Vol. 2 No. 1 (2025)

Open Access

Article

Article ID: 2496

The embodied mind in the trenches: A neurophenomenological exploration of sensory experience, trauma, and the battlefield in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”

by Hamed Jamalpour, Zahra Jamalpour, Manzar Feiz

Literature Forum, Vol.2, No.1, 2025;

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” transcends a mere war narrative. It delves into the profound assault on the human psyche and body experienced by soldiers grappling with combat horrors. This paper argues that a neurophenomenological framework offers a crucial lens for understanding these experiences, particularly their embodied responses to sensory overload and the enduring impact of trauma. Neurophenomenology posits that consciousness and the body are intertwined. Perceptions, emotions, and cognitions are rooted in bodily sensations. In Vietnam, soldiers endured a constant barrage of sensory stimuli: deafening artillery, the stench of death, and stifling humidity. These sensory experiences profoundly shaped their perceptions, emotions, and sense of self. “The Things They Carried” vividly illustrates this embodied reality. O’Brien details the soldiers’ physical and psychological burdens: the weight of equipment, the constant fear, and the guilt of witnessing comrades perish. These manifest as physical weight, but also as profound dread, racing heartbeat, trembling hands, and the ever-present threat of nausea. The treacherous terrain—the muddy swamps, the dense jungle—contributes to a profound sense of disorientation and alienation. By examining the soldiers’ experiences through a neurophenomenological framework, this paper aims to demonstrate how the sensory, bodily, and emotional dimensions of war are central to understanding the psychological and emotional impact of combat. “The Things They Carried” serves as a powerful testament to the enduring power of embodied experience, highlighting the profound and lasting impact of war on the human psyche and body.

Open Access

Article

Article ID: 2676

Verse form components as images in translation

by Valeriy Kykot

Literature Forum, Vol.2, No.1, 2025;

The major concern of this paper is an adequate reproduction of poetry form components in translation. It reveals some theoretical and practical aspects of a verse form as a system of images creating the synsemantic image level of a poem in view of its pre-translational analysis and translation; the synsemantic image concept is verified here; a poem is considered as macro-image structure containing systems of autosemantic, synsemantic and subsemantic images which adequate foreign language rendering reflects the unity of the content and form of the original poem; the synsemantic image level of a poem is qualified as its macro-image structure component that is a subject to reproduction in translation; creation mechanisms of synsemantic imagery and its conveying in the process of translation are shown; some indicator concepts of a full-fledged translation are offered to be included to translation studies terminology, such as synsemantic images, precise and relative-proportional equilinearity, etc. Graphic, intonation, rhythmic, euphonic and compositional means of poetic speech organization are qualified to be the basis of synsemantic images that can acquire appropriate meanings in poetic discourse and enter the system of translation-dominant images of the poem. The study provides an analysis of identifying and translating methods of synsemantic images, counting rhythm, intonation, rhyme, meter, syntax, strophe, sound effects, graphic and grammatical image creation means. The main accent is on the fact that for an adequate translation, it is most important to specify during the pre-translation analysis the expressive and semantic functions the synsemantic images perform, as well as their adherence to the image dominants of a poem to reproduce it, taking into account the poem image hierarchy.