When reading The Things They Carried, I couldn’t help but notice similarities in its style to Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. In many ways, the attitudes of the characters in Tim O’Brien’s novel are similar to those of Jonah and the Hoenikker family. In terms of their opinions on horrible life events, the Hoenikkers and soldiers have very similar reactions. The soldiers go up to the dead man in the village that was killed by one of their airstrikes and each shake his hand. Newt shows a similar insensitivity to death in his letter to Jonah. He talks about two girls at his University that killed themselves in a gorge, in a very offhand way. He mentions what sorority they wanted to get into, tri delt, which seemed to me to be similar to the soldiers shaking the dead man’s hand in terms of its insensitivity towards the dead. The information that Newt offers almost seems to be the level of a handshake. An offhand comment that acknowledges that the girls did have an identity, but not enough information to show that he cares at all.
There are other examples in addition to these, but these ones made me think that those who were in wars might think alike. Vonnegut who fought in WWII and O’Brien who fought in Vietnam seem to impose similar views about death on their characters. It might be an interesting investigation to look more closely into how Vonnegut and O'Brien's views on death are similar, and how they are different. This might give some insight about how Vietnam and WWII were different for soldiers psychologically, or it might indicate that in fact all wars affect their participants in a similar way.
I think it's fair to say that people who come back from war are pretty messed up. They see horrible things happen and lose some of their closest friends. That being said, they should use whatever coping mechanism they need survive. If that means shaking hands with dead people, then fine by me. It makes me think of foma. If they just live in these untruths, they can survive. If they act like these people are still alive, then they don't have to face the truth of death. These untruths make them happy. The only fear that I have for these soldiers is when they come back. It seems like they would make comments like Newt about the girls who killed themselves. If they bring this foma, where they pretend the dead are alive, back home with them it could be harmful to themselves and those around them. I have no idea what it's like to come home from war, but I have a feeling that it's not easy to just switch the way you've been thinking about something for so long.
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