In his novel "The things they carried", author Tim O'Brien blends his own experiences as a soldier with fiction from the Vietnamese war. The first few chapters of the novel are organized around the title namely the things the soldiers carried with them in times of war. The author repeatedly describes what each soldier brought to Vietnam during the war to keep himself alive, motivated and sane. Some supplies all soldiers had in common while others were those of personal value to each individual soldier. Not only in the first chapter but throughout the book we see the fear these men have of death. "Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" author Tim O'Brien also talks about the emotional baggage that transcends the physical burden by far.
Furthermore, what struck me was the author's honesty in expressing the social pressures in resisting going to war. Tim O'Brien douses the reader into the American culture and society during the war. He describes all the shame, anger and accusations young men would go through if they resisted going to war. At a certain point, he considers running away to Canada but decides not to because of all the consequences he would have to face. Later in the chapter he writes: " I was a coward. I went to war. " suggesting that the courageous thing to do would have been to stay in America and fight the pressures.
Later on in the book, Tim O'Brien talks about the truth in wars. He describes how no one ever tells the truth about wars unless they are criticizing it. He writes " A true war story is never moral". The suffering and the illwill cannot be justified. Therefore he says a true war story with all the truths about the war is a story about evil. He also says in his novel that it is difficult to differeniate between what happened and what seemed to have happened.
Toward the end of the book, Tim talks about how all the soldiers started becoming emotionally immune to war. The bloodshed and the suffering seemed normal to them. He also writes about how people can remember things the way they were or the way the would have liked them to be. His childhood sweetheart, Linda, died at the the age of nine. However, he remembers talking to her even after she dies.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In his novel "The things they carried", author Tim O'Brien blends his own experiences as a soldier with fiction from the Vietnamese war. The first chapter of the novel is organized around the title namely the things the soldiers carried with them in times of war. The author repeatedly describes what each soldier carried with them to keep himself alive, motivated and sane. There were certain supplies such as steel helmets that all the soldiers carried to survive physically while other supplies such as photos were of personal value to each individual soldier to help them survive emotionally.
ReplyDelete"Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight". O'Brien expresses the emotional baggage that the soldiers carried that were far heavier than the physical items the soldiers carried. Lieutenant Cross for instance carried the burdensome feeling of guilt because he was so obsessed with his lover that he failed to protect one of his soldiers.
Furthermore, what struck me was the author's honesty in expressing the social pressures in resisting going to war. Tim O'Brien douses the reader into his society's mentality in the times of the war. He describes all the shame and accusations young men would be put through by their friends and families if they resisted going to war. "I would kill and maybe die- because I was embarassed not to."(p 57)O'Brien went to war and did things he resented because his people forced him to. The only man who did not force O'Brien to go or to stay was the man that became his hero. "The man who opened the door that day is the hero of my life" (p. 45)Elroy Berdahl was O'Brien's hero because he never judged O'Brien or forced O'Brien to do anything. Elroy allowed O'Brien to make his own decisions and if everyone in O'Brien's society had been like Elroy he may have never gone to war. Therefore, O'Brien believes a true hero is someone who gives another space to make their own choices in life and respects those choices without forcing their ideas and values upon them.
Later on in the book, Tim O'Brien talks about the truth in war stories. He mentions that it becomes difficult to differentiate between what happened and what seemed to have happened. O'Brien's work is fiction because he doesn't write exactly what happened to him but he also writes about other occurences that were taking place around him during the war. It becomes difficult to trust what O'Brien is writing because sometimes he admits that he is lying which makes all the other occurences in the book less credible.
O'Brien believes we can change the truth or what people remember as the truth with stories. He says stories are like dreams and he can dream that his childhood lover who died is still alive. O'Brien can still talk to his childhood lover through his dreams and writing. Tim O'Brien says stories can save him because they preserve the truth or what seems to be the truth.