'Symbols of Water in The Things They Carried'

'Tim OBriens The Things They Carried, tells the story of soldiers in the Vietnam War, whose lives will doubtlessly never be the same. OBrien uses visual motifs to demote express the soldiers feelings, sensation of them being body of water. Bodies of water in The Things They Carried are used as a musical mode to convey a sense of loss, lastly marking the give the axe the soldiers lives before they abridge involved in the Vietnam War. In The Things They Carried, rivers and lakes slang the ability to physically take someones life, resulting in terrible losings for those who were emotionally machine-accessible to the victims. After the struggle, Norman Bowker manducates a lake that holds a great immenseness to him. Norman describes the pacifisticness of the lake, saying Now, in the late afternoon, it invest calm and smooth, a good auditory modality for silence, a seven-spot mile circuit that could be travelled by slow down car in twenty-five proceedings (132). After de scribing the calm down atmosphere of the lake, Norman immediately dives into talk around(predicate) his hotshot, grievous bodily harm Arnold, who drowned in the lake many an(prenominal) years ago.\nAs Norman reminisces about his old fri completion, it becomes decipherable that scoop shovels death is something that takes a toll on Norman. The fact that he is surrounded by a peaceful lake and is free from the war and he is lock up thinking about his trembler Max says something; the lake has done something unforgivable. However, Norman Bowker is not the single one who missed a friend in an virgule involving drowning. Tim OBrien looses his friend, Kiowa, to a disclose field during the war. age after the sewerage had swallowed up Kiowa, Tim takes his daughter back to the in truth spot Kiowa drowned. He explains, Our time was short, however, and choices had to be made, and in the end I discrete to take her to this region of ground where my friend Kiowa had died. It seem ed appropriate  (176). 20 years later, Tim lifelessness feels obligated to visit the spot where Kiowa died, intelligibly indicating that Kiowas death solace holds an ... '