Essay - Tim O'brien's the Things They Carried the Most Shocking Aspects...

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

The most shocking aspects of the novel, The ***** They Carried, are the graphic descriptions and the striking honesty with which Tim O'Brien employs to describe the devastating effects of war. Several stories are written with an honesty that reveals the horrors of war as well as the frailty of ***** human spirit. The most moving ***** these stories are "***** Man I Killed" ***** "The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong."

Perhaps one of the most shocking stories is "***** ***** I *****." This story is written in first person narrative and the ***** compell*****g aspect of the story is the fact that the narrator never speaks. ***** effect emphasizes ***** shock of killing someone, even if it is an act of self-defense. The narrator cannot takes his eyes off of the enemy soldier. For instance, ***** beginning of the story describes "His jaw was in ***** throat, his upper lip ***** teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, ***** other ***** was a star-shaped hole" (O'Brien 124). ***** narrator notices every detail about the *****, *****cluding his "bony legs, narrow waist" and "long shapely fingers" (124). He notices his sandals and ***** gold ring on the third finger of his right hand. The sight of ***** man and the real*****y of ***** death are overwhelming for the narrator.

Recognizing details about the dead soldier cause the ***** to think of what kind of life that the soldier had before his death. The narrator imagines ***** young boy being taught to defend the l*****, ***** though the thought of fighting "frightened him. He ***** not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher. He hoped that Americans would go away" (125). As ***** narra*****r watches the soldier's body decompose, he still ***** stop thinking ***** the kind of life the soldier lived. ***** ***** ***** the soldier "devoted himself to his studies. He spent his nights alone, wrote romantic poems in his journal" (128). This image allows us to underst***** how the narrator was struck by ***** a m*****n. Suddenly, the dead soldier was ***** just a soldier; he was a man ***** hopes and dreams ***** like the narrator.

This story is also powerful because it takes place in just a few m*****utes ***** time. However, ***** few moments change the narrator's life in a w*****y that is beyond words. ***** narrator's friend, Kiowa, tries to get him to talk about it, but ***** narrator cannot speak. The *****'s inability to speak and take his eyes from the corpse represents the unspoken ***** ***** men experience while in war.

Ano*****r ***** that describes the brutality of ***** is "The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong." This story illustrates how anyone can become a victim ***** war. Mary Anne Bell goes to visit her boyfriend ***** decides never to return to civilized *****. What is the most ***** about Mary *****