CSL

“No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, Marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the U.S. military’s chief spokesman in Iraq.

O’Brien is no different. He depicts death in his own way just as each soldier deals with death (impending or actual) in his own way.   Explain his technique and what effect this has on the reader. O’Brien employs different strategies for dealing with the very difficult subject. Discuss O’Brien’s technique from at least three different vignettes. As always pair text with commentary.

A:  First off, Happy Birthday Momma Z! 

      Admiral Smith once said “No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, Marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic,” .  This is the case with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.  When O’Brien deals with death in his novel he uses some remorse but he also remembers the good times they shared with their fallen comrade.  For example, when Ted Lavender died the Lieutenant felt it was all his fault.  Others remembered times they had with him, like when he always smoked his marijuana.  In the vignette, “Friends”, there is a story of Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk.  In the story, they both joked around about if one them was injured so severly that the other would end his pain.   This shows how the men took death as a mockery.  Lastly, the story of Curt Lemon it shows the remembering of a funny time with a dentist that he spent with a fallen comrade.  Funny moments help bring us out of remorse

Compare the definition of Comrades with O’Brien’s interrelationship of characters in “Friends and Enemies”.  Pay particular attention to the way the characters are revealed.

A:  The definition of comrade is a person who shares one’s interests or activities; a friend or companion.  This definition matches exactly to the relationship between O’Brien and his friends.  But the ironic thing is that comrade can also mean a fellow member of the Communist party and these men consider themselves comrades while fighting actual Communist Comrades, the Viet Cong.

Both novels attack the idea of traditional heroism. “On the Rainy River” explores the idea of the traditional hero. How do our main characters stack up against the traditional norms? What is your definition of courage and heroism? What other experiences or literary works have worked to build this definition for you? How do O’Brien achieve his goals? What literary spin are they putting on the ball of words to get us to swing? Be sure use quotes from the text and commentary to support your ideas.

A:  The main character, Tim O’Brien, stacks up differently against the traditional hero is that he considers himself a coward to go to war, whereas most people would find it the opposite, more heroic, “I was a coward.  I went to the war”  .  He would be considered a hero if he fled to Canada because he is leaving his citizenship, his rights, and ultimately his life.  Most pacifists would consider him a hero.  My definintion of courage is sticking up for what you believe in no matter who or what prevents you from believing such a thing.  My definintion of heroism is that it is unreal or perhaps surreal, that it is someone who defends something to the death.  Many literary works that have contributed to my idea of a hero is the abundance of books and plays that are about tragic heroes that somehow make my view of heroes more cynical.  O’Brien achieves his goal of illustrating his beliefs by putting his “spin” on things again.  He breaks us away from the norm of thinking that going to war is heroic in that thinking that running away from the draft is the more heroic deed, “I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life.  I would not be brave.  That old image of myself as a hero, as a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a threadbare pipe dream.”  This all depends on your bias of what you think is right.  O’Brien is just writing how he feels from his pacifist’s view point.

“Spin” explores the idea of controlling reality and memory through story. Write a blog entry explaining how this is explored in this chapter. Be sure to explain concepts using detail and commentary.

     A “spin” is a way to tell a story from a certain viewpoint.  Sometimes spins are used by the media and politicians.   Throughout the chapter ironically named, “Spin”, uses this concept to not elude from the truth but to tell the truth from a different view point through using diction.  In the novel it reads, “On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball.  You could put fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.”  Now that O’Brien has captured us in the novel he could tell us that blue elephants were responsible for the Viet Nam war.  This is what O’Brien wants is to tell us his story about the war, not necessarily the facts but his story.  O’Brien puts a “spin” on the chapter by talking about remembering writing at his home after the war.  This sets a comfort level which makes us like it more, we have all sat in our house thinking about our memories but not all of us have experienced war.  Now that O’Brien has us hooked he can tell the story any way he wants too and like Mr. Z said he will begin to mess with our head.

     Throughout the first section, “The Things They Carried”, they describe many things they “hump” around.  These things that can be sorted by either tangible or intangible.  The intangible things the soldier carried were grief, the grief of losing a loved one or being away from home.  Love, the love of those whom they missed back in America.  Terror, the terror of being in a foreign land being shot at by people who want to kill you.  Longing, the longing to go home or to get the heck out of Viet Nam.  Lastly, blame, the blame you think you deserve because you had a soldier or friend die and you should have been there.   The tangible things included the guns and claymores in which they used to defend themselves.  They kept the letters of family members or loved ones.  The radios they used to call in help or to be pulled out of an area, the voice of the battlefield.  Lastly, the meal kits, these fueled the troops to be able to fight and preserve America.

    If asked, “What do I hump?”, well first I would look at you funny, then I would say that the intangible things that I would carry are my faith, that I believe in one holy Apolistic Catholic Church.  My ego, that can get me into trouble but can also help me sometimes.  My mercurialness, that allows me to get out of things.  The tangible things would be many stationary things, like pens and pencils, to write down my genius ideas.  My wallet, to establish America’s nobility.  Lastly, I carry a rosary, this is tangible yet it represents something so very abstract that some doubt it.  So with this rosary I kill two birds with one stone.