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The Things They Carried

Characters

The Things They Carried Azar Character Analysis

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Characters The Things They Carried Azar Character Analysis

Azar is an unlikable young soldier in Tim’s platoon, who can always be counted on to make dark jokes about their circumstances. He continues to do so even when the subject of the joke is the traumatic death of one of their fellow soldiers and friends. Although many of the men use humor to cope with their situation, Azar’s jokes often verge on the cruel rather than the absurd. However, Azar does have a redemptive moment when, after making tasteless jokes about Kiowa’s death, he becomes sobered and horrified after finding Kiowa’s body. This behavior suggests that Azar’s dark sense of humor is a coping mechanism for the trauma he is regularly subjected to, and that, in this instance, humor was insufficient in preparing him for the horror of finding Kiowa’s drowned body.

Azar also helps Tim get revenge on the new medic, Bobby Jorgenson, by creating an elaborate scheme in which they haunt Bobby with mysterious, frightening noises. However, as the medic becomes increasingly distressed, Tim loses his nerve and wants to stop the prank. Azar, on the other hand, enjoys causing fear in others and wants to see the scheme through, even though he has no personal vendetta against Bobby. Furthermore, he finds Tim’s discomfort with the continued cruelty pathetic. In some ways, Azar functions as a manifestation of the feelings that many soldiers want to keep hidden – namely, that there is something morbidly thrilling and enjoyable about death and violence. For example, Azar symbolizes how Vietnam corrupts young men like Tim, turning them mean and spiteful, and numbing them to violence and cruelty. Many of the characters in The Things They Carried can be seen as different manifestations of Tim O’Brien: Mitchell, the storyteller; Norman, the depressed veteran; Kiowa, the sweet, naive boy; and Azar, the soldier who’s a little too comfortable in this new world of brutality and inhumanity.