Things They Carried By Tim O`Brien Essay, Research Paper

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. It

is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are

brought about from the war. O’Brien makes several statements about war through

these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the

pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on

the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the

stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing

connotative diction, O’Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point. The

violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of

O’Brien’s predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very

descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men,

O’Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its

participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle

person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It

had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(13). Bowler had

been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very

hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a

trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an

excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the

soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic,

from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force.

However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted

Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore

antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(39). Azar has become

demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However,

the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the

fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another,

setting order back within the group. O’Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity

among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present

for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of

horror; therefore fulfilling O’Brien’s purpose, to convince the reader of war’s

severely negative effects. In the buffalo story, "We came across a baby

water buffalo. . .After supper Rat Kiley went over and stroked its nose. . .He

stepped back and shot it through the right front knee. . .He shot it twice in

the flanks. It wasn’t to kill, it was to hurt"(85). Rat displays a severe

emotional problem here; however, it is still the norm. The startling degree of

detached emotion brought on by the war is inherent in O’Brien’s detailed

accounts of the soldiers’ actions concerning the lives of other beings.

O’Brien’s use of specific and connotative diction enhances the same theme, the

loss of sensitivity and increase in violent behavior among the soldiers. The VC

from which Bowker took the thumb was just "a boy"(13), giving the

image of a young, innocent person who should not have been subjected to the

horrors of war. The connotation associated with boy enhances the fact that

killing has no emotional effect on the Americans, that they kill for sport and

do not care who or what their game may be. Just as perverse as killing boys,

though, is the killing of "a baby"(85), the connotation being

associated with human infants even though it is used to describe a young water

buffalo they torture. The idea of a baby is abstract, and the killing of one is

frowned upon in modern society, regardless of species. O’Brien creates an

attitude of disgust in the reader with the word, further fulfilling his purpose

in condemning violence. Even more drastic in connotation to be killed is the

"orphaned puppy"(39). Adding to the present idea of killing babies is

the idea of killing orphaned babies, which brings out rage within the reader.

The whole concept is metaphoric, based on the connotations of key words;

nevertheless, it is extremely effective in conveying O’Brien’s theme. O’Brien

makes a valid, effective antiwar statement in The Things They Carried. The

details he includes give the reader insight into his opinions concerning the

Vietnam War and the draft that was used to accumulate soldiers for the war.

While thinking of escaping to Canada, he says: "I was drafted to fight a

war I hated. . .The American war seemed to me wrong"(44). O’Brien feels

that U.S. involvement in Vietnamese affairs was unnecessary and wasteful. He

includes an account of his plan to leave the country because he did not want to

risk losing his life for a cause he did not believe in. Here O’Brien shows the

level of contempt felt towards the war; draft dodging is dangerous. He was not a

radical antiwar enthusiast, however, for he takes "only a modest stand

against the war"(44). While not condoning the fighting, he does not protest

the war except for minimally, peacefully, and privately doing so. His

dissatisfaction with the drafting process is included in his statement, "I

was a liberal, for Christ’s sake: if they needed fresh bodies, why not draft

some back-to-the-stone-age-hawk?"(44). O’Brien’s point of drafting only

those who approve involvement in the war is clearly made while his political

standpoint is simultaneously revealed. The liberal attitude O’Brien owns is very

much a part of his antiwar theme; it is the axis around which his values

concerning the war revolve. The antiwar statement is enhanced by O’Brien’s use

of connotative and informal diction to describe the war, its belligerent

advocates, and its participants. The connotation in the adjective American in

describing the war seems as though O’Brien believes the Americans are making the

war revolve around themselves, instead of the Vietnamese. While also criticizing

Americans, he manages to once again question the necessity of United States

involvement in the war. Also connotatively enhancing the antiwar theme is the

word bodies to describe draftees; while an accurate evaluation scientifically,

it gives the reader the impression that the young men that are being brought

into the war to become statistics, part of a body count. O’Brien shows very

effectively the massive destruction of innocent human life brought on by

Vietnam. In contrast with his sympathy toward draftees, O’Brien utilizes

informal, derogatory diction to describe the war’s advocates. He labels his

stereotype belligerent a "dumb jingo"(44), or moronic national pride

enthusiast. By phrasing his views in such a manner, O’Brien is able to convey

the idea that there is enough opposition to the war that a negative slang has

been implemented frequently, hence the term dumb jingo. The skill with which

O’Brien illustrates his views is very convincing throughout their development in

the novel; his antibelligerence focus is very effective. The social deviance

that has become the accepted norm in The Things They Carried is brought out by

O’Brien in the form of the soldiers’ drug usage. O’Brien wants to convey the

idea of negative transitions brought about by the war with a statement about

marijuana’s public, widespread, carefree use in Vietnam. He includes several

anecdotes that illustrate to which degree the substance is abused. A friend of

O’Brien’s, Ted Lavender, "carried six or seven ounces of premium

dope"(4), which indicates not only the soldiers’ familiarity with the drug,

but their acquired knowledge of the quality of the drug. The discouragement of

marijuana, as well as other drugs, was previously the accepted view of

Americans; however, according to O’Brien, is has become the norm for Americans

in Vietnam. The war has completely reversed their morals. Once they carried a

corpse out to "a dry paddy. . .and sat smoking the dead man’s dope until

the chopper came. Lieutenant Cross kept to himself"(8). Even the squad’s

supervisor, the platoon leader Lieutenant Cross, is unaffected by the soldiers’

blatant use of an illegal substance; he has become so used to the occurrence

that he no longer condemns its use. For even a leader of men to be morally

warped by the war is an effective idea in O’Brien’s discouragement of war. As

George Carlin once said to a New York audience, "We love war. We are a

warlike people, and therefore we love war"(Carlin 1992). This view is

common today among Americans since the advent of long-distance warfare and

bright, colorful explosions; however, in the guerrilla warfare of Vietnam, the

grudging participants loathed the idea. Tim O’Brien very effectively portrays

their hatred and the severe negative effects the war had on American soldiers in

his excellent, convincing novel The Things They Carried. The skillful choice of

details and several types of diction that reveal his theme of induced violence,

his anti-war statement, and his view of the reversal of morals among GIs are

effective in presenting O’Brien’s views in this, "The Last War

Novel"(McClung 96).