When examining history, it is a common occurrence that mankind plagues itself with war and needless fighting. As a result of this disposition, war ushers forward a sort of calamity that effects the emotions and physical endurance of all parties involved. With that in mind, a short story that perfectly captured this concept is “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. This is so because it deals with the destructive properties of war, and more importantly, how war effects the physical and emotional endurance of the people involved. Further, it can be said that there are several aspects of war, within this tale, that proves that war negatively effects the emotions and physical endurance of everyone within its realm of influence. Therefore, war itself must be held accountable within “The Things They Carried” and be exposed for its monstrous acts, for it is a …show more content…
Being that war is the specified monster in this tale, it could be the reason for this fluctuation of morality. After all, throughout this story, war has provided negative effects consistently that slowly morph or impair the character’s overarching humanity. That being the case, one can see the dilution of morality at the hands of war’s influence on particular characters in this tale. An example of this would be when Mitchell Sanders “used Kiowa's hunting hatchet to remove the thumb” of the dead child and said it was moral as he “kicked the boy's head” (O’Brien 14). As far as anyone knows, that is not typically what modern, or even at that times society, would have thought to be as moral. No one cuts off thumbs or kicks dead children. That evidence alone proves war is a monster and steals humanity and its morality. In addition, with all things mentioned previously, an eventual result of this deterioration of humanity is the characters reverting back to basic human instincts and