Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

An individual reacts in a ruthless way to a chaotic environment to vent his or her feelings. Instead of finding a place to settle down, one becomes enraged and impatient easily for complex things under a disordered situation. However, when an individual is able to express his or her feelings, either good or bad, he or she is able to control the environment. Unleashing the feelings can help an individual cope with the chaotic environment because it serves as a healing process. O’Brien illustrates this idea and argues that in a war environment, soldiers become more violent because they have to face uncertainty, warfare and death every second. This idea can be explained in the example of Rat, who lost his best friend named Lemon in the war. Rat’s …show more content…
One’s character is constantly and subtly influenced by the states of his or her current situation. Hence, environment plays an important restrictive role in determining human nature. However, all the beautiful sentiments and expressions of humanity can be perfectly presented in a chaotic environment because the more chaotic situation one is in, the more likely he or she is going to pursue and yearn for a better life. Certainly, a chaotic environment does restrict human nature and behaviors because not everyone can surpass his or her situation. To illustrate this idea, Gladwell brings an example of the prison experiment, which assigns college student to play the roles of prisoners and guards, to explain how normal people conduct in response to a disordered situation. As one of the experimenters describes his behavior as “no matter how together I thought I was inside my head, my prisoner behavior was often less under my control than I realized” (Gladwell 158). When those students are under that chaotic situation, they subconsciously become much more like prisoners or guards. The prison environment is so powerful that it overwhelms their actual intentions. An individual’s original mind habits, internal cultivation, education, and social responsibility will briefly and unconsciously disappear at that moment because he or she cannot evade the great mental and physical impact from the chaotic situation. As a result, those actions that people conduct in response to their disordered situation define their true natures. However, under a chaotic environment, humans are not always powerless because if environment totally dictates human lives, people will live in a mess and their natures will be suppressed. O’Brien offers a different argument against Gladwell, and he claims that although a war environment is cruel for

Show More

Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis