. He has multiple hallucinations about how things would have been like if he had not suffered through the war. He desperately needs someone to talk to. Since Sally is married, and his best friend Max Arnold is gone because of a freak accident, the only person left is his father who pays little attention to him. This comes out when he thinks to himself, “If Sally had not been married, or if his father were not such a baseball fan, it would have been a good time to talk” (134). This is evidence that Norman feels alienated from all of the people he in his life. He tries to justify and compensate the loss by questioning and answering himself. One particular instance
Cited: Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried. New York: Houghton Harcourt Publishing Company, 1990. Print. Cohen, Harold, Ph.D., “PTSD Information and Treatment.” Psych Central Web. 17 Feb. 2006. “Nightmares and PTSD.” National Center for PTSD Web. 20 Dec. 2011 “Suicide and PTSD.” National Center for PTSD Web. 23 April 2012 “Grief and PTSD – Overview.” WebMD Web. 21 Jan. 2009