Agony and grief are nearly all difficult emotions humans deal with. There are numerous coping mechanisms, almost all healthy. Nevertheless, for some, healthy coping mechanisms are not a possibility. Tim O’Brien’s the Things They Carried is a novel which shows the emotions Tim O’Brien would undergo through his time throughout the war. Men can deal with uncertainty, anxiety, and death around them in impudent and horrifying ways. When Ted Lavender dies, Cross leads his soldiers into the village of Than Khe to scorch, pillage, and murder everyman they discern, Ted would deal with anxiety by abusing drugs, and Rat would deal with the death of Lemon by shooting a water buffalo 'til it was dead. Firstly, when Ted Lavender is shot in the head while taking a leak when one of the soldiers is searching a hole for Vietcong. Jimmy cross deals with Ted’s death by leading his men to a village named Than Khe where they “burned everything” (O’Brien, 15) and slaughtered everything in sight. The soldiers didn’t falter after being ordered to cause this cruel unhuman act of murder, subsequently the soldiers wanted to kill as it would also help them deal with his death. …show more content…
After Lemons death Rat needed to find a way to cope with this anguish caused by the death of his friend. The amount of abuse that Rat would inflict on the water buffalo would be considered by most typical civilians as an unusually cruel and straight up malevolent. But to Rat’s comrades this was another day in the war in Vietnam. But Rat didn’t want to murder the buffalo. His goal wasn’t to slaughter it, his goal “was to hurt”. To inflict pain on others is an extremely common, yet cruel coping mechanisms for anguish and pain. This example shows the distances that the Vietnam war could change a