O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of observations of a solider fighting in the Vietnam War. These observations interconnect the protagonist’s life before the war, during the war, and twenty years after his experiences during the war. O’Brien later reveals in the book that none of the stories are exactly the truth, but they could have been, and that is what really matters. He calls the book fiction, because it is fiction. Storytelling is the main theme of this novel, and as we later find out, it is how O’Brien copes.
O’Brien opens the book with the chapter ‘The Things They Carried’, which is basically a list of items, both tangible and intangible, that the soliders in the Alpha Company carry with them while in country. The things they carry depend on a number of different factors: the men’s priorities, size, religious affiliation, personal traits, etc. The men carry some common items, like a poncho and a tent. Each solider has their own personal emotional baggage, and in this opening chapter, we learn mostly about Lt. Cross’ obsession with a woman named Martha. O’Brien starts his novel with this chapter to first, introduce the character’s backgrounds and relay the message of how young these soliders are. Most are in their late teens or early twenties, which doesn’t allow them too much baggage, and eventually leads to the loss of their innocence.
Throughout the book, O’Brien tells war stories while in Vietnam, but he prefaces very early on in the book that a true war story is not a moral one; the method to recognizing a true war story is not to believe any part of the story that seems too normal because it is most likely not true, and if it seems so unrealistic is cannot be real, it is true. O’Brien conveys the message that storytelling can be skewed just as much as the war has skewed the morals of the soldiers. O’Brien contends that the true or truth cannot be conveyed with a mere phrase, but a story, such as Rat Kiley torturing the buffalo; even though may be a complete fallacy, is truer than the actual truth. Storytelling, to O’Brien, makes things present and effectively communicates the war.
Throughout the book, we hear many different stories of the men in the Alpha Company, but we seldom hear O’Brien explicitly calls any of those men heroes, contrary to traditional war stories. He calls some of the men in his company great people, and he misses those who were lost to the war effort, but being a friend doesn’t mean being a hero to him. ‘Heroism’ to O’Brien cannot be measured by how many war metals a person acquires, or by the number of people they killed through bravery. Bravery, he contends, can be mixed up with sheer stupidity, naivety, or luck; especially with men so young as those in the Alpha Company. O’Brien may be trying to convey the message that in war, there is no such thing as an absolute hero. Everyone has their faults in war, and it is impossible to recognize right from wrong, moral from immoral, when engaged in war.
The end of the book is the chapter ‘The Lives of the Dead’, in which O’Brien tells us about his childhood sweetheart when he was nine years old, Linda, who died of a brain tumor in the fifth grade. This chapter serves the purpose to tie up all of the seemingly loosely related stories throughout the book. The way that O’Brien copes with Linda’s death as a nine year old by day dreaming about her and he seems to be relieved of some of his grief. Later, he acts as if Linda is still alive and he talks to her, which can be universalized to be true of all of death O’Brien has to cope with throughout the war. O’Brien tells stories of the dead to immortalize them, and continue to save O’Brien from the grief of the Vietnam War.
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O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of observations of a solider fighting in the Vietnam War. These observations interconnect the protagonist’s life before the war, during the war, and twenty years after his experiences during the war. O’Brien reveals in the book that none of the stories are exactly the truth, because in a true war story, “it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (67). He calls the book fiction, because it is fiction. Storytelling is the main theme of this novel, and as we later find out, it keeps O’Brien and all of his loved ones alive. The novel is organized by each chapter being a short story, which benefits the novel because although the stories are all different, each of them flows perfectly from one to the next. The stories are not in chronological order, but this is also how thoughts are presented in one’s mind; one story triggers another, and this makes the novel more authentic with respect to storytelling, which is a main theme of the novel.
ReplyDeleteEvery soldier in war carries things, both tangible and intangible, while in country. O’Brien opens the book with the chapter ‘The Things They Carried’, which is basically a list of items that the soldiers in the Alpha Company carry with them while in country. The soldiers carry more practical items, such as ponchos and tents to keep them alive, but they carry personal items, such as pictures of the girl back home, to give them something to fight for.
Soldiers also carry emotional baggage while fighting. They experience things that no person could understand had they not fought in war. Soldiers carry heavy burdens of the things they did in Vietnam, even decades after the war. Tim kills a man and never forgets the moment, “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t” (128). This shows the emotional internal struggle these soldiers went through during the war and years after. Some veterans suffered from severe PTSD, and their lives will never be the same; Tim states, “I blamed this place for what I had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been” (176). Fighting and killing in the war were, at the time, what was expected of the soldiers. You could take the soldier away from the war, but the lasting effects of the war, the emotional baggage the soldiers acquired from what they did and saw in Vietnam, was irrreversable.
Throughout the book, O’Brien tells war stories while in Vietnam, but he prefaces very early on in the book that a true war story is not a moral one; the method to recognizing a true war story is not to believe any part of the story that seems too normal because it is most likely not true, and if it seems so unrealistic is cannot be real, it is true. O’Brien conveys the message that storytelling can be skewed just as much as the war has skewed the morals of the soldiers. O’Brien contends that the true or truth cannot be conveyed with a mere phrase, but a story, such as Rat Kiley torturing the buffalo; even though may be a complete fallacy, is truer than the actual truth. Storytelling, to O’Brien, makes things present and effectively communicates the war.
Throughout the book, we hear many different stories of the men in the Alpha Company, but he doesn’t call any of those men heroes, contrary to traditional war stories. ‘Heroism’ to O’Brien cannot be measured by how many war metals a person acquires, or by the number of people they killed through bravery. Bravery, he contends, can be mixed up with sheer stupidity, naivety, or luck; especially with men as young as those in the Alpha Company. O’Brien denies the traditional idea of a hero, “All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth” (37). He explains that by going to war, he wasn’t acting in a heroically, he was actually being a coward. The only person in the novel that O’Brien characterizes as ‘his personal hero’ is Elroy Berdahl, “the man saved me. He offered exactly what I needed” (46). Elroy allowed Tim the space and possibilities to grow up and take charge of his life. He let Tim make his own decision in his time of turmoil, and this is what O’Brien deems as a hero.
ReplyDeleteStorytelling is a main theme of this novel, and it is essential to O’Brien’s life. The novel end with the chapter ‘The Lives of the Dead’, in which O’Brien tells us about his childhood sweetheart when he was nine years old, Linda, who died of a brain tumor in the fifth grade. This chapter serves the purpose to tie up all of the seemingly loosely related stories throughout the book. Tim writes stories “as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story” (233). The way that O’Brien copes with Linda’s death is by day dreaming and writing stories about her to relieve some of his grief. He acts as if Linda is still alive and he talks to her, which can be universalized to be true of all of death O’Brien has to cope with throughout the war. O’Brien tells stories of the dead to immortalize them, and continue to save O’Brien from the grief of the Vietnam War.