Assignment #4- Criticizm

When writting a story, an author will utilize many tools in his arsenal to present it to the reader. He includes psychological, biographical or gender elements in his publications.

In the story "The Things They Carried", Tim O'Brien used a lot of pychological components, that allow us to use a psychological criticizm to study this particular piece of his work.

Story takes us to Vietnam, where a group of soldiers on a mission, have to struggle with war attrocities, changing weather, disease, pain, suffering and death on a daily basis. One of them, big Ted Lavender, keeps himself drugged all the time, just so he can deal with every day. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross daydreams about a girl left back home, and Kiowa, being numb from all he have seen, can only talk about death.
When Lawender dies, Jimmy snaps back from his wonderland and decides that from now on he will be the real leader for his platoon. He realizes the need to be clearheaded and tough, so the rest of his soldiers can survive.
At the same time, Kiowa wonders how it feels to grieve and have a sense of sorrow for his fallen comrade, but is unable to do so.