The things they carried were heavy, emotional and necessary for survival. The nylons around one man’s neck and the ammunition another carried were just as important in helping them get through the war. There is a repetition in the things they carried as well as a snowball effect. O’Brien comes back to Jimmy Cross and his wistful adoration for his far away girl, Martha. The personal effects they carried and the tropes of sweethearts from home are a significant part to this novel. They offered escape and definition to each soldier amongst the hardships of war.
Heroism in this fictitious novel is not a matter of truth or fallacy. There are many “heroic” stories told, and it is the point of them that is significant, not the reality. O’Brien’s character describes his own experiences with heroism, or at least his aspiration to it. His experience did not relate to combat or saving another life except for his own. He ran away to the north for several days, contemplating avoiding the draft. He had the notion that he would be a courageous hero to himself for avoiding the war, because, “you don’t make war without knowing why”, (O’Brien 38). Norman Bowker was also almost a hero in his attempt to save Kiowa. O’Brien though to be a hero was to not conform and escape for your own beliefs, even if he couldn’t in the end.
The whole book is fiction although there are still many truths in it. The truths of the story relate to the overall morals demonstrated through story telling. Truths do not exist only when facts are present. The gruesome killing of war for example is a truth even if the facts of O’Brien killing a young Vietnamese boy with a grenade was not an actual occurrence.
The repetition of love and death are also true components in the novel. They are shown not just through the introspective revere the men held for sweethearts back home, but also through the death of O’Brien’s love Linda back home. The final chapter showed real death and love on American soil. The final chapter contrasted sharply with death and love in Vietnam. But the two themes are intertwined and show the hardships of both.
Themes are repeated in the novel for the purpose of communicating the truth of war even though realism may not follow.
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The things they carried were heavy, emotional and necessary for survival. The nylons around one man’s neck and the ammunition another carried were just as important in helping them get through the war. There is a repetition in the things they carried as well as a snowball effect. O’Brien comes back to Jimmy Cross and his wistful adoration for his far away girl, Martha. The personal effects they carried and the tropes of sweethearts from home are a significant part to this novel. They offered escape and definition to each soldier amongst the hardships of war.
ReplyDeleteHeroism in this fictitious novel is not a matter of truth or fallacy. There are many “heroic” stories told, and it is the point of them that is significant, not the reality. O’Brien’s character describes his own experiences with heroism, or at least his aspiration to it. His experience did not relate to combat or saving another life except for his own. He ran away to the north for several days, contemplating avoiding the draft. He had the notion that he would be a courageous hero to himself for avoiding the war, because, “you don’t make war without knowing why”, (O’Brien 38). Norman Bowker was also almost a hero in his attempt to save Kiowa. Norman also struggled to grasp the same comprehension of what a hero was, just the same as O’Brien did. O’Brien thought to be a hero was to not conform and escape for your own beliefs, even if he couldn’t in the end. He thought that “I would go to war because I was too embarrassed not too” (57).
The whole book is fiction although there are still many truths in it. Many of the stories are repeated over and over in a confession like manner. In the chapter, “How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien explores how a true war story is never moral. The point of the stories isn’t to create a happy ending with life lessons. War stories contain tropes of love, the men killed and animal cruelty as a way to get the truths of the emotions across rather than the reality. Truths do not exist only when facts are present. The gruesome killing of war, for example, is a truth even demonstrated with the story of O’Brien killing a young Vietnamese boy with a grenade was not an actual occurrence.
The repetition of love and death are also true components in the novel. They are shown not just through the introspective revere the men held for sweethearts back home, but also through the death of O’Brien’s love Linda back home. The final chapter showed real death and love on American soil. The final chapter contrasted sharply with death and love in Vietnam. Linda’s death is O’Brien’s way of trying to connect the lives of the dead. Death in war is more indifferent than the death of a childhood friend. But the two themes are intertwined and show the hardships of both.
Themes are repeated in the novel for the purpose of communicating the truth of war even though realism may not follow. Telling a true war story has nothing to do with verity as much as it is meant to convey an impression. The war was difficult and O’Brien’s novel of intertwined stories comes to the conclusion that “it wasn’t war story it was a love story” (149).