The Forces that Drive Man to War
The Forces that Drive Man to War
The fear of death and guilt play an important role Tim O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried.” The story deals with not only the physical risk of war, but also with the emotional effects if has on the young soldiers.
Although death affects everyone’s behavior differently, death is the main driving force for behavioral changes in war. This awareness that the soldiers have that they could be killed anytime motivates then to act in a way they normally would not. By selecting details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O’Brien creates an understanding of the effects of war on the soldiers. One of the soldiers, “Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a thumb. It had been cut from a corpse, a boy of fifteen of sixteen.” Bowler seemed to have been a very good person in civilian life, but war turns him into a hard mannered soldier with very little emotion. This is shown by how he carries around the severed finger as a trophy. This transformation shown through Bowler is an example of the emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo.
Guilt can cause people to change actions or thoughts very rapidly. It does this because guilt makes the person regret how they ignored their values of ideals and the change comes from wanting not to repeat the misjudgment of their actions. The involved changes to relieve guilt are modifications of behavior. The modifications can be change in ones values or ideals on life or they could be a change in actions that they have been doing. Some of the men made jokes about tense situations that were not funny because joking made them feel better. The situation grew lighter by laughter, even though the men knew nothing was funny about their situation, and this knowledge made them feel guilty about their insensitive acts because it violated their values. The way the men dealt with their guilt was by passing the blame or trying not to think about how wrong it was even though they knew. These kind of strange reactions are a way to ease fear of death. Anxiety about death follows the men everywhere they go. They have many ways to hide from it and defend themselves from it. The men were ready for everything in war: they had their radios to...