After finishing The
Things they Carried, I was really intrigued at what the author was getting
at. From Friday’s class, Professor Schwartz reminded us about the title that
the author had given to the book. Although O’Brian himself went to war, for
some reason he names the book The Things
THEY Carried and not The Things WE
Carried. Along with the title, O’Brian goes on within the text to a chapter
that really jumped out at me. The title of the chapter was How to Tell a True War Story. Within the chapter, O’Brian talks
about how true war stories shouldn’t instruct, encourage virtue, prevent men
from doing something already done, and last of all seem moral. This is when it
struck me that even courageous and incredible war stories told by veterans of
war could all potentially be flawed by the minds of soldiers. In order to
survive in the warzone, soldiers must tell lies to keep up their moral and
positivity. One example within the text is Henry Dobbins. Similar to a lucky
pair of underwear, Dobbins has a pair of pantyhose from his ex-girlfriend.
Although the pantyhose will not protect him from danger, he carries it as a
beacon of hope to push him through the harsh times of war. Without telling
themselves lies, these soldiers get into mental battles within their brain
losing their sanity. The last few pages of the book were what got me really thinking. O'Brian talks about a girl named Linda who he had fallen in love with when they were 9. However, she tragically died from a brain tumor. But, this didn't stop O'Brian from seeing/imagining her. Instead, O'Brian tells readers that Linda described herself as being an old book. She says "All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading". Although Linda may just be a figment of O'Brian's imagination, she still exists within the realms of his imagination. Similar to the soldiers ways of lying to keep themselves sane and to make a name of themselves, O'Brian lies to himself in order to try to make a name of himself and be put down as something in history.
Immediately, when I finished reading you piece, I thought of the pretext in Vonnegut's Cat’s Cradle. The Books of Bokonon are quoted, "Live by the foma that make you brace and kind and healthy and happy." (Vonnegut) You are exactly right when you say that the soldiers need to keep telling and living by these "harmless lies" in order to remain sane. Your idea also struck another parallel with Cat’s Cradle when Miss Faust said, “I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.” (Vonnegut, 45) If the soldiers in Tim O’briens novel, or really any soldier who has experienced the terrors of war, lived solely by the truth, all innocence would be lost and their sense of security and stability would diminish.
ReplyDeleteThis story also struck me because I feel like it's one of the most central and transparent stories in the book. The idea that truth of content is irrelevant to a story and that the real truths are the emotions elicited in the reader speaks to the entire book as a whole. Storytelling, especially about war, should make the reader feel, not know.
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