We see playful children – giggling, laughing, not a care in the world – and we envy their innocence. Their spirits have not yet been hardened and worn down by the world around them. Our lives are made up of a series of moments, large and small, that continually shape who we are as individuals. Every day we live different experiences that sooner or later we will consider our 'past'. As a society, we have accepted the fact that each of our lives will most likely include its fair share of emotional burdens, and it is up to us how we deal with those burdens and let them impact our future. In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, the cowardly and sensitive Amir bottles his past inside himself and allows his mistakes to define him into adulthood. Tim O'Brien, author and star of The Things They Carried, tactfully uses his metafictional novels to ease the daunting memories of the Vietnam War. Finally, Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five simply chooses not to be affected by any events in his past. Just like the characters in these fictional novels, many of us carry so much emotional baggage from the dark moments in our lives, which we all deal with in different ways. However, the question still remains as to why the past affects us the way it does, how we deal with the events of our past, and how we can best transform these past experiences into tools that will help us see the light once again. of our childhood that we have forgotten. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay How you cope and grieve is a very personal process. Some people choose to simply sit and cry; they spend their days feeling sorry for themselves and wondering what they could have done differently. Others choose to combat their difficult past by ignoring the situation or even joking about it. Tim O'Brien gives us a clear glimpse of this type of coping method in The Things They Carried. Building on O'Brien's use of dark humor in the novel, Tim shows readers that sometimes the easiest way to smile in the present is to laugh at the tears of the past. Through this dark humor, it is clear that O'Brien was extremely affected by his experiences in the war. After all, he has enough stories and emotions to reveal about the war to write numerous novels on this subject alone. In his sly, metafictional way, O'Brien lets the audience know that writing is his way of coping by explaining, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You define certain truths. You invent others. Sometimes we start with an episode that actually happened… and we carry it forward by inventing episodes that didn't actually happen but that still help to clarify and explain” (O'Brien 158). Writing down your thoughts is a healthy and beneficial way to deal with the past. However, readers see that this method does not completely heal all wounds as O'Brien recalls images of the war: “There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I am left with faceless responsibility and pain” (O'Brien 180). Although we know how O'Brien attempts to make sense of his past and overcome the trauma he has experienced, many do. wondering why Tim is still left with responsibility and pain so many years later This can be explained primarily by the fact that Tim is missing a key psychological element in his emotional life: thepardon. The esteemed psychologist Roberto Assagioli believes that “Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation” (Menahem). Studies show that there is a direct correlation between forgiveness and overall mental health. Forgiveness not only decreases negative emotions, but also creates a general sense of well-being that increases happiness and health (Menahem). Tim doesn't struggle to forgive others, but rather to forgive himself. The innocent lives that he and/or his fellow soldiers ended during the war still haunt Tim to this day. Sharing his stories facilitates O'Brien's mental healing to some extent, but until he can forgive himself for his actions in the past, he will never be able to truly overcome his emotional burdens. Much like Tim, this same struggle with forgiveness is clearly seen in Amir's life from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. After witnessing the rape of his best friend Hassan, Amir does nothing to stop the incident and is too cowardly to tell anyone what happened. Instead, Amir represses his guilt and allows a single event to impact nearly every aspect of his future life. Amir refuses to forgive himself; his coping methods have proven to be unhealthy and ineffective due to his actions, relationships, and overall psyche being negatively affected. However, even after all Amir has been through, after all the lies he has told and the friends he has betrayed, Rahim Khan reassures Amir, “there is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2). Rahim is trying to make Amir understand what many people today fail to understand: no matter how horrible things were in the past, and no matter how terrible a person you think you are, there is a way to change the future because it has changed. not yet happened. When Amir finally comes to terms with Hassan's rape and begins to build a relationship with his Hassan's son as compensation, he concludes, "when spring comes the snow melts one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the melting of the first bow" (page 372). Through healthy and effective coping methods, such as forgiveness, each of us can begin to melt the snowflakes of our past and perhaps one day we will be able to live in the warmth of the present. Along with forgiveness, society is another important factor. in the reasons behind these characters' actions and coping methods. Through O’Brien’s experiences in war, we see the motivation behind many of the soldiers’ actions as O’Brien recalls that, “They carried out their reputation. They brought with them the soldier's greatest fear, the fear of blushing. Men killed and died because they were ashamed not to” (O'Brien 180). The soldiers' actions were not based on their free will, but on the pressure society placed on them and the knowledge of how their emotions would affect them in the future. Studies show that “people's reactions to [certain] scenarios reflect their social preferences, that is, their satisfaction with the social outcomes achieved by themselves and others” (Choshen-Hillel). If it were not for the influence of society, the soldiers in The Things They Carried would not feel the need to be such strong men by suppressing their emotions and traumatic experiences. Likewise, Amir perhaps would not have been so reluctant to accept Hassan's rape if he did not have to carry with him the responsibility and image of being his father's only legitimate son. Unlike Tim and Amir, we see a completely different coping method in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. In this novel, readers meet Billy Pilgrim, a prisoner of war much like Tim O'Brien..