what significanance did the new testament that kiowa carried have to do with the things we caried
Symbols
Course Hero Literature Teacher Russell Jaffe explains the symbols in Tim O'Brien'due south short story collection The Things They Carried.
The Things They Carried | Symbols
O'Brien uses symbolism throughout the book to convey truths about both the profound and the mundane experiences of state of war.
What Must Be Carried
The collection and the first story share a title, "The Things They Carried," that points to the importance of what the men comport during the war and after, when some of the soldiers discover that they cannot lay down the burdens of war. The catalogs of things carried that shape the first story are the well-nigh obvious explorations of the literal and symbolic significance of the men'south burdens, but the idea of the burdens of state of war appears in many forms throughout the stories.
The men carry the physical objects that, to them, mean survival. But they carry intangibles too—emotions, memories, and responsibilities to each other, to their allies, and to history. The stories reveal the effect of having to carry these burdens into the years later the state of war. Things as lite as Martha'due south letters and photos and as heavy as the narrator's guilt over Kiowa'southward death demonstrate the war'south touch on on the men'southward lives.
The Country
The narrator says, in the title story, that the soldiers "carried the country itself"—its jungles, rivers, fog, mountains, fifty-fifty sky. The land of Vietnam is more than than a setting; it is another character in the war and thus in the stories, and it haunts the American soldiers: "The whole country. Vietnam. The identify talks. ... It truly talks."
The land also takes on symbolic value: sometimes an enemy and other times a seductive force, the land tin can represent home or tomb, beauty, or brutality. This contradictory symbolism makes sense, given the stories' historical context. The Vietnamese mural overwhelmed the U.Southward. military power that had prevailed in earlier wars. In The Things They Carried, Vietnam's jungles, mountains, fog, and rain tin can be beautiful but deadly too. Fifty-fifty the loveliest stretch of ground can conceal land mines.
The land is so powerful that it consumes several of the characters, including Kiowa, who is swallowed alive in a muddy field, and the narrator, whose "cruelty" toward another soldier briefly causes him to become Vietnam ("I was the land itself."). Mary Anne Bong, who wants to swallow Vietnam, is devoured past it instead, when she vanishes into the jungle, never to be seen once again.
The Man I Killed
The man whom the narrator killed symbolizes the futility of war and the needless loss of life and potential on both sides of any disharmonize. The qualities that the narrator imposes on the expressionless man are similar to the traits he uses to depict himself; it could take been the narrator, or any of his young man soldiers, lying there. The men are almost interchangeable, thus highlighting that both countries were needlessly losing men who had aspirations and futures.
The Rainy River
The Rainy River, where the narrator experiences his moral dilemma about running to Canada or reporting for duty, sets upwardly the three stories that deal with the expiry of Kiowa. While information technology is not raining in "On the Rainy River," the name of the river connects the narrator'southward prewar dilemma with the moral dilemma faced during the monsoon and the shelling that sucks Kiowa into the muck. The Rainy River comes to symbolize backbone. In "On the Rainy River," the narrator decides to go to war because he is a coward; he is too embarrassed non to go: "I would become to the war—I would impale and maybe die—considering I was besides embarrassed non to." For him bravery is doing what he believes is right: "the shore simply twenty yards away, I couldn't make myself be dauntless." In "Speaking of Backbone," Norman Bowker grapples with similar issues of courage. Despite winning seven medals, he discounts them because they were for "the routine, daily stuff—just humping, merely indelible." He almost won the Silver Star for uncommon valor but he let go of Kiowa because he could not stand the stench of the latrine field. Norman wishes he could have explained "how he had been braver than he ever thought possible, merely how he had not been so brave every bit he wanted to be." The Things They Carried has a fluid definition of a hero and what it ways to be brave.
The Baby Water Buffalo
The baby water buffalo is one of the book's well-nigh poignant symbols of the terrible effect of war on the soldiers. Afterwards the death of one of their boyfriend soldiers, Brusk Lemon, the men detect a baby buffalo and accept it with them. Curt's decease has had a strong effect on the men, and one in particular, Rat Kiley, projects his frustrations onto the innocent, young animal. At first Rat offers the water buffalo food, only, when it doesn't take it, he shoots information technology, not once but repeatedly, in different parts of its body, as the other soldiers look on. Some of them finally selection up the dying animal and throw it downwards a well. The baby water buffalo is symbolic of the innocence and youth of the soldiers themselves before they were confronted with the horrors of state of war that accept torn them apart psychologically, piece past terrible piece. The baby h2o buffalo also represents not only what the immature soldiers have lost but also how violence has go so much a office of the fabric of the soldiers' lives. They appear almost indifferent to violence, while continuing to endure deeply below the surface. What happens to the h2o buffalo symbolizes the soldiers' attempt to express their pain about violence and death—through violence and decease—and the futility of doing so.
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