Storytime

I thought it random at first that O'Brien randomly brings up Linda, his childhood sweetheart. But then it hit me: maybe the book has been building up to the story of her loss. He saved his first real war experience of seeing a dead man and watching the soldiers shake hands with him for the end of the book, which ultimately led to the story of Linda.

Tim O'Brien talked about all the things the men around him carried according to job or personality. But this was what O'Brien carried: the loss of a childhood friend. He carried it all through grade school, high school, and then off to Vietnam. The death of Linda scarred him, but then again, I guess it kind of healed him. Having had "conversations" with Linda after she was dead made O'Brien respect the dead in Vietnam, however many faceless, nameless bodies he came across. He tells his readers that his worst day at war was when "for three hours [they] carried... bodies down the mountain to a clearing alongside a narrow dirt road" (page 230). Since he'd experienced the death of Linda, memories most likely surfaced due to the causalities seen in Vietnam.

Linda is also the prime reason O'Brien "had begun to practice the magic of stories. Some [he] just dreamed up. Others [he] wrote down-the scenes and dialogue" (page 231). We now see where the stories come from. As O'Brien repeats over and over that he is 43 and a writer, he admits that he is "still dreaming Linda alive...." It's like he is showing us it's okay to tell the stories over and over. To make up conversations and situations in our head. To daydream and create a world where only those we allow to be a part of can.

Stories are magic; they take us away or bring us close to our deepest regrets, greatest fears, saddest memories.

Serious Joking

After the prank played on Jorgenson by Azar and O'Brien, I was expecting more wacky things from these guys. In "Night Life," some sarcasm is used to try to liven up such a dreary time for these men: "That was the phrase everyone used: the night life. A language trick. It made things seem tolerable. How's the Nam treating you? one guy would ask, and some other guy would say, Hey, one big party, just living the night life" (page 208). Of course, it wasn't like the nightlife some would have been used to back in the States, full of parties, booze, girls, music, and dancing. But they had to make the best out of the situation they were in. O'Brien calls it "a language trick," so some of the guys would hope that if their ears heard "night life" it would put their hearts into it a little more.

The imagery in this chapter is rich as well. Two weeks at night were described on page 209 as the "purest black you could imagine... the kind of clock-stopping black that God must've had in mind when he sat down to invent blackness." I could see the black, and I know the feeling of not knowing whether my eyes are opened or closed except for the blinking sensation because it's so dark. And we know, because of what happened to Kiowa, that they couldn't flick on their flashlights for fear of giving away the position. So it was absolute darkness; anyone could have lost their mind in a place like that, it just so happened to be Rat Kiley. I could see what he was seeing as "he'd stare at guys who were still okay, the alive guys, and he'd start to picture how they'd look dead. Without arms or legs...." The mind plays some absurd tricks on us, and unfortunitely, like Rat, some just can't recover.

Fear

"When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends" (page 183). This is where the brotherhood of fellow soldiers fighting for a common cause comes in. They have been scared to their wits end, but have each other to fall back on. However, one doesn't have to be in war to experience extreme fear. It's ironic how fear can bring even enemies together. In today's world, the world is afraid of the powers North Korea may possess. Since their government keeps everything clandestine, the world holds its breath waiting with apprehension for the day North Korea puts its powers to the test. In response to this, countries with histories of conflicting pasts bond together in the presence of utter fear.

I also liked O'Brien's description on what its like being shot. When he says on page 189 "The boots were one of those vivid details you can't forget. Like a pebble or a blade of grass. You just stare and think, Dear Christ, there's the last thing on earth I'll ever see," I found myself wondering what the last thing I saw would be!

Daddy's Little Girl

O'Brien's daughter Kathleen's ignorance is precious. She's young and seeks answers to complicated answers asked in simple forms. She acts as a foil character to Tim O'Brien because she asks questions to get O'Brien to go further in detail on certain accounts or to explain something in a different way. For instance on page 175 during their trip in Vietnam Kathleen inquires of her father, "'This whole war', she said, 'why was everybody so mad at everybody else?' I shook my head. 'They weren't mad exactly. Some people wanted one thing, other people wanted another thing.'" This exchange between the father and daughter reminds me when I was little and I asked my dad what he did for his job. He had a hard time explaining it in kid terms; I mean, he's an account. He's into numbers and all. But he managed to tell me that he worked with money and helped people put it to good use. I always looked up to my dad for the hard work he does and the people he helps. I imagine Kathleen looked up to her dad and appreciated once she was older all the hard work and fight her dad put into being a soldier and then a writer.

Sure wish my dad could take me somewhere foreign for my tenth birthday!

Ambiguity at Its Best

All of O'Brien's stories can be taken two ways- with an air of truth that the events unfolded in the ways described or with skepticism that it was all pretty much made up. I'd like to believe that most were true, yet it was nice to read on page 171 O'Brien's declaration of the real: "Here is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I'm left with faceless responsibilty and faceless grief." He admits what he's held on to throughout the book and throughout the past twenty years. We can hold onto the truth that the bodies and guilt and responsibility is real, even if the details are made up at times.

We fabricate stories all the time. That doesn't mean we're liars or our lives are any less interesting. It means that the added details are usually used to make the listener pay more attention and leave remembering what you said. I think that's what O'Brien truly anticipated happening through his story telling.

Clearing The Throat

O'Brien utilizes the chapter "Notes" to carry out a point that serves as one of the book's themes. After receiving Norman Bowker's seventeen-page note, O'Brien knew that it was his responsibility to tell the stories of so many nameless soldiers. The book serves as a catharsis- "telling stories seemed a natural, inevitable process, like clearing the throat... It was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining what had happed to [O'Brien], ...all the terrible things [he] had seen and done" (page 151). But O'Brien didn't just want to share his story; he wanted to share the stories of all the men in Alpha Company and beyond in "Nam." The theme comes to life as O'Brien says on page 152 that "by telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths." Here O'Brien changes to a second-person writing style, directly speaking to the reader to get the point and purpose of all his story telling across.

I had a great-uncle who died of a heart attack about ten years ago. He faught in Vietnam, and come to find out was shot at one point during the war. I never understood his quiet nature and odd starring, but as I read this book things started to click into place. O'Brien is telling Uncle Scott's story too...

O'Brien also uses this chapter as an introduction into a chapter full of admit and guilt: "Norman Bowker was in no way responisble for what happened to Kiowa. Norman did not experience a failure of nerve that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own."

Valor's Silent Voice

Norman Bowker's loneliness in "Speaking of Courage" could be almost felt. The whole chapter is an apostrophe, as he holds conversations about how he almost won the Silver Star for valor with Sally and his father, people who are not there. As he drives through his hometown, I found it pitiful that he described it as a "place [that] looked as if it had been hit be nerve gas, everything still and lifeless, even the people. The town could not talk, and would not listen" (page 137). The tone of this whole chapter is somber and lonely, leading up to Bowker's suicide. He feels like no one will listen as he goes through the drive-through or describes his father as someone "who had his own war and who now preferred silence" (page 141).

"The field was boiling," "he heard the valves of his heart," "the smell," "bubbles where Kiowa's head should've been." What a nightmare! These men see so much and then must return home to a town or city clueless of their struggles; "they wanted good intentions and good deeds" (page 143) not descriptions on the smell or death of a friend. Valor is the only thing Norman Bowker thinks the people will care about; therefore, everything else is pointless.

Grief

Let me just say that I can't stand Azar. He comes up in the most disturbing stories, like when he blew up Ted Lavender's puppy (page 35) or when he kicked O'Brien in the head after their trick on Jorgenson (page 206). So when I re-read this chapter and the way Azar mocks the dancing girl, I felt like I'd like to say some not-so-nice things to Azar. Despite this, I don't know what it's like being in war; I know from this story that it changes people, but I am ignorant to the ways in which being out there messes with one's head and personality.

The dancing girl is a symbol for anyone who has ever lost a loved one, especially in a war. She dealt with the death of her family by putting "the palms of her hands against her ears... and [dancing] sideways for a short while..." (page 129). "Her face had a dreamy look, quiet and composed." This just suggests the human individuality of dealing of loss and disaster. We all have our own ways of coping: some weep, some grow silent and close off the world, some celebrate the life lost, some dance.

A Star-Shaped Hole

First off, O'Brien starts the chapter "The Man I Killed" with a long sentence, depicting a gruesome image of a dead man. The syntax can be connected to The Sun Also Rises when Hemingway used long sentences to show guilt of Jake Barnes; O'Brien may have been feeling similar guilt.

The unwavering image of the dead man's "one eye shut, the other a star shaped hole" reoccurs during several instances throughout the rest of the book (pages 118, 120, 124 127). The image is used as a motif, as a constant reminder of the image O'Brien can't shake of the dead Vietnamese man. Another motif O'Brien uses is the colors red and yellow. He uses it when describing on page 104 "the panes dancing in bright reds and yellows..." where Mary Anne was hiding out with the Greenies. And then again on page 120: "The star-shaped hole was red and yellow." These colors seem to come up when crazy things are happening in the book: Mary Anne changed to the point of no return, O'Brien killed a man.

Guns and Monks

There's nothing quite as ironical as the peaceful monks in the chapter "Church" cleaning Henry Dobbins' weapon. On page 114, the monks are "squatting quietly in the cool pagoda, [helping] Dobbins disassemble and clean his machine gun." They have a reverence for the soldiers who are there fighting against their government. Just as Dobbins explains his religious views- and how he hates church- "the younger monk use[s] a yellow cloth to wipe dirt from the belt of ammunition." Dobbins is in a church, saying he hates church, cleaning his killing machines, with monks. Seems a little disoriented to me!

I liked how Dobbins' decent side is again shown as he says, "it wasn't the religious part that interested me. Just being nice to people, that's all" (page 115). He makes it seem so simple, yet he's out there fighting a war. Maybe O'Brien put this story in to show not only the deep thoughts and conversations that occur as a result of being in war, but also to show the different religious views of the soldiers.

Lady of the Flies

Mary Anne Bell, a dynamic character, is a clear example of how the war changes people. She went through a complete change from the beginning of the chapter to the end; Mary Anne's metamorphosis is depicted by the diction used in Rat Kiley's story.

She starts out in innocence; "an attractive girl," "bubbly personality," "happy smile" with a "good quick mind" (page 91). Eddie Diamond supposedly said, "I promise you, this girl will most definitely learn," foreshadowing the change she's about to go through. It was her intuitive nature that lead her to the complete opposite end of the spectrum towards the end: "her face took on a sudden new composure" (page 93), "the bubbliness was gone [as was] the nervous giggling" (page 95), "she carried an M-16 automatic assault rifle" (page 98). Her eyes were no longer intelligent and blue, but had "a haunted look" to them, "a bright glowing jungle green." She's portrayed as wild, especially when we are told she had a string of human tongues around her throat" (page 105). This whole description reminds me of the weird, inhumane ways humans act in the strangest, costliest situations like in The Lord of the Flies. The boys in that story turned crazy and against each other; Mary Anne Bell is like the Lady of the Flies!

Getting All Sentimental

With the connection of Henry Dobbins to America, we are immediately drawn to him. He's "big and strong, full of good intentions... [and] like this country, too, Dobbins was drawn toward sentimentality" (page 111). In this passage, America is portrayed-through Dobbins- to have a good intention, possibly hinting at their involvement in Vietnam.

I really felt for Dobbins as I pictured him wrapping his girlfriend's stockings around his neck, and later getting dumped by the same girl. Dobbins is said to be "invulnerable. Never wounded, never a scratch" (page 112). We all have a bit of superstition inside us, so when something lucky happens, we credit it to that lucky object. Dobbins is no exception as he credits his luck to the girl he loves back home.

True or False- War Stories are True?

O'Brien confused me in the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story." He contradicts himself on several occasions. By repeating the phrase "a true war story is..." we see the complexity of memories and need to share stories, however real they may be. "A true war story cannot be believed" (page 68), but then O'Brien goes on to say four pages later that "you can tell a true war story by the way it never ends." One such story is the account of how Curt Lemon died. O'Brien brings up the death four different times on pages 67, 75, 79, and 81; he can't rid his mind of this image of Lemon blowing to pieces, so he keeps bringing it up. Irony plays its part when O'Brien admits that "what wakes [him] up twenty years later is Dave Jensen singing 'Lemon Tree' as [they] threw down the pieces [of Lemon's body]." It's a war story that doesn't end.

Even though O'Brien wrote all these stories, I had a hard time believing them after reading this chapter. "It's safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true" (page 78); however, maybe the point isn't in the validation of the story. But in the people and the things they faced and pulled themselves through, like picking pieces of Curt Lemon out of a tree.

Back to Back

I found it interesting that O'Brien ordered the chapters "Enemies" and "Friends" back to back.

Even a title of "Enemies" couldn't bestow in my mind the absence of brotherhood between the men in O'Brien's unit, Alpha Company. While Lee Strunk and Dave Jenson got into a costly fist fight, the violence of the fight didn't cause the men to be enemies. For me, the men weren't enemies, but Jenson felt like he was in a constant battle with "skittish feelings." "The distinction between good guys and bad guys disappeared for him" (page 60) and he began behaving in bizarre ways. The enemy is the feeling of guilt and fear and restlessness.

In "Friends," it's obvious from the get-go that the pact between Dave Jenson and Lee Strunk would somehow be tested. Foreshadowing one of them getting hurt, O'Brien shares the story of how the pact was made and finally how it was tested. At the end of the chapter, we see on the surface Jensen's selfish reaction to hearing that "Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai" (page 63), but digging deeper (as is always O'Briens purpose) we see that the weight wasn't lifted upon hearing that his friend had died and would be relieved of the war. Jensen felt relieved by knowing he didn't have to make the decision of whether or not to keep Strunk going.

I Was A Coward- I Went to the War

Courage is like an inheritance. True. We keep it locked up inside until those crucial moments where life demands more from us than we are typically used to. Aside from all this, fear is pint up inside in a similar way. It leaks out of people almost simultaneously with courage. Also true.

O'Brien wanted us to feel his guilt, his fear, his so-called cowardice. He uses what I believe is an antithesis on page 38 when saying that "certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons;" clearly he understood there was no certainty in the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter.

I thought the gross descriptions of the pig "Declotter" job built up to the parallelism of O'Brien's paralyzing choice towards "slaughtery" if he chose to accept the draft notice on page 41. We feel his frustration with his home town as he fears being judged, so he condemns them by saying, "They didn't know history..." (page 43). By combing all of the townspeople into a common pronoun "them," O'Brien uses a synecdoche to say that the people as a group are against him.

If I can clearly recall back to sophomore year, one of the stages in the hero cycle was flight. This is exactly the approach O'Brien took when he received the draft notice, until he came across the "hero of his life," Elroy Berdahl (pages 44-45). Berdahl taught him with few words in six days that absence of fear does not make one strong, for the only conclusion O'Brien left us with at the end of the chapter was that he "would not be brave." He let embarrassment of having to face all the people in his life make the decision for him to submit himself into the war. How often are we too pressured into a route we're not too fond of due to the driving force of peer pressure. Leaving us with a paradox, O'Brien tells us of his drive home, "... and then to Vietnam, where [he] was a soldier, and then home again. [He] survived but it's not a happy ending. [He] was a coward. [He] went to war" (page 58). 'Coward' and 'war' just don't mix in my mind.

Spin

O'Brien started out the chapter "Spin" with an edge of sarcasm. He said that "war wasn't all terror and violence. Sometimes things could almost get sweet (page 30)," and then jumped immediately into a story about a kid that was "lucky" because he only get one leg shot off. The cruel reality of war shines through this dark humor. By using a simple simile by comparing war to a ping pong ball, O'Brien adds the crazy concept that war is almost treated as a game. He furthers this illusion by explaining Norman Bowker's and Henry Dobbins' nightly checkers ritual (page 31); however, he "spins" the concept by saying that with checkers there is actually visible enemy lines, knowledge of one's position, and a winner and loser, things that the Vietnam War clearly lacked.

When O'Brien described the sense of boredom felt by those not "humping" but waiting, I could almost see the soldiers twitching with anxiety and anticipation about what would come next. Out there in the jungle with no distinct path or purpose, they must have had a lot of time to ponder the absence of loved ones, entertainment, and home. I don't get bored very easily; I try to make my own fun or take in my surroundings, but I know I'd probably go crazy living out there in a constant state of reminding myself to just relax.

O'Brien repeats several times throughout the novel that he's "forty-three years old" and "still writing war stories" (page 31 & 33). He seems to rely on this release of emotion, or catharsis, to execute his purpose for writing. He goes on to say, "the thing about remembering is that you don't forget" (page 33), speaking directly to his reader, explaining this is the only way he can tell the world.

theme

The annoying thing about reading books for school besides the fact that we are TOLD to do so is that we have to find all these literary words and analyze to the point of brains becoming fried. I start to tell myself we're reading way too far into the books, and there's no way the author intended for us to dissect his story like this!

Despite this, I'll always love reading. It takes me away from my world and puts me in someone else's. When I'm reading, nothing is demanded of me (until I finish a chapter and I have to take notes or be tested over it). And above all, I actually do enjoy being challenged to skim through pages with an objective in mind. I love reading and searching for the author's purpose: the theme.

First off, O'Brien, like many Americans, seems to think that the US involvement in Vietnam was on the verge of pointlessness. On page 14 he discusses all they carry, then goes on to say "...but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost." The tone of this sentence is weary, almost as if O'Brien is tired with the way there was no purpose for the war. He felt the reasons for being in Vietnam could be taken several ways, as seen on page 15: "...and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry." He comes right out and states on page 38 that "it was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't bring them back." O'Brien is talking about the US government's decision to go to war. He's angry with the war, still. It was a mistake. Friends lost, money lost, time lost, innocent lives lost.

Kiowa was "folded in with the war; he was part of the waste" (page 147).

Dealing with death was a theme. I particularly liked the passage on pages 169-170 that discussed all the things you can blame death on including "the war, ...the idiots who made the war, ...God, ...Karl Marx, ...or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote." Karl Marx stands for the communistic ideals being fought against. There are so many levels of blame in this quote from omniscient God to the little old man.

Another theme is the beauty and sacredness of story telling. Often times an important message is tacked on to the end of chapters, like on page 36: "And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except." This doesn't need much explaining. For O'Brien, it's "a clearing of the throat." Storytelling will carry on forever; it's timeless.

Their War, My Memories

"In the Field" held a lot of images that jogged memories from my childhood- surprising I know considering the tragedy behind Kiowa's death.

The imagery used in this part of the story put me right there. I could see "the filth [that] seemed to erase identites, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier..." (page 156). When I read this, an image of the toy soldiers marching around Andy's room in Toy Story popped into my head, the soldiers all green and alike.
On page 158, I remembered a time at my Aunt and Uncle's lake in Michigan when I read, "Their boots sank into the ooze, which produced a powerful downward suction, and with each step they would have to pull up hard to break the hold." In the middle of my Aunt and Uncle's lake is an island. My sisters and I will kayak out to the island and walk around it. When we were little, we'd call it exploring; it was like we were the only people around! Once on our walk wading through the water around the island my sister Olivia was suddenly sucked down, the sand reaching her knees. She thought it was quick sand, but later my aunt told us that the natural springs which fill the lake make pockets for the sediment, giving it the feeling of quick sand. And this stuff smells! And it's blueish green and sticky and pulls you down. So in a way I can see the dislike of this muck-filled field! However, I can't imagine drowning in something like that as Kiowa did.

The Things They Carried

What didn't they carry through the hills in Vietnam?! O'Brien begins to develop his characters (and fellow soldiers) by directly saying what their job was in the war. The weight continued to add up. They carried "... P-38 can openers, pocket knives, ... dog tags, ... C rations, ... and two or three canteens of water" not to mention machinery and guns (page 2). The intangibles, however, is what O'Brien wanted to execute as almost unbearable: "Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (page 20). O'Brien uses a juxtaposition to show the extremes at which one may be involved with war: "they carried... whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive (page 7). O'Brien has a way of writing memories that captures my mind, like when he says on page 7 that "they carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." I could almost feel (probably because of the weight experienced during back country on Summer Field Studies) the weight and unbelief that my body could handle all that!

I find cleverness inspiring and invigorating, partly because I'm not too quick-witted. So when I read that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross "humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps," I laughed aloud. The pun meant that he carried the love through Vietnam (which inevitably cost him) and also hinted at the fact that Cross wanted a little more with Martha than just an old photograph.

And I Haven't Even Started Yet!

No fear- I am finished with the book The Things They Carried despite what my title may incline you to think! What I meant is the reviews! Before the story even began I was blown away by the reviews that announced the passion and connection people were able to make with this book. I'll admit that I was a little hesitant when I read one of the reviews that went like this: "...In prose that combines the sharp, unsentimental rhythms of Hemingway with gentler more lyrical descriptions, Mr. O'Brien gives the reader a shockingly visceral sense...." Nothing against Hemingway, I just found his writing style boring and distant. However, I felt like I was right there in the action while I read The Things They Carried. I could see the often "unsentimental rhythms" throughout the book, but I believe that writing style served a purpose: to initiate a feel of sarcasm amidst a serious, gruesome war story. One of the reasons Hemingway and O'Brien may have used a similar approach to telling war stories is because they actually lived it.