Save the Best For Last

" '...It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time...' (pg 245)"

This is by far my favorite quote of the entire book. The idea that death is like an eternally closed book fascinates me. I suppose it is because it is impossible to know what death is really like, but this seems to be the most intelligent take on it I've every heard. The idea is reasonable enough. Of course, there is no way to really know what death is like. Nearly every week there is a new person saying they have had a near-death experience and this is what it's like. I turn the television off any time I see these shows. It feel it is disrespectful to use death to turn a profit, but these people have it down to a science. Whether or not these people have had a near-death experience or not is really not important, but musings on death interest me a great deal. This might sound macabre, but I don't intend it to. The idea of death itself isn't the good part. It's what happens after. You can call it religion, you can call it anything you want, but no one can really know until it happens. That's the good part.

Cool as a Cucumber

" 'Gimme five,' he said. 'A real honor.' (pg 226)"

I am mainly citing this quote because I don't understand the motivation behind it. On one hand, the men seem respectful when they approach the dead body of this old Vietnamese man. They shake hands and are careful not to disturb the body to detrimentally. So, they could be just a little bit crazy and really believe that, by treating this man as if he isn't dead, he really isn't. On the other hand, they could be disrespecting him and relishing their victory over him. The entire thing confuses me, but I figure talking to a dead man and giving him his own can of sliced oranges makes them all a little crazy either way. I also find it odd that the men have this reaction. Well, all but O'Brien. He is freaking out, but the rest are cool as cucumbers. A reasonable mind would guess that this is their way of easing their guilt to feel as though they did not actually kill this man, but, in the mind of a soldier, no one can know for sure.

Colloquialism

" 'Shit, man,' he said. 'Don't you got music?' (pg 210)."

With this particular quote, colloquialism is particularly relevant. The majority of soldiers, especially at that time when the draft right out of high school was especially prominent, were not college-educated. The dialogue in this novel reflects this perfectly. Also, the language of soldiers is infamously peppered with inappropriates. Again, this quote serves this observation exactly. Still, being around people who speak in this manner certainly does not help. This is, of course, a generalization that can be proven false in many circumstances, but, then again, so can most generalizations. I believe the language of a soldier is racy and crude mainly due to the fact that there is no one around whom they would like to impress. You will notice that whenever a woman is around a veteran or anyone of the sort, they become respectful and use proper language. This is of little importance, but I found it interesting. The author added this colloquialism to make the story more realistic. Having these men walk around with perfect grammar would make the story unbelievable and sketchy at best.

Et Tu Brute?

" ' I hate to say this, man, but you're out of touch. Jorgenson - he's with us now.' (pg 197)"

Back in my freshman year, I had Mrs. Miles for my English teacher. She, to this day, is one of the best teachers I've ever had, and I will never forget half the things she taught me that year. Over the course of the second semester, I believe, we read Julius Caesar. My memory on the classic is a little sketchy, but I do remember that, initially, the people of Rome love Caesar. They see him as a god, but toward the end, the love shifts to a few different people, including Mark Antony. The people are fickle. It is a human flaw that can't be traced to a gene or any kind of DNA. Anyways, the story of Caesar immediately popped into my head when reading this part because the men of the platoon are fickle in regard to who is "in" and who is "out". This is understandable considering they have to trust the men they are with with their lives, but still. O'Brien really had not been on the other side of the fence for very long before they considered him an outsider and I found it an interesting look into the human nature that becomes so visible in wartime situations.

K Mart Ain't No Santa

" 'So when can we go?' (pg 182)".

In this part of the novel, O'Brien takes his daughter to Vietnam as a birthday gift. All the while, she puts on a brave face and enjoys the trip, but when the duo arrive at the swamp that killed Kiowa, Kathleen isn't so keen on the view and really just wants to leave. When I'm reading this, the only thought going through my head is how often this exact scene (give or take the location) has played out in my own life. On family vacations, if I'm not absolutely riveted by the view or the happenings, I'm always the first to ask when I will be put out of my misery. This may sound immature, but I'm the baby, so I always get away with it. This also made me realize how something simple can be of so much value to one person, but really just be another poop swamp to the other. Kathleen lacks so much appreciation for her surroundings because her father has protected her from the reality of it all. It kind of reminds me of Santa Claus. The child's parents lie to the child and tell him or her that Santa brought the gifts. The parents know that they will be loosing the appreciation the child is now so graciously giving to Santa, but it is to protect the child from the grim reality that the gift came from the K Mart down the street.

Allusion

"You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote (Pg 177)."

In this quote, O'Brien is reflecting on all the people one could blame for the war in Vietnam. He makes an allusion to Karl Marx, the "creator" of Communism. The Vietnam War was a movement in the name of the theory of containment. The United States' chief goal was to halt the spread of Communism to neighboring countries, which was a valid issue considering there was a term specifically for this spread into neighboring countries called Domino Effect. One could argue that if it weren't for the creator of Communism, the Vietnam War to contain Communism would have never been fought. O'Brien likely adds this allusion because he knows the majority of readers will understand it. It provides a deeper insight into the thinking of a soldier in the war. They needed someone to blame and who better than the man that started it all? To be fair, Marx had never wanted Communism to become violent or war-inciting. He simply wanted the Catholic church to stop abusing its powers with such things as the selling of indulgences and greed within the church.

A Tide in the Lighthearted Affairs of Men

" 'Like those old cowboy movies. One more redskin bites the dirt.' (pg 165)"

There is an old adage: You can't have enough of a good thing. This is the case with such things as chocolate, exercise, or comedies, but what about bad things? When is there enough of that? While reading this novel in its entirety, I got the feeling that the abundance of death that these soldiers lived through led them to have an unsettlingly dismal appreciation for it. Any normal person uses various terms for "dead". One might use "passed away" or "left us", but these soldiers are using terms like "bit the dirt". I suppose many of them did not find this as disrespectful as they did playful. I also understand that viewing the number of deaths that they had forces one to go into a protective state and try to make death a lighthearted affair as opposed to a depressing one, but I find it disconcerting that there is often no respect for the deaths of the "Charlie" in this novel. I suppose it is a reality that one can do nothing about.

Dynamic Character

Norman Bowker is truly a dynamic character.

"He could not talk about it and never would (pg 153)."

Clearly, Bowker's experiences in Vietnam changed him fundamentally. He became cynical toward others only for the simple fact that he felt they could never understand him. He shut himself off to new things, feeling as though something had died in him in Vietnam. In the novel, he clearly states that he feels as though something died in him in war, which is certainly one of the biggest changes a human being can go through. At the beginning of the novel, one receives Bowker as a normal young man forced to fight in a war he didn't really understand and likely wanted little part of. At this point in the novel, he is depicted as a man whose will to live and experience all that he can is irrevocably diminished. He spends whole days driving around a lake, mentally asking random people if they would like to hear how he almost won a Silver Star. These are not the actions of a twenty-some year-old man at the peak of his life. These are the actions of a man who'd given up.

When Is It Enough?

" 'Want to hear about the Silver Star I almost won?' Norman Bowker whispered, but none of the workmen looked up (pg 144)."

This entire chapter is devoted to the troubles Norman Bowker experienced after returning home from the war. He had to go back to a small town full of people completely unaware of what he had been through or even the world around them. No one had seen the number of killings he had seen or become as almost zombie-like to it as he had. He felt alone, as though no one could understand him. And that much is true. No one would have been able to comprehend the things he'd lived through, so his loneliness was substantially justified. He also had not stopped feeling guilt for not being able to save Kiowa or bring home a medal to show his father. This, of course, brings me back to the theme I have mentioned once before. The shame he feels at failing to earn the Silver Star is so overwhelming that he shuts himself off to the world and can hardly tell the story to anyone. And, still, a question keeps ringing in my head: "Shouldn't serving one's country be enough?"

Motivation

In this chunk of the novel (pgs 120 to 132), the author tells of the man he killed. Whether or not this piece is factual or not is seemingly irrelevant, as is the case with all of the stories in this novel.

" 'We all had him zeroed. A good kill-weapon, ammunition, everything.' (pg 129)"

This speaking sequence is not that of Tim, but of Kiowa. Still, it shows a motivation that must have entered O'Brien's head when making the split-second decision to kill the man. Even though the kill was one that could have saved many American lives down the road, O'Brien felt terrible about it because the man had been just walking down the path. He had not made a move to kill a single one of them because he was presumably unaware of their existence. Realistically, there was not much motivation when it came to killing the man. O'Brien states that he acted on instinct. The only real motivation he had to kill the man was the training he endured to prepare him for this exact occurance, and he did exactly as the Army would have liked him to. Still, it is phenomenally clear that, if O'Brien could have gone back and not killed that man, regardless of the fact that his comrades would have likely done it anyway, he would not have done it. His motivation, in this instance, is weak.

Personification Personified!

"In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor (pg 117)."

Obviously, the country of America is not physically big and strong, nor does it have a roll of fat to be jiggled. The author knows that any semi-educated reader will know this. Because of this, the literary tool that is personification proves to be extremely useful. To create an image, one must use words that aid the nervous system in physically experiencing what the author intends it to. While this might sound impossible, it has been scientifically proven through a method much like that of Pavlov's Dogs that the mere indication of something enjoyable can send our senses into a tizzy. Authors take full advantage of this fact. Giving America real, commonman traits serves the purpose of endearing the reader to Henry Dobbins. The author wants you to be able to relate to Dobbins, linking him to the country that we, as Americans, take so much pride in.

Foreshadowing

As with most novels, foreshadowing plays a key role in this book. Giving the reader a taste of what's to come tantalizes them and leaves them on the edge of their seat, begging for more.

"There's the scary part. I promise you, this girl will most definitely learn (pg 97)."

Arriving in Vietnam in a blissfully ignorant daze, Mark Fossie's girlfriend Mary Anne is completely blind to the dangers of the place. Needless to say, she learns pretty quickly to not play around , but Eddie Diamond's foreshadowing words were right on the mark. O'Brien uses foreshadowing for exactly the aforementioned reasons. Reading that the young woman is going to learn from her mistake makes the reader want to read on and learn just how the author's (or one of his soldier buddy's) imaginative mind will teach the girl a lesson. This may seem sick and twisted, but it is human and an author certainly knows how to indulge our inquisitive minds.

Theme

In The Things They Carried, I find that the main thing these soldiers carried was shame. Whether or not they carried constant shame or simply the overhanging goal of preventing it, a theme throughout the novel is most certainly shame.

"The embarrassment must've turned a screw in his head... He switched on a flashlight, woke up the young captain, and told him he had a monster toothache... The dentist couldn't find any problem, but Lemon kept insisting, so the man...yanked out a perfectly good tooth (pg 88)."

When a man has a professional tear out a healthy tooth to save his pride, someone has gone overboard. While this is true, this story is one of dozens in this novel depicting men doing things most would not do for the sole purpose of protecting their ego. O'Brien says many times that he went to war to protect his family from embarrassment, putting his pride before his very life. The main question I am persistently asking myself throughout the course of this novel is, "Would I do the same?", but all I seem to be coming up with is no. I believe this is majorly attributed to the fact that women and men seem to be from completely different planets (not to bring back the old adage). Is the need to protect one's pride strictly a male attribute or is innately human?

Style

Every writer has their preferences. Some like to write fantasy, dreaming up things they could never experience. Others, like O'Brien, write from a place of experience.

"This one wakes me up (pg 82)".

Throughout the novel, the author interrupts the story to add in opinions and personal touches. He uses this specific sentence to prepare the reader for a story he feels is especially unsettling. The story proves to be just that, but one could argue that the reader would feel equally unsettled without the author's verbal interlude. While this could be argued, one must look at the piece as a whole and understand that the entire novel is the author's way of letting the world into his own personal microcosm. The author writes as much for himself as he does for his audience. In many ways, I believe this enriches the stories and the piece would not be the same without it.

Insane in the Membrane

Typicallly, a man or woman will go off to war and come back affected. The level at which these people are affected varies, but it is highly unlikely that a person will return unchanged.

"One afternoon he began firing his weapon into the air, yelling Strunk's name, just firing and yelling, and it didn't stop until he'd rattled off an entire magazine of ammunition (pg 63)."

This past school year, I did a project on PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) in psychology class. Ever since, I've been fascinated with the toll a war can take on a returning serviceman. You hear stories of people becoming mute and others of people just having a difficult time functioning normally after their return. I find myself reading this novel and asking myself how a person could ever come back from such an experience and not suffer some kind of PTSD. In this particular story, Dave Jensen is so paranoid that Lee Strunk will seek revenge that he goes on a crazy rampage, firing his gun off in the air. Soon after, he uses a gun to break his own nose. These are not the actions of a person unaffected by his experience in the wartorn nation of Vietnam. The paranoia Jensen displays is a sure sign of PTSD. Still, I can't imagine how one would escape war without a certain level of paranoia, for every second, there was a "Charlie" looking to kill a few American soldiers.

Symbol

(I am aware that there are no alligators in the lake the two men were fishing in. I just like the picture. ^^^)

With this series of twelve pages (pgs 48 to 60), I found numerous literary tools and had a hard time deciding which to use for this particular blog. By now, I'm sure you have figured out that I decided on symbol(ism). Really, this only comes into play one time in these pages, but, when I read this line, it packed quite a punch.

" 'Ain't biting,' he said (pg 60)."

While this is an extremely short quote, it holds a great deal of meaning concerning the young O'Brien's perplexing situation. Despite its brevity, this quote is clearly alluding to the fact that "Timmy" is not taking him up on his unspoken offer to drop him off at the Canadian border. If O'Brien had chosen to jump out of the small fishing boat and swim to the Canadian shore, he would be relieved of his militarial duty, so to speak. Still, the author is all too aware that the decision to jump would also be one of shame, and to bring shame on himself and his family is apparently a fate worse than death. Yes, the old man is also stating that the fish he is so carelessly and innocently going after are not taking his bait that particular day, but the deeper meaning is as transparent as newly shammied glass.

Imagery

Within pages 36 to 48, imagery abounds. Realistically, the entire book is full of it. Whether O'Brien is describing the poop field Kiowa dies in or the field many years after when he pays a visit to the site to reminisce with his naive daughter, O'Brien's main goal, as he states multiple times, is to force the audience to understand and appreciate many of the things he experienced in his time as a soldier.

"The damp, fungal scent of an empty body bag.
A quarter moon rising over the nighttime paddies.
A field of elephant grass weighted with wind, bowing under the stir of a helicopter's blades... (pg 37)."

This one passage continues on in amazingly detailed imagery, but I'm sure you get the picture from what's there. The whole idea of imagery is mainly to transport the reader to the current scene of te novel. While I'm sure this explanation would suffice with this novel, I feel there is much more to O'Brien's literal lists of imagery than simply that. With this particular author, the entire book takes on an extremely personal role. Having lived through possibly a few of the things described in the novel, the book surely means a lot to him, but this also brings up a question that has puzzled me throughout the beginning of this book: exactly what has the author experienced and what is total and utter fiction?

FLaShBaCk!!!

Due to the fact that basically this entire novel is just a series of flashbacks, I figured I would spice up the title of this post to make it seem as if it is an exciting, new adventure.

"Here's a quick peace story:

A guy goes AWOL. Shacks up in Danang with a Red Cross nurse. It's a great time... The war's over, he thinks. But then one day he rejoins his unit in the bush...and the guy says, 'All that peace, man, it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.' (pg 35)".

Now, I truly do not understand the moral of this story, nor do I know whether or not this is a true flashback, seeing as the author is constantly discrediting any story he tells, but the idea of a flashback is there. One gets the idea that it is a story from the past used to illuminate what is happening in the present. I think this also reveals a lot about the sense of humor of the average serviceman. The majority of the things these men thought were funny throughtout the course of the novel have not even slightly appealed to my sense of humor. Whether this is due to the fact that I am from a totally different age or the fact that I have not been to war and it has not had the chance to affect the way I see things is impossible to figure, but the basic idea behind humor is constant, so my immediate guess is the difference in humor stems from the former.

The author uses these flashbacks as a means for storytelling. Throughout the novel, the reader attains a better understanding of the characters and their development due to the way the flashbacks mold together to give the reader a full view of the character's traits and life story.

Internal Conflict

In pages 13 through 24, the reader gets a keen sense of the feelings Lieutenant Jimmy Cross has for the character Martha.

"He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead... (pg 16)."

This passage is a clear indication of the internal conflict Cross was experiencing. His mind should have been looking after his men. Instead, it was reminiscing on the times he had spent with his unrequited love, Martha. The use of this literary tool is necessity. A war story without an internal conflict would essentially be a boring play-by-play. The use of love as the source of the conflict is not only something that would have been very common in the Vietnam War, but is also something any author knows his audience enjoys reading about. This tool is essentially used to increase the reader's interest.

David and Goliath

The Things They Carried

While reading the beginning of this novel, or the first twelve pages as the reading division required, one item one man, Lee Strunk, carried with him struck me.

"Lee Strunk carried a slingshot; a weapon of last resort, he called it (pg 7)."

I am not aware as to whether or not this connection is one I formulated so that I would have something to write a blog on or it is a connection purposefully entwined in the reading. Still, in my mind, there is a deeper meaning to the character's possession of a slingshot. In the story of David and Goliath, David is a mere shepherdboy who, through his faith in God, defeats the mighty Goliath with a rock and slingshot to save his people.

Similarly, the men who fought in the Vietnam War were and are still seen as heroes who attempted to protect our nation against a dangerous enemy. Also, the idea that these American men could go to a foreign country astronomically different from their own and win a war could be seen as a task as lofty as that of killing the mighty Goliath. With the Vietcong using war tactics such as guerrilla warfare and rigging everyday objects with deadly bombs, the fact that the Vietnam War ended as badly for the Americans as it did is of little surprise, but the bravery these men possessed would be enough to make David a proud man.