For this next blog, I thought that it would be good
if I talked about my lit circle book and explore in a similar format of my
Reader Response Lit Circle role of what I thought about the book and some
quotes and passages that I felt really helped bring out some of the work’s
major underlying themes. But first, I have to say that my lit circle book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien,
is tied for being my favorite book that we’ve read this year in AP Lit (it’s a
tough call between this and Frankenstein)
or all of my high school literature classes for that matter. I love how O’Brien
has interwoven so many small stories following various characters in the past,
present, and future, all of which connect together to bring out the trials
afflicted on those who served in the Vietnam War, who deal with hardships not
solely unique to war such as regret, lost, guilt, and pain, all of which help
to bring out a greater commentary on the nature of this particular war and the
brutal disillusionment surrounding it alongside the bitter repercussions that
troubled everyone involved with it. One particular story that stuck out to me
was “The Man I Killed”, which in a superficial overview is the telling of Tim O’Brien
himself having thrown a grenade that left a young Vietnamese man with a “star-shaped
hole that was red and yellow” (O’Brien. 120). While it is true that this
incident is evidence toward O’Brien’s commentary on the ruthless violence of
the Vietnam War that was a daily event for the soldiers humping along, that is
only part of the commentary that leads toward understanding O’Brien’s overall
themes. O’Brien interlaces the telling of his shock of having killed this man
with telling the story of the Vietnamese man, who “was made fun of for his
smooth skin and his love for mathematics. The young man could not make himself
fight them...in the presence of his father and uncles, he pretended to look
forward to doing his patriotic duty, which was also a privilege, but at night
he prayed with his mother that the war might end soon. Beyond anything else, he
was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and his village” (O’Brien.
121). This passage is critical in understanding O’Brien’s commentary about the
war, because in this moment, he looks at the Vietnamese man and sees not only
innocence compassion that has been tarnished by the sight of war, but also how someone
an entire world away could have gone through the same exact circumstances and
thought process that O’Brien himself had when he was drafted in 1968 for the
war. O’Brien, like he does in many of the other stories, makes note of how this
young man was just that: young, just like him and most other members of the
Alpha Company who are fighting in the war. This was a war that was started by
the authorities elders in political power seeking influence by proxy over
others, but consumed the young, who as a result found their innocence stripped
away from them and replaced by either unprecedented brutality of combat, or
death itself. O’Brien makes the young Vietnamese man out to be a mirror image
of himself, noting how the young man’s motivation of going to war for the sake
of not so much patriotism, but fear of embarrassment and being judged and
excommunicated by his family. For that, the young man would go to fight and
find himself permanently excommunicated by the toss of a grenade by his feet.
This section was also very important because it is the first time that the perspective
of the other side is even speculated about. Up until this point, the Vietnamese
had been more ambiguous and less easy to identify with. But here, O’Brien shows
how the people that were killed were not native savages or alien invaders, but
rather, just people who wanted in all their hearts to simply be at home with
the people they love doing what they love most, but instead find themselves
unwillingly fighting for a cause they don’t believe in.
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