"Assignment #4--Criticism."

In many works of literature, the author most likely includes a lot psychological elements in their stories. It is for this reason I believe that psychological criticism is the best approach to examining the story The Things they carried by Tim Brien. The story is about a small group of soldiers on a mission in the jungles of Vietnam during the war. The story goes into deep detail of burdens theses men were forced to while at Vietnam. It should also be noted that the author, Tim Brien, was drafted into the army after graduating from college. The author of the story had real first hand experience to the horrors of war. He obviously used his experiences to write this story to realistically show how people react to war in different ways. One example is the soldier who dies in the story Ted Lavender. Ted step most of constantly drugged up to escape the reality of war and his duties. His death comes as a surprise to his squad but does not cause dramatic reactions from them. Everyone just accepts the death and continuo to move on. Only two soldiers in the squad that were affected in someway by Ted’s death were Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Kiowa. In the case of Kiowa, he feels that he should care more about Ted’s death but can not bring himself to. For Jimmy Cross it was a wake up call. It was the guilt over Ted’s death he felt that made him take his duties and responsibilities as the team leader seriously and to give up any and all distractions.