After having read the entire novel, to what extent (meaning how much or how little) would you say that the ultimate, overall outlook of this text is optimistic about the futures of soldiers who have been to war? In other words, does the novel as a whole paint more of a hopeful or hopeless picture about the world of the Vietnam vet? Why do you say so?
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After reading the entire novel, I would say that the book is not really taking any sides on painting a picture of a hopeful or hopeless future for a Vietnam veteran but is just informing us that sometimes a person’s future depends on that person’s personalities and characteristics. What I’m trying to say is that if you take the two men from the book, Tim and Norman. They are both veterans from the Vietnam War but one is successful in his life and the other is lonely and depressed. One knows how to switch his mind from the war to his real life and the other keeps on thinking about the horrible incidents and doesn’t keep his job for more than 3 months. Tim explains how he felt about the war and how he moved on. “…how easily I had made the shift from war to peace. A nice smooth glide¬no flashbacks or midnight sweats. The war was over, after all. And the thing to do was to go on. So I took pride in sliding gracefully from Vietnam to graduate school, from Chu Lai to Harvard, from one world to another. (157)” Norman talks about his life and how he still thinks about those war incidents, in a letter to Tim. He wrote, “The thing is…there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him…Feels like I’m still in deep shit. (156)” He also tells how he had many jobs but didn’t work for too long in any of them. “…worked briefly as an automotive parts salesman, a janitor, a car wash attendant, and a short-order cook at the local A&W fast-food franchise. None of these jobs…had lasted more than two weeks. (155)”
So as you can see this book is not optimistic about the futures of soldiers who have been to war, it shows the reality of two Vietnam War veterans with two different point of views. This book is also showing that not all humans think alike!
I would say the novel paint neither hopeful or hopeless picture about the world of the Vietnam vet because it depends on the person personality, characteristic ,and their own way of thinkings. For an example, Tim and Bowker had a different personality and thinkings. They both went to the war but they have had a different life after coming back from the war. Some people like Bowker cannot get through from the incident and they'll ended up killing their self. People like Tim got through because they found way to overcome the incident such as writing and it actually helped Tim to recover after the war. Unfortunately, Tim's buddy Bowker did not overcome the incident and it doesn't really take sides of a hopeful or hopeless future. It's the all on your own thing. I mean, if you can overcome yourself, your future will be hopeful but if you cannot, it would be hopeless. Bowker wrote a letter to Tim and talks about how he felt after the war. it said that "The town seemed remote somehow." (139)"Sally was married and Max was drowned and his father was at home watching baseball on national TV." (139)Even if Bowker had other friends, he mentioned that either they moved out of town or they were just busy with other things. (139) Norman really felt lonely and depressed, seems like no one cares about him anymore and he really needs help to overcome, but no one actually give him attention so he killed himself at the end. The book didn't showed the optimistic about the futures of soldiers who have been to war and everyone thinks differently. So, painting a picture of a hopeful or hopeless future for a Vietnam veteran only depends on the person's thinking and will they overcome or not. The novel did not take any sides at all.
Do you agree with chung tai's comment that the novel does not take sides, in the end? That it's totally NEUTRAL?
I just want to say that i do agree with chung because I already said that in my comment before...
This is Laura Hernandez.
The book can go either way. It can be hopeless or hopeful almost like looking in a glass that is half empty or half full. It all depends on the persons view on the world, their personality and characteristics. Even if the stories were non-true they depicted everything that could be real. The book doesn’t insist on anything but gives views on both ideas. I agree with Chung Tai on it being neutral. Tim O’Brien, hopeful, compares his life with Norman Bowker, hopeless. Tim O’Brien tells how he didn’t want to go to war; he had a future ahead of him. He said, “…I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything…I was no soldier…If you support a war, if you think it’s worth the price, that’s fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on the line. (pg.41-42)” Tim thought he wouldn’t get his life back together and like some that get drafted they thought of running away. There is always a second thought on fighting in a war.
When the soldiers come back home they usually come back with some post-traumatic stress. Some deal with it while others don’t like Norman Bowker. Back in his home town he felt like he had nothing going for him that everything he once had was gone. “…but now Max was just an idea, and most of Norman Bowker’s other friends were living in Des Moines or Sioux City, or going to school somewhere, or holding down jobs. The high school girls were mostly gone or married. (pg.139)” “It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam… (pg.156)” Being in action for so long causes most veterans always have that feeling or a guilt so big, like Kiowa’s death, breaks them down like they themselves died with them. In the end, it was too much for Norman Bowker that he committed suicide.
Then there can be the other chose. Tim O’Brien became a writer. He moved on with his life and started a family. He too has awful memories from the war, some the same as Norman. Tim found a way to deal with it all by writing about them. He writes, “…the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might have otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. (158)”
this time i will disagree with the others and say that this book is more of a hopeless future Vietnam Veteran. This book was written by O'brien to save a life, but not just anylife, his life. He has and always will have the war with him. He will never be able to forget the life he lived in war. Even know he mentions that not a day goes by that he does not think of the war. It effects everything he does. It Seems like he cant seek peace & put his past to the side and move on.
Three references:
1." I should forget it. But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present." (pg 34)
[Here he states the the past and the presnt intersect.It sort of gives the idea that the future is not clear to him.]
2."There were times in my life when i couldn't feel much, not saddness or pity or passion, and somehow I blamed this place for what i had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been. For twenty years this feild had embodied all the waste that was Vietnam, all the vulgarity and horror." (pg 185)
[Here he is feeling the need to blame. He is not satisfied what was has become of him.]
3."....and when I take a high leap into the dark and come thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story." (pg246)
[He explains to the reader that he's trying to dave a life. Which emphazises that he still in the proceess of making something out of his life. In a way he's trying to say that he's not truly complete. so he write stories to try and make him better]
Brian Johnson Jr.
At first glance Tim O'Brien's novel does not seem optimistic in any way. Most of the novel involves death of soldiers or Vietnam vets. Such as Norman Bowker who killed himself after the war, or the death of Kiowa. The most successful person in the novel is the narrator himself, pre and post war, but in the final story about Linda the narrator presents the concept that people can be brought back to life through memories and stories. This would mean that technically people don't die in a sense. That is just a technicality and it's overshadowed by a lot of despair and regret. When I take a second glance the novel still doesn't seem all that optimistic. The picture it paints is hopelessness. I have to agree with Nansi on this one. The book pretty much paints a hopeless future. I don't think it can go either way.
This is Desiree Portalatin.
I have to agree with Nansi25. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, shows a hopeless future for veterans at war. Everyday soldiers are faced with the possibility that they will come across a dead man. As the soldiers in The Things They Carried, watched a man lay dead on the ground, Mitchell Sanders explains how he there was no real moral in a war. “You want my opinion,’ Mitchell Sanders said, ‘there’s a definite moral here’… Henry Dobbins asked what the moral was, ‘Moral?’ ‘You know, moral.’ Henry thought about it , ‘Well, yeah… I don’t see no moral.’ Mitchell Sanders responds with, ‘There it is, man,” (p. 13-14). Sanders does not see a point in wars. The usual results are young soldiers left to their grave.
In war, one eventually has to kill somebody. Once he or she does, they will feel guilty and that guilt will stay with them their whole life. Tim O’Brien continuously mentions throughout the book how he feels guilt and shame about killing the young soldier. So when his daughter, Kathleen, asked if he killed anyone, he lied. “Daddy, tell the truth… did you ever kill anybody?’ All O’Brien can say is, ‘Of course not,” (p. 180).
War changes people all the time. It changed Mary Anne Bell, Mark Fossie’s elementary school sweetheart, from an innocent and young lady to a dangerous woman, ready for a kill (quote from Rat Kiley p. 116). When Mary Anne first came to the base, she wore cute pink sweaters and culottes and was clean. Then she started wearing a necklace made of human tongues as the days went by. She also started sneaking out with the “Greenies”. “Mary Anne,’ Fossie whispered. ‘…Where was she?’ ‘The Greenies,” Sanders said, (p. 100-101). Fossie couldn’t recognize Mary Anne anymore . “Fossie took a half step forward and hesitated. It was as though he had trouble recognizing her. She wore a bush hat and filthy green fatigues; she carried the standard M-16 automatic assault rifle; her face was black with charcoal,” (p. 102). Wars make people die, make people kill, and make people change. These are memories that will not be forgotten.
I think Nansi25 made clear and strong points.
Hello I’m Blanca Hernandez,
I will agree with Nancy Catalan that this book paints a hopeless picture about the world of Vietnam vets. “In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon’s final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war.” (Pg. 155) This obviously shows the hopelessness that Norman Bowker feels after the war; he feels as if his life has no meaning. At least during the war Bowker felt as though he was doing something somewhat meaningful, but now after the war he feels lost. “I’d seem to grow cold inside, all the illusions gone, all the old ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud.” (Pg. 184-185) This quote from the narrator specifically shows that he is hopeless after the war. Tim O’Brien goes back to Vietnam many years after the war with his daughter and while standing on the field in which he fought he feels the way he described in the previous quote. “For years I’d felt a certain smugness about how easily I had made the shift from war to peace.” (Pg. 157) The narrator feels smug about recovering so well from the war because he realizes that most soldiers don’t make a smooth shift from war to their homes. This shows that the future for most war vets is a hopeless one.
After reading the novel I felt that the outlook of the book was not at all optimistic about the futures of soldiers who have been to war. I was getting sad from reading it. I don’t think there was a moment in that book that showed good results from war. I felt that there wasn’t an optimistic outlook because everything ended with death. For example post-war Norman Bower ended up killing his self. That’s basically telling people that if you go to war you will kill yourself because you were so overwhelmed with what happened and what you seen. Also another time in the story that shows that a soldier’s future is not good is when the author was reflecting on his self. He can’t help but to live in the past, to constantly go back and remember, write, and talk about what happened in war. He even went to visit the grave site of his best friend because it was still bothering him. “The Things They Carried” showed us that after war things will be different. What you had before is now gone. That was also proven with Norman’s story. The woman he wanted to be with ended up getting married while he was away. I disagree with those who said it was neutral because I didn’t seen anything that made even a hint that the future of a soldier is good.
Hi, this is Charlene Poindexter
After reading and analyzing the novel, The Things They Carried, I found Tim O’Brien had a pessimistic view of the soldiers, the war, and himself. I say this because Tim gained nothing positive from the war and neither did the other soldiers.
Most were killed, (27 to be exact).A few lost their nerve like Rat Kiley.“He claimed the bugs were personally after his ass. He said he could hear the bastards homing in on him. Swarms of mutant bugs, billions of them, they had him bracketed. Whispering his name- all night long- it was driving him crazy,”(pg.220 and 221). After the war was over, Norman Broker felt there was no place to go and no longer felt there was any purpose for him outside of the war. As a result, he hung himself. The war has no positive outcomes and few positive experiences.
In some instances, the war is like being in jail. A day is like an eternity. You don’t want to be there. You’d rather be at home, or on vacation, with loved ones; anywhere but the place you’re at now. You pray to make it to see another day, another day that brings relaxation, peace, and happiness Instead you get darkness.
Every time you close your eyes you hope to wake up and find it to all just be a bad dream but you know it’s not. You make friends and loose them. You always have to keep your guard up and look out for yourself because that’s all you have.
War is depressing. It changes you and after a while you become a different person. On page 221, Tim admitted to it saying, “to an extent, everybody was feeling it. The long night marches turned their minds upside down; all the rhymes were wrong. Always a lost sensation. They’d blunder along through the dark, willy- nilly, no sense of place or direction, probing for an enemy that nobody could see.”
In war, there are no mistakes. Some mistakes lead to fatal consequences, ex: Kiowa’s death in the field.
You are away from your family and friends for a long time and there is no guarantee you will ever see them again. Many soldiers never do. You see things, disturbing things like dead bodies and soldiers with blown off body parts. You never fully heal from the war. Your outlook on life changes. None of the soldiers from the book had a happy ending after the war.
I disagree with anyone who felt there was neither a hopeful or hopeless outcome. O’Brien made it clear about the novel having a hopeless outcome. How many soldiers went on to lead happy lives after the war? How many have lived to tell their story? How many can say they were the same person before they entered the war? My point exactly. No one can say this because all of their lives were forever changed.
Even to this day, Tim stil has trouble coping with the past. Even though it hurts him to think about it, he still writes because, "in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world",(pg.225). In other words, the only way for him to seek true happiness is to think about those painful times and turn them into something positive, something he would have perferred to happen.(Just thought I should explain myself more.)
I agree that the book doesnt take a side. I mean war is bad, but it had different impacts on different people's lives. For example, Tim came out of the war alright. He was alive and he was able to reflect on it through his stories, but someone like Norman Bowker couldnt handle life after war. He "three years later hung himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown in central Iowa (155)." Norman Bowker's story is the pessimistic side, but from the side of O'Brien, it is optimistic. O'Brien moved on with his life and is able to write about it. In the chapter "Field Trip" he was even able to revisit Kiowa's death site with his daughter. I think that was a big accomplishment, for him to be able to go back. So i dont the the novel really takes a side.
Magaly Franco. =]
I have to disagree with everyone in this blog so far because I believe the novel does offer some hope by the end. As I read The Things They Carried I have to agree that it did not appear optimistic. O’Brien shares with us many stories, majority of them involving deaths, but never offers a story with a positive ending or nothing necessarily good comes out of their bad situations. The most positive story I can think of would probably be when Rat Kiley takes care of O’Brien after he gets shot, “Thank God for Rat Kiley. Every so often, maybe four times altogether, he trotted back to check me out. Which took courage,” (p. 189). This also quickly turns bad, however, because the second time he gets shot Rat Kiley isn’t there anymore and the new medic almost kills him, “Jorgenson was no Rat Kiley…So when I got shot the second time, in the butt, along Song Tra Bong, it took the son of a bitch almost ten minutes to work up the nerve to crawl over to me. By then I was gone with the pain. Later I found out I’d almost died of shock,” (p. 190). The most positive thing said about the war throughout the novel would have to be when O’Brien says that a war can make you feel the most alive and can help you form strong meaningful bonds with people, “It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hadn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid when you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood-you give it together, you take it together,” (p. 192). From what I’ve read, this is the most positive experience you can receive in the war because it’s not something you can achieve in any situation. However, it does mean that it’s worth the price that you have to pay in war. So after reading about all these deaths such as those of Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Kiowa, the suicide of Norman Bowker and then hearing about breakdowns especially those of Rat Kiley like when he kills the poor innocent baby water buffalo and how later he shoots his own foot so he can leave the war; we still have listen to the stories of those who survive and the guilt they continue to feel during and after the war. So you would think that by the end of the book you will be left feeling completely pessimistic. Yet, that’s not how it leads me to feel.
The last story O’Brien tells us is not about the war at all, it’s about his first love, Linda. Although the story is not about a war, it is still very sad. His first love dies from a brain tumor when they’re only nine years old. This is an especially hard time for Timmy. He sees his first dead body which unfortunately also belongs to his first love. This is when he first discovers the magic of stories and he uses it to help him get through Linda’s death. It’s this magic that stories have that can give us hope to continue. You can relive good moments or invent better ones through this magic, “They’re all dead. But in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world,” (p. 225). Stories can give us hope that even though someone has passed away we can still keep their presence with us and prolong their life in a place where even the risk of death does not exist through our imagination, “I loved her and then she died. And yet right here, in the spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her as if through ice, as if I’m gazing into some other world, a place where there are no brain tumors and no funereal homes, where there are no bodies at all,” (p. 245). Through stories you can release any bad experience and create new ones as if to “clear you throat” so that you can have the courage to move on, “Telling stories seemed a natural inevitable process, like clearing the throat,” (p. 157). Throughout the book O’Brien repeats this quote or a similar rephrasing of it, “I’m forty-three years old and a writer now,” which I believe can also give a little bit of hope. To see a man who has gone through so much pain in a war and then turn out to be a successful writer gives other war veterans hope to become something as well. As a writer, O’Brien saves himself from the dark by keeping alive those moments and people that he cares about, “I’m young and happy. I’ll never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story,” (p. 246) and it gives other veterans hope that they can also save their own life.
However, as other people such as Sana, Chung tai, and Laura have stated, it does depend on what kind of person you are as to whether or not you will be able to get over your bad experiences. I feel the book does give some hope but its up to the person if they want to take that chance and actually fight for it because things just don’t automatically change for you. For example, Norman Bowker gave up and killed himself while O’Brien chooses to continue living and write stories to express himself instead. You have to keep fighting to find a way to get over the past.
Hey, this is Nancy Matias.
I would have to say that based on this novel I'm going to have to agree with Nancy, Blanca and Desiree and say that there is a pessimistic view to life in Vietnam. Through this novel we can clearly see that the narrator is trying to portray the idea that war is a bad thing. He’s trying to show the idea that life in Vietnam was a tragic thing not only for him but for everyone else. We see this through the fact that the narrator says “I was drafted to fight a war I hated.” (pg. 40 line 11) He says that “the American war in Vietnam seemed to him wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.”(pg. 40 line 14) The narrator believed he was “too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything.” (pg. 41 lines 23-24) The fact that the narrator doesn’t want to go to war because he thinks it is a pointless war shows how he has a pessimistic view about it. It makes us also have a pessimistic view about war in Vietnam because we agree with the narrator when he says that the war is pointless. We realize that the narrator is right because he already has his life set and now the war is interrupting his plans. Not only does this show the fact that war is a negative thing other things in the novel shows this as well such as the fact that we see how life in Vietnam can cause person to become crazy like in the story about Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk. In the story we see how after Lee Strunk stole a jackknife from Dave Jensen which caused them to get into a fight Dave Jensen lost control of himself. He lost control because he thought Lee Strunk would get back at him “since it was Vietnam, where guys carried guns, Dave Jensen started to worry.”(pg. 62 lines1-7) Therefore, he broke his own nose with a gun to call it even . We also see that there is a pessimistic view towards life in Vietnam because life in Vietnam caused the death of many. It caused Ted Lavender to be shot in the head and Curt Lemon to be killed by a bobby- trapped 105 round. It also caused Kiowa, the narrator’s best friend to be sucked away into a field. Not only did it cause this, but it also caused Rat Kiley to also lose control of himself since Vietnam took away his friend Curt Lemon. It caused him to take out his pain and by shooting a baby buffalo. Rat “shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill, it was to hurt.” (pgs. 78-79 lines 28-30) There is also a pessimistic view towards war because it is the “Garden of Evil… where every sin’s real fresh and original.” (pg. 80 lines 13-14) According to the narrator “war makes you dead.” (pg. 80 line 19). He believes that “perhaps war is just another name for death.”(pg. 81 line 12) We see that there is also a pessimistic view towards life in Vietnam because of the fact that having to kill people in Vietnam caused the narrator to become in shock. It hurt him deeply to have to kill the Vietnamese soldier and the fact taht he describes the Vietnamese's soldiers's life makes us have a pessimistic view towars war. This is true since, we lear that the soldier was a man "who was frightened. He was not a fighter. His health was poor, hsi body small and frail." (pg. 125 lines 17-18) He was a man who did not want to fight, a man who was also dragged into the war. The fact that this is true makes us have a pessimistic view towards life in Vietnam because of the fact taht we realize that the people being dragged into the war are young and innocent people.
They are people who don't want to kill and in a sense are still very young to understand what war really is or what it can do. That's why they play with smoke grenades and see war as a "nature hike." (pg. 69 line 24) They don't understand the severity of it and taht's why we see war as a negative thing because through it the blood of children is being shed. We also see war as a negative thing because of the fact that it caused Norman Bowker to kill himself. After the war Norman Bowker became "a guy who couldnt' get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway."(pg. 157 lines 9-12) After the war Norman found no place to go in life he said "it's almost like I got killed in Nam..."
(pg. 156 lines 4-5)He felt like he had sank down with Kiowa. The war caused him to become full of desperation, self-pity,anger, etc. There is also a pessimistic view towards life in Vietnam because just like the field took Kiowa it also took all of the narrator's
"illusions,all the old ambitions, and hopes for himself." (pgs. 184-185 lines 29-30)The narrator blamed Vietnam for "what he had become and for taking away the person he had once been."
(pg. 185 lines 4-6) He described Vietnam as being "vulgarity and horror." (pg. 185 lines 7-8)Not only is life in Vietnam seen as a pessimistic thing because of this but also because it caused the narrator to become a mean person and seek revenge against Jorgenson for taking to long to help him whne he was shot. It caused him to play a trick on him and to not think about anything else but getting back at him. The war completely changed the narrator in a bad way since he used to be a "thoughful sort of person."(pg. 200 line 11)and then he turned cruel. The war is seen as a bad thing because it caused the death of many including the narraror in a way. It caused him to become obsessed with telling stories about it years later in an attempt to try to save himself and others from the wounds left by Vietnam. It caused him to do things that he would have never done before and to turn into a person full of desperation, anger, revenge, etc. It caused others to kill themselves because war caused them to lose themselves.It was a tragedy for many, a tragedy that years later they are still trying to overcome.
I don't believe that it is showing a neutral view because in this story we see death and we see a person trying to save himself along with others from the horrors of war. From the wounds that Vietnam left him and which he is trying to save himself from. I don't think he portrays war of life in Vietnam in a good way at all. Yes, it is a little hopeful towards the end but overall it's a book about tragedy and the need to be saved from that tragedy.
Once again, I agree with sana. There are two sides. The one that you choose depends on you completely. If you can overcome what you went through, you can once again be strong and successful. However, if you choose to become weak, the war memories take over your life forever. Tim found a way to overcome things from the war, mainly by writing. Norman, however, gave up on life completely.
[Hi, this is Yesica Prado. :]
After reading the entire novel, I have to agree with Laura Hernandez on how the book can be hopeless but also faithful and the author shows us all these different perspectives throughout the book. He does not really take any sides because there were positive and negative outcomes for the Vietnam veterans. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story”, the narrator explains how you cannot generalize what war really is, he states, “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun”(80). By having different views of the war, the narrator’s points of view stays neutral and authentic because the war was not all horror and despair, there were some good things that he got out of it too like his stories and close friends. In my opinion for a veteran to have a content life after the war, it depends in the character’s personality and willingness to seek happiness. A good example of this is the author himself. In the chapter “Field Trip”, the author goes back to Vietnam after twenty years and enjoys his vacation with his daughter, he said, “Kathleen had just turned ten, and this trip was kind of birthday present, showing her the world, offering a small piece of her father’s history”(102). Even though it is hard for the narrator to stop writing war stories and remembering Vietnam, he was able to go back to graduate school and form a family. But just as there is a happy side of the story, after the war Norman’s Bowker life was not so cheerful. In the chapter “Notes”, Norman Bowker writes a letter to Tim expressing all his feelings after the war, he wrote, “there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam…Hard to describe”(156). The war changed many soldiers and many of them were not able to overcome that experience such as Norman Bowker. He felt like an outcast in a world were he no longer knew, therefore he decided to commit suicide.
I think that the book paints more of a hopeless picture about the world of the Vietnam vet. The author tells stories of loss, fear, and guilt throughout the book. He also explains the complications that he and some of his friends had after the war, such as having a hard time finding closure and feeling like they can't talk to anybody about what happened at war. Norman is an example of someone who feels like they can't talk to anybody about the war. On page 157, Norman Bowker says "A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway. This guy wants to talk about it, but he can't..." Norman struggles with feeling guilty about Kiowa's death and commits suicide. "Eight months later he hanged himself. (pg 160)" Another example is when Ted Lavender died. Leutenant Jimmy Cross feels responsible for his death, since he was one of his men. He has a hard time coping with the situation and knows that he will remember this for the rest of his life. "He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war. (pg 16)" All of these things paint a hopeless picture. I agree with Nancy and Desiree about how this book paints a hopeless picture about the war, and that one of the reasons is that the soldiers are not able to forget what happened there.
Hello I'm Dominika,
After reading the whole novel, I don't agree that it gives a very hopeful picture but not a hopeless one either, it's more like indifference. Rat Kiley couldn't deal with all his emotions and paranoia in the war while he was still in it, but Norman Bowker couldn't deal with the guilt and aftermath feelings of the war. They both took drastic actions, one was just more fatal then the other. But at the same time look at Tim O'Brian, he survived the war and he even admits that he went from war to peace without a problem "For years I'd felt a certain smugness about how easily I had made the shift from war to peace. A nice smooth glide-no flashbacks or midnight sweats."(p157). He is a symbol of hope to all Vietnam veterans, because he moved forward with his life, but never stopped looking back at his time in the war, but unlike Norman he didn't let the memories and sadness overwhelm him. I mean he wrote about a book about all that happened to him and his fellow soldiers, that must have been extremely difficult, but he did it, very well I might add.
So I don't agree with those who say this book shows the hopelessness of the war. Because no matter what horrid picture O'Brien writes and shows up, the fact that he is reliving the memories and remembering them, just shows his courage, and his hope for life. He never says that war is all about the hopelessness, and he is the one who lived through the war.
[[Cristina T.]]
okay, after reading the entire novel i have decided that it offers a pretty hopeless future for Vietnam vets. I would assume that yes, perhaps it does depend on a persons personality and their specific experience in the war, but by the end of the novel i didn't feel very optimistic.
A couple of people pointed out that they believed Tim O' Brien was fine after the war, but that's not exactly the case. on page 225 he writes, " But this too is true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, i keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pig-pen, and several others whose bodies i once lifted and dumped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world."
if it weren't for his writing stories, he probably would have gone insane like Rat, and in a sense, Tim is probaby worse off than anybody cause he's the one who apparently can't forget anything at all since he's written about three books about wars in almost perfect detail.
to add to the above point, he ended up taking his daughter over to Vietnam as a be-lated birthday present. when they arrived, "For the rest of the day she was very quiet. That night, though, just before bedtime, Kathleen put her hand on my shoulder and said, ""you know something? sometimes you're pretty wierd, aren't you?""..."well no" I said..""Your are too." she pulled her hand away and frowned at me. "like coming over here. some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it."
that proves that not only can he never forget the war, but that it's obvious enough that his ten year old daughter can even see it.
i agree with Nansi25 about how the war will always affect Tims life no matter what.
Hello I'm Erica Castillo,
I will agree with Blanca and Desiree. This book paints a hopeless picture about the Vietnam veterans. Every story in "The Things They Carried" has been sad. This book gives us a close look into the war and it is a sad story even if it’s not true.
"I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war stories"(pg 34) This is proof that O'Brien never got over the war. If he is still writing stories about war this means he never forgot it and the war is in his head forever. O'Brien said "I should forget it. But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present."(pg 34) this means that O’Brien tried to forget the war but he just could not because the war was a huge impact in his life as a young man. When O'Brien said "I'd seemed to grow cold inside, all the illusions gone, all the old ambitions and hopes for myself sucked away into the mud. Over the years, the coldness had never entirely disappeared. (pg. 185) O'Brien feels cold inside and even if he tries to forget the war he just can't.
We also see a clear picture of no hope for the Vietnam veteran when Norman writes O'Brien, telling O'Brien to write a story "A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway."(pg 157) He is describing him self. He feels that there is no hope for him in life. Here is how Norman was after the war. "there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like I got killed over in Nam." (pg156) For Norman going to war he missed out in a lot in his life. He feels left out now. "...and most of Norman Bowker's other friends were living in Des Moines or Sioux City, or going to school somewhere, or holding down jobs (pg139). So in the end Norman Bowker killed him self because of the war.
From reading "The Things They Carried" We can tell that there is really no hope for a Vietnam veteran after war. I say this because from what I read it’s not a good thing being a Vietnam veteran.
After reading the entire novel, I would say that this book does not have an optimistic view about Vietnam veterans. Throughout the novel, O'brien write about how it's a hopeless future for him to be a soldier and how he's being forced to become one.
1)"In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalaster College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated, I was twenty-one years old. Young,yes, and politically naive,but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong." (pg. 40)
Throughout these lines, the narrator continues on and on how he disagreed on the war and how becoming a soldier was not something he expected for his future.
2)"There were a million ways to die. Getting shot was one way. Booby traps and land mines and gangrene and shock and polio from VC Virus." (pg.195-197)
Here O'Brien shows how a life for a soldier is hopeless. Since fighting in the war is something that eventually leads to their death.
3)"War is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you ,if he tells the truth..."(pg.81)
Just like the previous evidence, O'Brien continues to mention over and over how war leads to one's death.
Overall I strongly believe that the novel is showing a pessimistic view.
After reading the book, I have to say that it's optimistic because some lived, some died; it almost seems like our life. It all represents true life, it's not like the song "Barbie Girl"(always having pleasure). Their future depends on their own choices to pick left or right at an intersection and own you take can go back. For example, Tim had the choise of either kill or be killed, and he chose kill. Another example was when Mark Fossie's girlfriend came into the war, both happily in love. Later they taught her all the techniques and gadgets, she totally 100% enbraced the whole wilderness war fantasy of slaying others and the paranoia. She loved it, and mark hated and had problems; sent her back. She came back and did the same thing and stood there. All the weeding and satying together all ended it a while. So, it all depends on the choices to make for the future. Also if after the war you're still alive, the next step was the mental part, bieng the adjust the a whole new-old life. Such as with Tim and Norman; Tim became a father and a successful witer while on the opposite Norman went back and all hell came down he lost his friend and his girlfriend. The overall meaning is saying that in any type of life, one shall rise and the other shall fail.
This is Ashley Hart.
After finishing the novel, I've come to the conclusion that the author intended on showing a hopeless and hopeful veiw for the Veitnam vets. Ultimatly, it seems to depend on the way you look at each character. For instance by looking at the characteristics of Norman Bowker we get a hopeless veiw of the Veitnam war. In the story "Speaking of Courage" Bowker continuously talks about the Silver Star that he would have won if he'd been a little braver. He wants to tell his father, "Yes, but I didn't get it. Almost, but not quite."(pg.141) This seems to show that Norman Bowker is stuck in Vietnam still just because of the shit field where Kiowa died. He is stuck on the fact that if he would've tried harder he would've been better off. Norman Bowker ends up killing himself later on in the next story "Notes." The author shows how Bowker sort of died in Vietnam.
"The thing is, there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like I got killed over in Nam..."(pg.156) This shows part of the hopelessness that came as a result of the Veitnam War.
Another character would be Tim O'Brien. He was also a Veitnam vet who came to write stories about his experiances and continue his life. He went on to have a daughter and a wife and when his daughter was a child he took her back to the shit field where Kiowa died and showed the reader that he had let go of his resentment and dealt with his war situations. His daughter says, "That old man, is he mad at you or something...He looks mad."
"No," Tim replies, "All that's finished." (pg.188) This shows that he was able to put the past in the past and deal with what has happened and grow from it and move on to share it with others.
I disagree very much with Brian. I believe that the novel CAN go either way. You have to dig deeper into the characters, their words and their stories in order to pull out an optimistic veiw and a pessimistic veiw. Once you put yourself into the characters situation you see the story from a whole new light.
After having read the entire novel, I have to agree with Laura's as well as many other's opinion that: the picture painted by the novel about the world of the Vietnam Vet, is both hopeful and hopeless. I believe that the Vet's attitude and characteristics are major things that determine how the war will affect them. O' Brien allows us to see both outcomes of the "after war" life. He uses himself and Norman Bowker as examples.
Through out the novel, we repeatedly hear Tim say "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now..." Obviously he did something successful with his life after Vietnam. He pursued a career in something that he was interested since the age of eleven.
O' Brien puts Norman Bowker as an example of a Vietnam Vet whom had a hopeless world. "...I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war." O' Brien expresses how Bowker worked several jobs but, "none of these jobs, he said, had lasted more than ten weeks."(pg. 155) Bowker was being supported and housed by his parents. He had no independence of his own because he chose not to have it. Norman Bowker himself explains to Tim and the reader how he was so greatly affected by the war that he doesn't know what to do with himself. In a letter he wrote to Tim, he states: "What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyways..."(pg. 157)Before the reader encounters this excerpt from Bowker's letter, they are informed by O' Brien how Kiowa's death deeply affected Norman. Tim wrote a piece on what Norman had asked him to and sent him a copy. Bowker's reaction was short and somewhat bitter. "Eight months later, he hanged himself"(pg. 160) There was no suicide note or a message of any kind.
I feel O' Brien did an amazing job with this novel. The events were very vivid to me while I was reading the novel. Tim also did a great job on allowing the reader to see how the war had different impacts on everybody who was part of the war. Such as: himself, Norman Bowker, and Mary Anne Bell.
This is Ernesto Gomez
After reading the entire novel, I would have to say that I agree with sana and chung tai. The book seems to not take a side on the hopeless or hopeful future for the Vietnam vet. All of the stories, at some point, tell us that either there is a hopeless future for the Vietnam vet. or a hopeful future. One example that makes it a hopeful future is on Jimmy Cross's words to O'Brien on the first story. He says, "Maybe she'll read it and come begging. There's always hope, right?"(29) This shows that he is hopeful about his future and the books does too. That is because O'Brien wrote the book and he says, "Right." One example of a hopeless future is on Norman's letter to O'Brien. Norman says, " What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around twon all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway."(157) This shows that Norman has lost hope for himself and his future, that is why he ends up killing himself. One example of neutrality is at the very last sentence of the book. It says, "I realize it is as Tim trying ot save Timmy's life with a story."(246) This sentece shows both hope and hopelessness. The hope is for O'Brien's stories to save himself from a hopeless future. That is why I say that the book doesn't take a side but remains neutral.
I agree with Sana. The novel doesn’t paint just a hopeful or a hopeless picture about the world of a Vietnam veteran. It all depends on the type of person, and their capability to deal with this type of thing. Not every person is the same. Some people are stronger than others, when dealing with war or death. In this novel there is a hopeful and a hopeless picture painted for the life of a Vietnam veteran. The hopeful picture is painted for the life of Tim O’Brien. Although Tim was greatly affected with Kiowa’s death, and seeing the corpse of the man he killed, he was able to deal with it all through writing. He wrote war stories telling his experiences in Vietnam, and then one day he even took his daughter to the field where Kiowa died. He was able to relieve all his bad memories through writing, and through his family. On the other hand, Norman Bowker wasn’t able to relieve his bad memories, or tell his stories like Tim did. After the war Norman spend his days driving around the lake of his hometown imagining the things he would tell his father about the war. He would tell him about the awards he won, and the one award he didn’t win, because he wasn’t able to save Kiowa. Norman didn’t have the will power to speak up, and just let everything out, so his life took a different path. He couldn’t find meaning to his life after the war, so he ended up killing himself one day at the Y after playing basketball. His mother wrote to the narrator letting him know when and how it happened.
Jennifer said:
I agree with Laura. The outcome of the book is all in how you perceive life. It could be hopeless in the fact that,yes, some soldiers such as Rat Kiley couldn't handle the war. In order to escape;he drugged himself up and shot himself in the foot just to be released from the "nightmare".(Chap.21 pg.223)Or like Norman who couldn't handle life after the war and carried so much guilt that it drove him to commit suicide.(pg.160)(Chap.15-16)In many cases events like this happen all the time but also it depends on how strong or weak minded you are. War is not for little boys which is why in most cases only "men" survive. From my perspective the hopeful side is Tim O'Brien. He made it through the war although there were many ups and downs. There were moments where he admitted feeling alone and scared, but it seems to me that he stayed focused on his purpose.(getting home)He seemed to be smart about what he did and his longing to get out the war eventually freed him. Even though not mentally because he's still writing war stories but physically and now he seems to be at peace.
After reading the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, I believe that the overall outlook of the text is pessimistic because there is no optimism presented throughout the text. Through out the novel O’Brien emphasizes how much each soldier lost because of the war and doesn’t show [if there is even any] how much they gained. There were many situations in which each soldier lost something to the war. Rat Kiley lost his best friend Curt Lemon and his innocence, Mark Fossie lost his girlfriend Mary Anne to the insanity of Vietnam/Green Berets, Norman Bower loses his sanity due to his failed rescue of Kiowa, and Jimmy Cross losses his love for Martha due to the death of Ted Lavender. Even though everyone loses something because of the war, the biggest loss would be their former selves/mentalities. ”God, this is starting to sound like some jerkoff vet crying in his beer. I’m no basket case—not even any bad dreams. And I don’t feel like anybody mistreats me or anything, except sometimes people act too nice, too polite, like they’re afraid they might ask the wrong question…But I shouldn’t bitch. One thing I hate—really hate—is all those whiner-vets. Guys sniveling about how they didn’t get any parades. Such absolute crap. I mean, who in his right mind wants a parade? Or getting his back clapped by a bunch of patriotic idiots who don’t know jack about what it feels like to kill people or get shot at or sleep in the rain or watch your buddy go down underneath the mud? Who needs it?...What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any damn place to go and doesn’t know how to get there anyway. This guy wants to talk about it, but he can’t… I’d write it myself except I can’t ever find words, if you know what I mean, I can’t figure out what exactly to say. Something about the field that night. The way Kiowa just disappeared into the crud. You were there—you can tell it.” (pg. 156-157) This line emphasizes on post-war mentality of a soldier, and on the overall pessimism caused by war. “Azar shrugged. After a second he reached out and clapped me on the shoulder, not roughly but not gently either. “What’s real?” he said. “Eight months in fantasyland, it tends to blur the line. Honest to God, I sometimes can’t remember what real is.”’ (pg. 204-205) By including this line in the novel, O’Brien is again showing how war causes the loss of sanity, especially during war. "Rat Kiley finally hit a wall. He couldn't sleep during the hot daylight hours; he couldn't cope with the nights...he broke down infront of Mitchell Sanders. Not crying, but up against it. He said he was scared. And it wasn't normal scared...Rat scratched the skin at his elbow, digging in hard. His eyes were red and weary. "It's not right," he said. "These pictures in my head, they won't quit. I'll see a guy's liver. The actual Fucking liver. And the thing is, it doesn't scare me, it doesn't even give me the willies. More like curiosity. The way a doctor feels when he looks at a patient, sort of mechanical, not seeing the real person, just a ruptured appendix or a clogged-up artery...they days aren't so bad, but at night the pictures get to be a bitch. I start seeing my own body. Chunks of myself. My own heart, my own kidneys. It's like--I don't know--it's like staring into a this huge black crystal ball. One of these nights I'll be lying dead out there in the dark and nobody'll find me except the bugs-- I can see it--I can see the goddamn bugs chewing tunnels through me--I can see the mongooses munching on my bones. I swear, it's too much. I can't keep seeing myself dead." (pg. 222-223) Again, by including this line, it overall emphasizes on the negativity caused by war. I believe that the loss of sanity is the biggest loss of war because it’s not a physical object, and it is one of the hardest things to lose. Because of the change of mentality echoed by these three lines, it shows the overall impact of the pessimism created by war. I agree with you guys so far that it doesn't paint a hopeful or hopeless picture entirely, but I have to say there's a little more emphasis on the negative here. I believe the word hopeless is too much of an extremity.
-Justyna Ciezobka :)
After reading this novel, I'd say that Tim O'Brien does kind of present a pessimistic side of what the soldiers' lives are after the war. Two examples would be of himself and Norman Bowker. Tim can't seem to forget what happened in those days in the bush. It all keeps coming back to him sort of like a dream. He seems to see the people who were involved: "..I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But, I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. I remember his jaw was in his throat, and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief."(pg 179) Later, Tim says that he can't forgive himself..that he didn't kill the man but his presence made him feel the guilt: "I blamed myself. and rightly so, because I was present." (pg 179) Tim says that he can't help, but keep the truth away from his daughter. He never told her about what he'd done beacuse it was too shameful..:" When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed anyone. She knew about the war; she knew I'd been a soldier.
"You keep writing these war stories," she said, "so I guess you must've killed somebody."
It was difficult moment, but I di what seemed right, which was to say "Of course not," and then take her onto my lap and hold her for a while." (pg 131) Another example of the pessimistic side of after war life would be Norman Bowker, he had a hard time getting used to everyday life. Like before in the other entry I mentioned that he tried finishing school, but found it pointless, then he wanted to get a job , but each one lasted maybe only about 10 weeks or something like that. so he spent his days driving around in his car. Finally, he hanged himself. So I'd agree with anyone who said that Ti mand Norman represent the more pessimistic life after the war. But, in the end I wouldn't say the the author takes a side as to the life of vietnam Veterans. It all depends on how the person takes in certain things. What I mean by that is that some people are stronger as if mentally than others. For Tim it was easier to transfer from the war to everyday life as sana said :"“…how easily I had made the shift from war to peace. A nice smooth glide¬no flashbacks or midnight sweats. The war was over, after all. And the thing to do was to go on. So I took pride in sliding gracefully from Vietnam to graduate school, from Chu Lai to Harvard, from one world to another. (157)”. Now Norman didn't make that shift. He was almost stuck in the world he'd come from: “The thing is…there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him…Feels like I’m still in deep shit. (156)” So, it depends on the person as to how his life looks like after certain events that he's lived thorugh. Some people are simply stronger than others....
I agree with Mxoh4 in the fact that the novel does not have an optimistic future for most of
the soldiers that were sent to the war in Vietnam. The soldiers who were drafted into war were expected to face nature and enemies that would ultimately take
many of their lives.
"I was too good for this war....
full-ride scholarship for grad studies at Harvard....I was no
soldier." (pg 41) O'Brien had his future set out for him by being able to attend a great university but the draft really destroyed his plans. As a result O'Brien tried to fled the U.S and run from the war but eventually he gave in and went to Vietnam.
"She pulled her hand away and frowned at me. "Like coming over
here. Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't
forget it."And that's bad?" "No,"she said quietly. "That's weird."(pg 183-84) As the war has ended, O'Brien still holds the gruesome and sad memories of the war within him. Soldiers like O'Brien were emotionally affected by the Vietnam War and were not able to forget that past in their future lives.
"In the months after Ted Lavender died, there were many other bodies. I never shook hands-not that-but one afternoon I climbed a tree and threw down what was left of Curt Lemon. I watched my friend Kiowa sink into the muck along the Tra Bong."(pg 242)Many of the soldiers that went to the war died and their lives completely gone from the world. Their dreams and future that would have been continued after the war were destroyed. So this story does go into to view of being a pessimistic future for soldiers rather than optimistic.
This is Anali Negrete
I think that the novel as a whole paints more of a hopeless picture of the Vietnam vet. Although the stories in this novel are not entirely true, they’re all very sad and hopeless. This of course is expected because the stories are about the war. However, what becomes of the soldiers that went to war was not anything good. Even Mary Anne who was not a soldier but went to the war, changed to a completely different person. I don’t think that the effects that the war had on her were a good thing. She says, “…Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have it there inside me…” (p. 111). This shows a hopeless view of just being in the war. It shows how it transformed a young woman’s point of view towards the war. O’Brien also tells us about the death of his friends during and after the war. After the war, the best thing to do with one’s life is to forget what happened and go on with one’s life. This is not the case for Norman Bowker. Bowker himself says that he’s “A guy who can’t get his act together and just drives around town all day and can’t think of any place to go and doesn’t know how to get there anyway” (p. 157). He just can’t forget about Kiowa’s death. Then, when he could no longer take it, he committed suicide.
I agree with Cristina T. that life for O’Brien after the war, although it seems better than that of his friends, is not entirely fine. In page 246, O’Brien says, “I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” This shows that O’Brien has dedicated his life to writing because he obviously can’t forget about the war. He can’t forget about the death of his friends, including Linda. He writes stories because he wants to save his life and that of others. O’Brien wants to make things better. He wants to let go of that weight that he’s been carrying for so long. He wants to cure that scar that the war left him with. This is one of the reasons why he goes back to Vietnam with his daughter: “…where I looked for signs of forgiveness or personal grace or whatever else the land might have to offer” (p. 181). I also agree with Erica Castillo that O’Brien will never forget the war no matter how much he wants to. He won’t forget it because the past cannot be erased and the impact that it made on him is too big to forget. It’s something that is going to stay with him for as long as he lives. All of this then tells us that all soldiers who survived a war will have difficulties dealing with their new lives.
After reading the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien I agree with people who say the book creates at overall picture of hopeless. It seems true that the narrator is only writing the book so that maybe he will get some closer to the Vietnam War and he won’t think of it as often as he wishes to. Also, the lives of the soldiers after the Vietnam War seem pretty hopeless just like him. I believe the narrator creates this mood because of the different types of stories that he tells and writes about the soldiers after the war. It just seems hopeless that the soldiers will ever get the idea that they killed people or people were killed in a pointless war which leads to a hopeless life after the war. The death of soldiers is really the main point of hopeless because someone is always blamed for the death of a soldier.Examples being the death of Ted Lavender on Jimmy Cross and Norman Bower with the death of Kiowa. In the end I feel that the narrator like any other person can never live a hopeful life knowing that they killed for no reason at all.
This is Tiffany Tsang.
I would have to agree with the people that said that this novel paints a hopeless picture about the world of the Vietnam vet. The reason why I have to say this is because, it's the fact that most of them are going to war and hoping that they won't die so they can be with their loved ones. Although what Laura Hernandez said how it is half full or half empty was a good way of picturing it also. It really depends on their own views of understanding of the world and just their views on life. So, I guess i can say that I am pretty much neutral on the idea of the hopeful and the hopeless picture about the world of Vietnam vet. Some people can be fighting int he war just because of the country and it's hopeful to them because that is what they want to do with their life is to do something for their own country that they live in. Though for the ones that were drafted at that time can be hopeless because that was something that didn't want and they can possibly die during the fight.
Egder Dominguez
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien has an overall pessimistic outlook on the future of war veterans. Throughout the entire novel, the majority of stories are filled with negative outcomes and damaging events, both physically and mentally. The text, "They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to," (21) demonstrates how the positive characters of the soldiers during the war is known to be a front to their fears during the war.
It is evident how veterans seem to not be able to forget the dramatic experiences during the war. Tim is considered a tough veteran who has dealt with the past in a positive manner and he still has not been able to keep from thinking about the powerful circumstances he has been a past of during the war. A text that demonstrates this is,"And yet right here, in the spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her as if through ice, as if I'm gazing into some other world, a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all. I can see Kiowa, too, and Ted Lavender and Curt Lemon, and sometimes i can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights." (245)
Different personalities and characteristics do have an effect on the way veterans deal with their post-war life. Rat Kiley also seemed to be dealing with the war in a correct manner, yet still cracks during the war. His speech, "This whole war, you know what it is? Just one big banquet. You and me. Everybody. Meat for the bugs." (223) I would have to agree with Charlene in their not being anything positive gained from their experiences during the war.
I would have to agree with Nancy in saying that "The Things They Carried" is more of a hopeless future for a Vietnam Vet. After reading the entrie novel I felt that the only time that a feeling of hopefulness was aroused was when O'Brien mentioned that stories save us. I felt that meant that without the stories of what happen to him and Alpha Company in Vietnam to rely on, or his story of his love for Linda he would be lost. His fellow soldiers such as Norman Bowker were hopless as we see in Notes "three years later hanged himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometwon in central Iowa...Bowker desribed the problem of finding meaningful use for his life after the war" (155). We also see the feeling of being hopeless in the case of Ted Lavender "Ted Lavender had a habit of popping four or five tranquilizers every morning. It was his way of coping, just dealing with the realities, and the drugs helped to ease him through the days.(230)
Alexandra Castro
I think that the novel leaves us with a hopeful outlook toward the war because throughout the book Tim O'brien mentions how the soldiers never give up for what they believe in ...
Lt. Cross is a perfect example beacause he live with the idea that he will never have the women that he loves..as on page28- 29 Cross describes how he ran into Martha again.. and even after she rejects him personally he "shook his head ."It desn't matter ," he finally said. "I love her." ..
In the last chapter Obrien describes his feeling for Linda, a little girl he was in love with.He still believes in the love he had for Linda even those she dead..
"Lying in bed at night, i made up elaborate stores to bring Linda alive in my sleep. "
On page 245 he says " I can see Kiowa, too, and ted Lavender and curt Lemon, and somethimes I can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights. I'm young and happy . I'll never die."
the idea the that stories is what continues life is what bring hope. That nothing is dead or forgeton, especially for the soldiers.
Hi! This is Robert Slay.
I have to agree with many of the people on here, in that the book takes no certain side, but I think Tim the narrator wanted to the reader to use his or her own feelings to make inferences on how things really were. I think the "True War Story" aspect of the book really impacted the way people felt on the book because when you boil down to it, it was ultimately up to you to believe what was true and what wasn't although this seems to shy away from the question but when he uses words such as "Speculation", and my memories, this makes things fuzzy as to what is true or false. Now i wouldn't think the story was hopeless, it depends on how you view the story from, Tim, Norman, Kiowa, or any other character. Most people from on here chose to view the story as it was told from, Tim O'Brien. Tim never seem hopeless to me because with each time he lost a friend or soldier, he learned something from them, which I kind of inferred the entire "Carried" definition from what the books first 5 pages explain, see its not what they carried, its the feelings and inspirations they needed to survive in the war. If you notice many of the deaths are told with many of the same details, these are the things that are carried. Now hopeless I don't necessary feel here. I think Tim's journey through the war was absolutely needed for growth and development, a journey that changed him as a person, although it isnt a necessarily good journey, its one that took him through leaps and bounds but proved to show him experience he wouldn't have received from anything else, trust, loyalty to his fellow soldiers. I have to disagree with Nancy and Blanca because I don't necessarily see a hopeless future for soldiers in the war. While I wouldn't say it is a necessarily pleasant future one that doesn't promise you will live the next day, going into the war doesn't mean that you are going to die. Tim made it sooo I feel it shows some potential good from it. Just my personal feelings. Thanks!
Alicia Garcia here
I don't agree that the book draws more of a hopeless picture as whole for those during the war. I think the book ends with hope for the future of soldiers who have been to war. O'Brien is writting this book to help save himself. "I did not look on my work as therapy, and still don’t. Yet when I received Norman Bowker’s letter, it occurred to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse" (pg.158). I agree with Chung Tai that it depends on the persons mentallity but O'brien is giving them an idea on how to overcome it. In his case using the technique of storytelling helps his mentallity overcome the sad and bad memories. He's giving them hope. He wxplains it alot in -The Lives of the Dead. "The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness"(pg.230). Yes he tells depressing stories but we have to remember those are the memories during the war; the impact war gives a soldier. The question to the reader than is how do they overcome it? O'Briens answer is storytelling. For him there is a chance for those who are veterans of war. He doesn't want Norman Bowker's story to repeat. Stories will let those veterans open up to there memories and guilt and it will give them an opportunity to redo things they have regreted or feel that those things need a little retouch. "But in a story I can steal her soul. I can revive, at least briefly, that which is absolute and unchanging. In a story, miracles can happen"(pg.236). Tim gives the the most gruesome of memories. He makes the reader feel and imagine this world he was living in. Those memories just helps to show these man that they can overcome the worst of the worst.
For those reasons, I think this novel in a whole is optimistic about the futures of soldiers who have been to war.
Ana Navarro
As with almost half who have already responded, I believe "The Things They Carried" paints a hopeless, almost flat outlook for the vietnam veteran. Starting with the title, "The Things They Carried", the reader is presented with a picture of a sort of weight/burden feel on veterans. It makes them seem as mules carrying a heavy load, that load been, of course, the war; it was an experience that they had and always will have. The memories hopelessly hunt them througout their lives. Nights and days now seem the same, for they will always dream, or perahps remember the war.
Seemingly, their personalities weight a lot in terms of how they live their lives after war; most will attempt to have the normal american life, others will be in distress trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. As with Tim, he managed to live a "normal" life but even he couldnt detach himself from the war, he can fake it and may be attempt to accomplish it but at the end, the war is something he will have to carry with him, therefore, having an optimistic feel afterwards seems almost impossible. Like he said, "If at the end of a war story you fill uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie."(68)
Again, Tim for example, after the war, tried making a normal living. He became a writer and even started a family. Though now at forty-three he still has sleepless nights, rememebering the dead. He says, "At night I sleep on my belly...I'd squirm around, cussing, half nuts with pain, and pretty soon I'd start remembering how Bobby Jogerson had almost killed me."(192)He even realizes how war had changed him, as he says, "Something had gone wrong. I'd come to this war a quiet, thoughtful sort of person,a college grad, Phil Beta Kappa and suma cum lade, all the credentials, but after seven months in the bush, I realized that those high, civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under the weight of the simple daily realities."(200)Now at 43, with a seemingly "accomplished" life, Tim recalls his life as a "...blade tracing loops on ice:a little kid, a twenty-three-year old infantry sergeant, a middle aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow."(236)
Nevertheless,O'Brien depicts a hopeless outlook for the Vietnam vet. No matter how hard they try to get incorporated into society, they will always be Vietnam veterans.
Upon finishing Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", I was left with the a indifference of hope and hopelessness. War is never a good thing and it can effect anyone and anything linked to it, whether it is the family of the soldiers, countries economy and people, or the soldier himself. These soldiers emotions are played on every time they pick up a gun and go out to battle. They deal with the effects of viruses or land mines they just don't see coming. (Pgs 195-196) Effects such as those can paint a ill fated future for these young men who weren't able to start their future because they plucked from their lives so young. Although some people such as Tim can come to terms with what he's gone through, "For years I'd felt a certain smugness about how easily I had made the shift from war to peace. A nice smooth glide-no flashbacks or midnight sweats. The war was over, after all. And the thing to do was go on."(Pg 157) The outcome effects on a soldiers mind depends on their interpretation of the war. Some can move on and others can't get rid of the horrors they relive when they close their eyes. Great men come out of wars and great men are created and lost because of wars. There is a positive and a negative effect.
I Have to agree with Dominika on having the "indifference" of hope and hopelessness. The narrator's memories are recalled in positive and negative light. And I agree with what she said about the recollection of a soldier's war time can be a great one.
Hi this is Stephanie Hernandez.
I think that after reading the entire novel I would have to say that the author paints a hopeless picture about the world of a Vietnam veteran. I agree with nansi25 when she says that a Vietnam veteran would never be able to forget the life they had to go through while at the war. They had to witness killing and do the killing at times and it would be understandable that they would end up traumatized. Another thing that I noticed was like Bengosha said that the author brings up Linda at the end and I think that although it doesn't take away all the negativity towards war, it creates a sense of happiness. I interpreted this from the quotes in page 225 "But this too is true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming alive", and "But in a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world" by saying that stories can save us it almost seems like if the narrator doesn't find going to war so bad at the end because he can always comfort himself (pg. 246 "I'm young and happy. I'll never die...I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story.")with stories and imagine things as he would have wanted them to happen, not the way they actually did happen.
Despite the quotes which gives me a sense that the narrator can rescue himself with stories, I believe that the overall picture of a vietnam veteran is hopeless. I say this because we see what Norman Bowker goes through after coming back from the war, his life seems meaningless ( "the place looked as if it had been hit by nerve gas, everything still and lifeless, even the people. The town could not talk, and would not listen. How'd you like to hear about the war? he might have asked, but the place could only blink and shrug." page 143). I also believe that the future of a Vietnam veteran seems hopeless because in page 128 we see what happens to a soldier after going to war, he has no future literally, because he gets killed. This shows how the life of a man can be ruined so quickly by the violence and horrors of war (pg.128 "And for years, despite his family's poverty, the man I killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics"). The novel also shows how a Vietnam veterans'future is hopeless because just by killing a man a soldier can be tramatized for life this is shown by Tim O' Brien, when he says "When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed anyone. She knew about the war; she knew I'd been a soldier. You keep writing these war stories, she said, so I guess you must've killed somebody". The reason that he kept writing war stories was because he killed a man, "he was a short, slender man of about twenty. I was afraid of him-afraid of something-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him" (page 131). By this we are shown the extent to which the narrator was traumatized by the war and how this creates a hopeless future for him because for the rest of his life, he can't get the war out of his head and he replays the images as he remembers while writing the stories.
In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" the author's overview of the war is not very optimistic at all. I think the story shows just how horrible and scaring the war can be, "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 the faceless responsibility and faceless grief...".(Pg 180) For the rest of the men's lives they will always "carry" bondage and baggage of the war. "at one point, I remember, we paused over snapshots of Ted Lavender, and after a while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said "he had never forgiven himself for Lavender's death. It was something that would never go away", he said quietly, and I nodded and told him I felt the same about certain things..." (Pg 27) In life, soldiers bare the hurt, pain, and anguish of putting their hearts on the line for the people they don't even know. The young are forced away not realizing what they'll have to deal with on the other side. "He's nineteen years old-It's too much for him-so he looks at you with those big, sad, gentile killer eyes and says cooz because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: She never wrote back. (Pg 59) Life in the war can kill the soul and immobilize the spirit from ever becoming whole.
I agree with Jon Martinez when he says "The outcome effects on a soldiers mind depends on their interpretation of the war. Some can move on and others can't get rid of the horrors they relive when they close their eyes." I agree with this statement because in life, depending on how we handle things and how we interpret things, we can either excel or crumble. The choices we make in life and the ways we deal with things in life, effect the life we live.
The extent to which I believe that the futures of the soldiers who have been to war has been optimistic is very little to a barely even there. There are so many incidents in which Tim comes back to talking about the war, talking about his fellow soldiers and you can’t say that he’s had a true recovery from the war. He hasn’t “I feel guilty sometimes. Forty –three years old and I’m still writing war stories... But the thing about remembering is that you don’t forget.”(32) I don’t think that anyone ever recovers from war. All they can do is move on. Many of the characters loose their lives so they don’t have a chance to move on and those who do survive the war come back to memories they will never erase. “... and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever.”(38)
Norman Bowker is and example of a person who doesn’t recover from war. He hung himself because he couldn’t seem to find something to do with his life after the war. “Now a decade after his death, I’m hoping that “Speaking of Courage” makes good on Norman Bowker’s silence.” (160) In the end I don’t really think that Norman Bowker had a future because he had seen and lived what he did in Vietnam and wasn’t able to talk about It openly and his own silenced killed him. How can this possibly and optimistic view? Although there are many parts in the book were you see laughter and joy all of it affected them in some way. The fact that Tim can’t seem to forget and Norman couldn’t talk about it leaves much out for an optimistic end to any of their lives.
I can’t help to think that maybe it goes both ways though, like Sana said, because you want to believe it, but I really think that the novel paints more of a hopeless picture about the life of a Vietnam Vet. “The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives un its own dimension, replaying itself over and over. But the war wasn’t all that way.” When Tim writes things like this you want to think that there was some good out of the war but even Ted being on tranquilizers is mention and that is a form of escaping a war. All in all I think that there is very little optimism.
-Macrina
Diana Arechar
I see the overall outlook of the text as not very optimistic for the futures of soldiers who have come home from war. The book as a whole paints a hopeless picture of a Vietnam vet. Even O’Brien who seems to be the one vet that was able to live a normal life says that, “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t,” (134). O’Brien was talking about the young man that was killed and that he blamed himself for.
Even when he returns to Vietnam and looks out at the “shit field” he thinks, “This little field, I thought, has swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage...and somehow I blamed this place for what I had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been,” (184-185). O’Brien was able to make a family and become a great writer but he would always carry the memories of war; of what it had done to him and his friends. The point about how he would always carry the memories was something I agreed very strongly about in Ana Navarro’s post. She says that even the vets still carry the burden of what had happened to them.
We cant forget the tragic story of Norman Bowker who wrote to O’Brien saying that, “It’s almost like I got killed in Nam...Feels like I’m still in deep shit,” (156). Norman was an example of what a war veterans life was sometimes like in the post-war. Norman had attempted to make a normal life. He tried out many jobs and even college but he still felt like he was out there in Nam and he found no way out so he killed himself. O’Brien goes to say, “I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed...But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world,” (225). O’Brien had found a way to keep living and kept others living by writing but it didn’t keep him from forgetting. It only kept him in a dream world where the dead were alive. Then, living in the real world he knew the war had changed him and he could never get back the person he use to be. This was the same for all veterans.
I think that the novel gives the reader an image of humanism in the mist of war, and brings the characters to a realistic point of view by giving them vives and fault as described on pgs 5-6. Also on page 49 you can get a sense of aqwarded that these soldiers felt towards one another knowing their job is to kill but do they have to become fdriend and make bonds of friendship with one another the answer is yes. To keep yourself from turning into a monster. But there are also grusom imgaes of corpeses that through off a wishful image of courage and turns the pacification into slaughterings of villagers. On pg175 for example Kiowas body was described like a job and not a needed task. I also agree with charlene's view. None of them ended up with much or any gained from the war. This leads the reader to render a grave and grusome image of the soldiers and of the war.
Diana:
"O’Brien had found a way to keep living and kept others living by writing but it didn’t keep him from forgetting."
I don't think the book was intended to help erase memories but to help live with them.
Hi, I'm Cristina Perez =D
When I finished reading "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien I did not have a solid feeling of hope or hopeless with this novel. Throughout the novel the narrator tells the stories starting with a pessimistic view of how Vietnam is this life changing experience that every soldier goes through. So in my opiinion this novel leaves you with the feeling of how life is form some people and how you just have to go through what is given to you. I don't think there's a positive feeling or a negative feeling with this novel because everything at the end seems to stay neutral and the reader makes up their mind depending on their views.War gives the reader and everyone a negative feeling already but the narrator introduces the bright side like when the soldiers are joking around or when they start remembering the good times back at home. Those things are what make the stories be in a neutral position and make it hard for the reader to be either pessimistic about war or optimistic. On page 185 "I blamed this place for what I had become, and I blamed it for taking away the person I had once been," makes the reader see the war as something negative and makes the thought of war pessimistic because of the loss of identity of this character. At the end this novel makes me have a neutral look on what life is after war.
I agree with Laura Hernandez that the book can go either way because of the various characters in the book that have positive stories and the ones that have negative stories. At the end everything sums up and there's still a whole left that makes the reader feel neutral towards the novel.
I AGREE WITH SANA, IN MY OPINION THE NOVEL DOESNT REALLY TAKE A SIDE TO PROVE THE QUESTION. I BELIEVE THE BOOK JUST SHOWS THAT DIFFERENT PEOPLE WELL VETERANS REACT TO IT A DIFFERENT WAY. ONE MAY TAKE IT TO THE HEART AND NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER FROM THE PROBLEM JUST LIKE NORMAN UNTIL TAKING HIS LIFE COMPLETELY AWAY. BUT OTHER VETERANS CAN BE ABLE TO PUT IT ASIDE AND EVEN MAKE THIS EXPERIENCE A BETTER WAY TO LIVE THEIR LIFE OR LIKE AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO APPRECIATE LIFE AND TO MOVE FORWARD. IN THIS BOOK TIM IS THE EXAMPLE.
Hi I'm Katarzyna Razniak.
After finishing the entire novel, I would have to say that the book paints a picture of hopelessness masked by hopefulness. Although I agree with Sana that the war effected all those in it differently because of there personalities, i still think the effects were overall negative. We see that some people like Bowker can admit that the war mess with their minds. "It's almost like i got killed over in Nam..." (pg. 156) This line intertwines with bringing back the dead in stories which we see as a positive thing in a way since they get a secong chance, but what do you do with a character who feels dead but really isn't and he can't use the second chance. That evokes a mood of hopelessness.
We even see the effects of war as hopeless earlier on when Rat Kiley starts to lose it. "It was a sad thing to watch. Definetly not the old Rat Kiley. His whole peronality seemed out of kitler" (pg. 221) A chacter that is very likable and almost potrayed as a "healer" begins to be taken in by Vietnam. We see that such a good hearted person cracks because of the war which makes us wonder whether there is hope for others.
Lastly the hopelessness is potrayed by the author himself. The narrator states " Yet when I recieved Norman Bowker's letter, it accured to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might have otherwise ended in paralysis or worse." (pg. 158) We find out that the only reason the narrator was able to return from the war so "normally" was because in reality he never stops talking about it. It is almost haunting how the stories are repeated as if the author can't help himself but because he does it through writing initially we don't see it as a negative thing until we take a closer look and realize that he constantly carries the war with him letting future Veterans know that there is no escaping what they go through in the war.
Hi, this is Angelica Alcaraz
Well, after reading the whole novel I came with the conclusion that the worlwide view in the novel is very pessimistic. I came with the conclusion that war leads nothing but a hopeless life. Everything ends up being hopeless because of war. For example, the narrators love story that he is always mentioning. That love story really had not much of a happy ending like it was said,"More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mostly chatty,elusive on the matter of love"(1). He knew since the very begginning she will never love him just like he said it,"He realized she did not love him and never would"(17). He also burned her letters like it was said,"JImmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letter"(23). The love that the narrator felt for Martha was hopeless because she will never love him. War leads to these hopeless situations. Another thing that proves that war is hopeless and has this very pessimistic view is the constant memories of the deaths that war leaves and the ones people never forget. War is also seen very pessimistic because like it was menitoned in the book even the people who survive the war end up with these hopeless lonely lives. This is why I believe that the worldwide view that I got from reading the novel is that war is senn very pessimistically. I think the novel says that war is hopeless and leads loliness.
I definetly disagree with the people who say that the book does not take sides because something on the contrary of that. I see that the book took the side of the pessimistic view. All throghout this book we have the constant pessimistic events that happen.
//Erika Marquez//
After reading the novel The Things They Carried, I would say it is very pessimistic towards the after affect of the war on a soldier’s life. I say this because its not whether the ending was optimistic, or not, but that the life of these men have been dramatically shifted. It wasn’t that our author lived through it and is able to write about it, but that he is unable to leave that part that has haunted him behind. Even though forgetting is not the answer he not only writes one book but three almost signifying that there is nothing left of him; it has been taken by his time in Vietnam and that is what is left for him. In page 184 he writes “This little field, I thought, had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage.” Here he explains that the field has taken any emotion or fear he had of it when he remembered the death of Kiowa, he felt little and helpless to do anything to stop it. But, some how he was able to live with it while other characters in the novel like Bowker were unable to move past something so real and tangible only to go back to their home towns like nothing had happened. I think for that reason our author has been able to live with himself because he doesn’t let people forget what he saw and feel what he felt. I think that trying to reverse everything as it never happened made things even more difficult for them to live with. It is a part of them and the history of war. “What’s real?” he said. “Eight months in fantasy land, it tends to blur the line. Honest to God I can’t even remember what real is.”pg. 204. Here it explains that reality has not only changed in Vietnam but in the mind of the soldier for what’s he has seen or could happen. Although the story’s of the deaths of his friends are not dark or scary they are hopeful in a sense. When Curt Lemon died he didn’t just get lifted in the air; he was perfect. The stage was perfect, the light was right, the way he flew into the air and into the tree blossoms was beautiful. However unfortunate his death was, he wasn’t just dead he was a perfect dead. Towards the end not only is the mind of some soldiers jumbled but everyone could feel uneasy. “The long night marches had turned their minds upside down; all the rhythms were gone.” This also shows how things never got better because their minds have been messed with because of their duration there. I don’t think that after living through something like that, you could ever really go back. Because the real world was to unreal to them after living in a different type of place where death could strike at any given moment or something so beautiful could turn out to be so horrific in reality. I do agree with Cristina on how her examples show how pessimistic the life of a soldier is after the war.
Hi this is Joselyn.
After I finished reading the book "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, I didn't have either a hopeful or hopeless picture about the world of a Vietnam vet. In the book O'Brien mentions pictures and memories looking positive, and having experienced certain situations that only come once in your lfe, but on the other hand you have a negatve vibe because of the after life of the war for certain people.
Three references:
1.) "......talked about everything we had seen and done so long ago, all the things we still carried through our lives. Spread out across the kitchen table were maybe a hundred old photographs." (pg. 27) This is showing that no matter how much damage was done during the war the veterans are always going to have those certain memories that were good at times that the veterans will always trasure throughout their life. Whether they have them drilled in their head or just like this with old photographs.
2.) "It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hadn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid when you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood-you give it together, you take it together." (pg. 192) This is another positive out look after the war, how many times can you say yourself that you have experienced something this big? For myself not once, because what O'Brien went through was a life situation that you only get to live once. He will carry and remember this for the rest of his life. This is not a negative thing to him, it's a positive effect.
3.) "In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon’s final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war." (pg. 155) This is a negatve effect of the after war. This particulare reference is showing how Norman Bowker finds his life meaningless and hopeless. During the war he felt like he was doing something right that he actually belonged at the certain place and time, but after the war everything just went downhill for him which is not a good sign.
This is why I choose to stay neutral with this book. I would also have to agree with Laura Hernandez and Yesica on this book taking both a positive and negative look after the war. It has both it's ups and downs but depending on how you read or feel towards the actual stories and ways the author is speaking.
Hello, this is Julie Mei.
The overall outlook of this novel shows more of a hopeless side than a hopeful side. According to O'Brien, he never agreed with war in the first place; he was against it. I think that's one of the reasons why he wrote one of the chapters, "On the Rainy River." He felt shame for what happened, but he told us the reason why he did what he did. He showed us the way he perceived war, the way he reacted when he knew he was drafted into war, and what the outcome was when he return from the war. In the lines, "In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to be wrong. Certain blood was shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law." (pg 40) shows us the reaction he felt when he knew he was going to take part in the war. O'Brien even thought of running away for many reasons, but the only reason why he chose to fight in the war was because of pride. That's how hopeless he felt because of the war; because of something so hopeless like pride. He's always going back to the memories he had with his friends, especially the ones that passed away, and how each and one of them affected him in some ways. He named the story "The Things They Carried" because the things each soldier carried gave them strength to continue fighting the war. "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories...." (pg. 21).
This also shows us how hopeless war is; the way it drives them crazy in a boring and sick way. "But it was a strange boredom. It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders. You'd be...You'd try to relax. You'd uncurl your fist and let your thoughts go. Well, you'd think, this isn't so bad. And right then you'd hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you'd be squealing pig squeals. That kind of boredom." (pg. 34) It shows us how hopeless they are in situations where they feel like they're waiting for death to creep up upon them and not know when it's going to happen.
I can understand how Sana said the novel isn't taking any sides and is just reliving experiences that O'Brien felt during and after the war, but most of his stories and his definition of morals somehow relate to how hopeless and eager the soldiers were to survive. Like how Tim explained the way Lavender died, the way Curt Lemon died, and how every time someone was to go down a hole to check around... he describes everyone's feelings and thoughts while they were watching it all happen; their anxiousness, their hope to survive, and their shame for blushing or screaming from fear.
THis is Ted NOwak...
After reading "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, I have to say that his outlook on the futures of soldiers who have been to war is ultimately pessimistic.
The narrator shows the reader all the death, fear, and mental scars associated with the war. The book has nothing to do with honor or patriotism but rather the suffering and depression of the veterans during and after the war.
We never hear about a successful battle or a heroic effort in the book. We hear about hardships and death. Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Kiowa, etc. Norman Bowker gets badges for his service but he is depressed. He doesn't know how to express himself to anyone. In the end, he kills himself.
Through Norman Bowker we can see the reality of the war veterans. We can see that some of them have deep mental scars that will never be erased. Some of them just don't fit in anymore in society. They missed so much of what happened back home.
I have to strongly agree with nansi25. The author himself cannot ever erase these horrible memories and he writes books about them. Throughout the book he tries to make us understand that it is impossible to write a real war story and impossible to feel what the veterans felt.
The outlook on the futures of veterans is pessimistic, but I wouldn't say "hopeless." Although these veterans will always be haunted by the memories of war, not all of them will kill themselves, not all of them have a haunting memory.
Erik Zoooooooooooniga
I’m going to disagree with everyone that has a neutral perspective for the overall outlook of the text regarding the future of the soldiers. However I do agree with Charlene and Blanca about their futures being pessimistic. O’Brien clearly sketched how bad the life a veteran would live through a restless tormenting of death and/or despair. In other words, he painted and clearly spelled out that the future after war is rather hopeless. The characters introduced in these chapters met one fate: a devastating death by jungle warfare or living a life full of agonizing torment haunted by the disturbing images of death. A perfect pessimistic example would be the outcome of the narrator O’Brien. He went on living on life full of torment by the past and walked an endless path that circled around his life during the war. Another thing that the characters suffered from by surviving the war was pure guilt…the guilt from having taken the life of another. That guilt accumulated into their present consciousness after the war to the extent in which it constantly tormented their daily lives. Narrator O’Brien lived on with guilt and haunting memories of the people he witnessed dying and killing. Not a day went by that he could not forget about the dreadful memories of war – chapter 2 “Love” O’Brien mentioned that “I should forget it, but the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present.”
Mitchell Sanders is another perfect example of a Vietnam veteran with a pessimistic future. Like most soldiers, Sanders lived through the burden and angst of watching his fellow comrades lay dead on the ground or coming across dead men. He also made plenty of negative comments during the war; such as how the morality was nonexistent in wars, especially the Vietnam War. “You want my opinion? There’s a definite moral here. There it is man!” said Sanders as how pointed out to the grave of fallen comrades. The only moral of the Vietnam War was death of soldiers who died for a war without a cause. Death was about the only result that came about from the Vietnam War.
Change was an additional attribution that shaped their personalities during the war. Most of the characters were shown with positive characteristics in each of their introductions, but in the aftermath of the war, as veterans those who lived returned home as different people; Mary Anne Bell is a perfect example of this. At first she dressed feminine but later on gained violent manly traits such as hanging a necklace made of human tongues of soldiers she shot. Mark Fossie, Mary Anne Bell’s elementary school sweetheart, noticed the change in her. She went from an elegant kind lady to a ferocious and murderous lady during the war. This change was a negative change that greatly impacted her change of life for the worst. “She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill.” as Rat Kiley quoted. She had become a whole different woman taking and being a part of this moral-less war.
Ironically, the title of the book is named “The Things They Carried”, which metaphorically means that ach of those soldiers carried great burdens/responsibilities/promises/resolves that affected their futures greatly by the war. In terms, these traits were greatly turned pessimistic by the grievous illustrations of the Vietnam War. The characters who lived returned home as different persona's walking a hopeless, frail, and gloomy life with little expectations of forgetting the past.
Hi this is Kyle Trentz
After having read the entire novel "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, I would say that the overall outlook of this text is neither hopeful nor hopeless. When first reading the question I was going to say that this novel leaves a sense of hopelessness for the vets, but then I started to read through some other responses and I really agree with what Sana said. She made a really good point about how the two men show the two different routes you can take after the war, and basically saying that your life after the war is as hopeful/hopeless as you want it to be. Norman was very depressed throughout his entire life after the war and could never get it off of his mind. “The thing is…there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him…Feels like I’m still in deep shit" (pg 156). "Three years later he hung himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown in central Iowa" (page 155). Whereas Tim was actually living his life, and even though he would think about the war and would let it get to him sometimes, he did not let it control his life.
Hey this is Steven Gallardo,
In the Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", the novel as a whole didnt seem to give hope to vietnam veterans and i agree with basically everyone commenting that it gives the vets. a hopeless future for them. Some people won't forget the past and will always tell stories of it and keep thinking of certain events that occured during the war. "I told him that I'd like to write a story about some of this. Jimmy thought it over and then gave me a little smile. 'Why not?' he said. 'Maybe she'll read it and come begging. There always hope, right?" (29). You dont like to forget but the past always seems to get back with you. Tim seems to tell many stories of his soldiers and some were feeling different. "In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon's final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war" (155).This says that Bowker has no hope for his future and sees how he can live his life anymore. The narrator would also talk a lot about felling in men. "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried chameful memories" (21). Everyone was the same, no indifference in a soldier they just had their own terror love and grief. This would just be another pile of shameful memories they don't want to live with. So this story is telling heartbreaking stories about the soldier's lives and how each men has their own demons and just by telling them in stories can help ease the pain so many still carry.
Miriam says:
Overall after the end of the novel I thought that this was a pretty good novel. I didn’t think that it was pessimistic in any way. I thought that there were some pretty good optimistic sides to them. Yes, the narrator all he talked about were the bad experiences he had gone through and the deaths of his fellow comrades but the book was about him and his life during the Vietnam War. In chapter “Spin” he talks about some of the things he saw, like the kid without a leg who still got up and got chocolate, or when Bowker and Dobbins would play checkers while the rest of the crew just watched who was the winner and who was the loser. Even on page 32 the last lines on the page he adds in “the bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over. But the war wasn’t all that way.” After this phrase he still goes on and speaks about Ted Lavender overdosing on tranquilizers and being smiley making everyone laugh. In the chapter “How to tell a True War Story” he also talks about other’s experiences and how they tell war stories. He says, “When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. When a guy dies, like Curt Lemon, you look away again. The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.” (pg. 71) Here he continues talking about the experiences and it’s all about how things went on for them. There was a time where Mitchell Sanders was making conversations and then O’Brien even describes the settings. Right here from reading this chapter I get that the experiences lived in war you are not able to live it anywhere else even though there are certain things that are bad there are also good ones. They have their couple of good laughs. Last example was on chapter “Field Trip” on pg. 187 he talks the aftermath of the war. He says, “My voice surprised me. It had a rough, chalky sound, full of things I did not know were there. I wanted to tell Kiowa that he’d been a great friend, the very best, but all I could do was slap hands with the water.” Even though he had lost him, Kiowa shows how people can come and go but really make a big impact on your life. Now that I think about it it’s not so much of being optimistic or pessimistic but of facing the hardships of life especially if you’re in a war. The chapter the lives of the dead clearly states the finalee: “but this too is true: stories can save us.” He learns everything and is what makes him. I agree with nansi25 and cristina perez.
they both have a samea
(Kerri Carnahan)
Upon reading Tim O'Brien's "The Thins They Carried", it has become evident to me that his entire worldview depicted through the novel is neither throughly positive nor negative. Many of the short stories protray a bit of hope in certain Vietnam war veteran's future, while many other short stories in the novel depict a very hopeless, lost soldier. I agree with Chung Tai when he states, "...it depends on the person personality, characteristic ,and their own way of thinkings."
The author himself evidently has a very mixed up outlook. After reading the first paragraph on page 225, I am very confused as to how the author is affected overall by Vietnam: "But this too is true: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old mansparwled beside a pig-pen, and several others whose dead bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." Also, O'Brien could not forget, " I wanted to save Linda's life. Not her body, her life." (pg. 236)
He was able to move on with his life. He is a writer now. However, Norman Bowker felt so lost in life. All he could think about were the horrific happenings of Vietnam. He was lost inside the war, even though it had long been over. He hung himself.
Some men, like Azak, could not differ real life from war-time. This is evident here: "'What's real?' he said. 'Eight months in fantasy land, it tends to blur the line. Honest to God, I sometimes can't remember what real is." (pg. 204)
The whole novel, however, portrays a very negative worldview. O'Brien says, "If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. The is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue." (pg. 69)
This is Cesar Servin
I agree with Rocio and the rest who say the book has no hopeful or hopeless future for a Vietnam veteran. The outcome for these veterans really depends on their character. It depends on how badly are they going to let their experiences affect them emotionally and mentally. In the book it tells us that Norman commits suicide. ""Speaking of Courage" was written in 1975 at the suggestion of Norman Bowker, who three years later hanged himself in the locker room of a YMCA in his hometown in central Iowa." (pg.155) He let all his experiences affect him throughout his return from the war. He let all his experiences affect him without finding a way out from those memories. He didn't find a solution and was weakened extremely. His effects from the war lead him to become lonely and out of order in his daily life upon his return. Eventually, it lead him to suicide. Tim on the otherhand found a way to resist being driven out of his mind by writing. He admits to remembering experiences from the war, bad and good ones, but still has a way of not being extremely affected and moving on. "Kiowa, after all, had been a close friend, and for years I've avoided thinking about his death and my own complicity in it. Even here it's not easy" (pg. 160) "But this too is true: stories can save us...They're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world." (pg.225) Tim says that writing has saved him in many ways since the war. The book, therefore, does not give us a view of hopefulness or hopelessness for Vietnam veterans. It gives us a view on two opposite reactions to the war by these two veterans, one of hopefulness and one of all hope lost.
Hey, this is Jimmy He.
After reading the novel “The Things They Carried”, I came to realize that the ultimate overall outlook of the future of the soldiers was anything but optimistic. The whole novel, I would say, paints more of a gloomy picture about the war in Vietnam and the veterans of the war. Right from the get-go, the book starts off with how the soldiers were in really terrible conditions in Vietnam. The book shows us the true mentality of a soldier who has experienced or is experiencing the war; it is nothing beautiful or glorious but rather the real dark side of war that is not generally portrayed. Throughout the book, the later-on veterans and the soldiers were/are mentally scarred from the war. Norman Bawker is a good example of the way how O’Brien shows us the true nature of war and its outcome. Norman ultimately couldn’t take it anymore and kills himself. These soldiers went through so much; they even see their friends die before them, which is anything but optimistic. I believe that the overall outlook of theses soldiers is surely not optimistic, however not hopeless, which I agree with Ted about.
Jamie Chan
I would have to disagree with everyone who says that the book is optimistic because it seems that all your references seem to be leaning more to the negative side more so the positive. War first of all isn’t a good thing and the fact that so many has passed away for no cause like it was said in the book. Most death were because of pointless and stupid doings so maybe what O’Brien is trying to say is that War is overall very pointless and innocents were dyeing for no reason. Yes, the narrator survived the war but everyone else around him didn’t. Even when he was trying to tell the story to his father with pride it was very hard because there was no reason to be. So therefore, I think the novel is telling us that war for soldiers are a dead end unless you are lucky. There's really no hope because the narrator portrayed a very regretful and guilty person.
I definetly think it is a hopeless picture about the world of a Vietnam vet. It seems like every veteran we know about can't live a completely normal life. O'Brien is trying to show the effects of war on the people who lived through it. The story of Mark Fossie's girlfriend Mary Anne is important. She was an innocent girl who got sucked into the twisted and sick world of war. "She wanted more, she wanted to penatrate deeper into the mystery of herself, and after a time the wanting became a needing, which turned then to craving." pg 114 Vietnam consumed her and she was trapped in that life. I know that she wasn't a veteran but the point I am trying to make is O'Brien reveals in the book that war has become a part of those soldiers. Even if they try what happened to them in Vietnam will never leave them. A lot of comments say that the narrator shows a optimistic outlook because he has become a successful writer. They are wrong he is just like Jimmy Cross and Norman Bowker. He can't let go either. The only difference is he found an outlet. If he didn't write stories he wouldn't be ok. He still had nightmares "I wanted to show her the Vietnam that kept me awake at night.."pg . 184 That doesn't seem optimistic or hopeful to me. It still haunts him the terrible things he had to go through but stories keep him sane. Everyone all ready talked about Norman. Jimmy Cross is also an example because he never stopped blaming himself for Ted Lavenders death. Overall the expiriences of soldiers in war scar them for life. All they can do is try to find a way to overcome that.
Spencer Harstead:
I’m going to agree with the many people that said that his overall outlook on the war is not optimistic. He made it clear that the war had long lasting negative effects on soldiers. The future for Vietnam vets seemed really hopeless in this novel. Most of the stories in the novel were of death and the effects of death on everyone around those who died. Take Bowker as an example. After the war he committed suicide. The effects were so traumatizing that he didn’t even want to live anymore. “It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam…That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down the sewage with him.” (Page 156) That’s a future so hopeless that he didn’t even want to face it.
As Nancy C mentioned, even O’brien is horribly affected by the war. It embodies most of his thoughts. “Forty-three years old, and the war occurred a half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now.” (Page 38) This shows that he cannot shake the war. It still lives with him. He lives with so much shame from before and after the war. Like the story that he never told anyone because he was so ashamed of the way he felt when he got drafted. “For more than twenty years I’ve had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away…” (Page 39). These long-term effects show little to no hope for relief from the horrors of Vietnam.
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