Lack of Morality in War Depicted in Tim OBriens The...

Tim O’Brien’s book â€Å"The Things They Carried† epitomizes the degradation of morals that war produces. This interpretation is personified in the characters who gradually blur the line dividing right and wrong as the motives for war itself become unclear. The morality of soldiers and the purpose of war are tied also to the truth the soldiers must tell themselves in order to participate in the gruesome and random killing which is falsely justified by the U.S government. The lack of purpose in the Vietnam War permanently altered the soldier’s perspective of how to react to situations and in most cases they turned to violence to express their frustration. The men’s mission was plainly described by O’Brien, stating â€Å"If you weren’t humping, you†¦show more content†¦Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. â€Å"The Man I Killed† describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally. When truth became distorted by the ambiguous or absent motive for war, the soldiers needed to make up their own truths in order to keep sane enough to live through the senselessness and fear. Along with the fact that O’Brien’s boyhood died after killing the man in the path, his conception of truth died as well. He examines this fact when his daughter Kathleen asks him, â€Å"Daddy tell the truth, did you ever kill anybody?† and O’Brien ponders this stating, â€Å"And I can say, honestly, ‘Of course not.’ Or I canShow MoreRelatedThe Things They Carried by Tim OBrien793 Words   |  3 Pagesthe novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien there is an ambiguity assigned to the life of a soldier in the Vietnam war, an ambiguity that represents no clear moral victor, no clear heroes, and seemingly no end. In the movie, Platoon, written and directed by Oliver Stone, the same ambiguity is depicted, with no clear moral direction, no clear h eroes, and no clear resolution. In the short story, â€Å"How to Tell a True War Story,† O’Brien talks in great detail about how a true war story, and not