Final Thoughts

After just completing the book, I figured I would write some last remarks on my impressions of the book as a whole. When I first started reading the book, I went into it with a historical mind, one that enjoyed the historical references. However, as the book progressed I began to realize that Mr. O'Brien really doesn't care about the historical accuracy, but instead how this horrific war impacted he and many other Vietnam veterans. The concepts of death and life, silence and noise, and bravery and shyness seemed to come up many times throughout the entirety. One of the biggest things I marvel at now that I have completed this composition is the way that O'Brien was able to tie things together. The first example that popped into my mind was how he corollated his experience with Linda's death to his encounter with the first dead man he saw in Vietnam. By doing this, I think O'Brien was able to bring home how he felt to the audience by connecting it with a situation many readers have undergone. All in all, I think this was a very well-written master piece. I commend Tim O'Brien for being able to open up about his experience in Vietnam. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, those men who left for the war never returned the same. While this was a way for O'Brien to cope with his experiences during this grim time period in his life, I think in the process he allowed many other people to share in his struggle and get a taste of what he experienced.

Silent Motif

Throughout the whole book I kept my eyes peeled for motifs that I could incorporate into my blog. (Yes, I just finished the last page of the book.) Other than the obvious common theme of death and life, I decided I would adopt the motif of silence, or noise to scour. All throughout the book it seemed to me that O'Brien would relate every experience he encountered to what he heard or better yet what he didn't. The most prime example would be the men in the jungle who believed they heard people partying at night. Another example would include Norman Bowker's suicide. His mother said he was a quiet boy and probably didn't want to bother anyone with his death. Many other war stories throughout the book were described by what they could hear - grenades exploding, men yelling, or perhaps even the silence after the battle when soldier's bodies were being carried away. As for the purpose of this motif, I think the men in the book like to describe things by the intangibles. They do this because more times than not, the tangibles, such as each other, photographs, and security blankets either prove to be unreliable or can be lost at any given moment. By describing things by noise, the audience is not only clued in on what these men paid attention to most, but also how the intangibles, such as ghostly noises or silence in the night, seem to always be present.

Dynamic Bobby Jorgenson

Throughout this book, O'Brien introduces many characters to the plot of the story. Some the audience gets to know pretty well, and others exit the plot just as soon as they enter. However, one character - Bobby Jorgenson isn't really introduced to the audience with what he did do, but what he didn't do. The only reason the audience knows of this man is his lack of skill sets to take care of injured soldiers (such as Tim who suffered from shock due to his lack of experience on the battle field). However, after he and his gang come to the base where Tim is stationed, the audience learns that this same man who caused Tim to have to rub antibacterial ointment all over his back side, also saved another man - Morty Phillips. Over the course of the couple months that Tim had left the group, this medic had transformed into a seasoned professional in his line of duty. Because of this transformation, Bobby Jorgenson qualifies as a dynamic character.

Speaking of Courage

After typing a very long post and then my internet crashing, I am going to attempt this again. In the chapter titled “Speaking of Courage” (pages 131-148), a few thoughts popped into my mind. First off, this chapter was a dramatic shift from the previous one- a war story. To me, even though this chapter simply followed a man who just returned from Vietnam for a four hour period, I think it screams many lessons that can be learned. The first being, what doesn’t someone learn from a war. It seems that throughout this book, O’Brien is constantly talking about lessons and talents learned from being at war. Norman, the man in this chapter, talks of how he always knows what time it is because he can “feel” it. The second lesson we learn from this chapter is how the men who returned from the war were not the same ones who left their loved ones back at home. Unlike WWII when after the men returned from overseas there were big parties and an economic boom following, Vietnam was the complete opposite. Historically we know that the war was very controversial and extremely unpopular on American soil. He also know that the men who came back were not the same mentally as when the left. This concept is clearly explained in this chapter. Norman feels he has nowhere to go and doesn’t even know where to begin to get his life back on track. Because the war was unpopular at home, soldiers did not receive a warm homecoming as in previous wars, but instead kept there war stories and medals close to their heart and prayed for a somewhat normal life.

The things I carried...

After getting back from two weeks out West and a week at the majestic Disney World in Orlando, I thought I would write a short reflection on the things I carried because I have grown rather weary of learning about the things they carried. Just like approx. 40 other students and staff members on SFS, we made the glorious (depending on how you look at it) trek across the Grand Canyon- Rim to Rim that is. Unlike the men in the book who carried their security blankets and things that held personal value to them, I only carried the bare necessities with me on the 24 mile hike. Yes, I was only gone for one day (or two- once again depending on how you look at it), but I was bound and determined that I was not going to bring more weight with me than what I needed. I did in reality pack way too much protein bars. Who would have thought that a cinnamon coffee cake Kashi bar or a white chocolate strawberry Cliff Bar would not sound too appetizing at the bottom a larger-than-life hole that at that point you are questioning when and/or if you are gonna get out of. Oh well I guess I will just chalk it up to experience- well as of right now I do not plan doing that every again!

A shift in P.O.V

On page 121, the point of view suddenly shifts from first person to third person. Why you ask? Well, be patient, that's what I am here for. From the beginning of the chapter the audience is aware of how much of a toll killing a man has taken on Tim. To all the other guys this is no big deal because after all, isn't war all about killing people? But to Tim this means something more. By having the narration switch from a first person to a third third person "all knowing" point if view, the audience is able to more clearly understand how bad Tim fells about killing this man. When the all-knowing narrator steps in and describes the dead man in full detail, the audience too begins to feel bad that he is dead. And, instead of just acting this is just another number added to the casualty list, we are able to realize that every man who died in this war had a story, and unlike this man, most went untold.

Look! They foil each other!

Awww, I was hoping for a happy ending. Oh well, life goes on! At the beginning of the chapter, Mark Fossie and the girl he shipped in to be on the base with him, Mary Anne, was the All American girl every man on the base wish he could have dated. However, as the chapter progresses, she slowly "lets herself go" and becomes "one of the boys." As this happens, Mark kind of questions who she is and why he brought her here in the first place. In other words, they become foils to each other (a.k.a foil characters as it says on the sheet provided). After thinking about how/why this happened, the only conclusion I could come to was- this only elicits the vulnerability and unpredictability of war. I think that up until this point in the book we are under the impression that war can only change those men who are in direct combat with the enemy. But by foiling these two people in the story, O'Brien is able to show that war does terrible things to those who aren't even in direct contact with it.

Two Oxymorons on the same page? No way!

I am now going to unravel two phrases found on page 77. "But in truth, war is also beauty." And, "Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true." Okay as for the first phrase. I am trying to imagine how war can be beauteous, but then I remembered I have never been in a war like the men in the book. I believe that when one is stuck in such of a "Hell on Earth," that in order to stay somewhat sane, one MUST see the beauty in the things others would find horrific. O'Brien mentions some of these things in the lines following the oxymoron. As for the second phrase. When one is engaged in a war, suddenly every movement, every breathe becomes about life, but it also becomes about death (avoiding it). By using such contradictory terms, I think O'Brien is able to convey to the reader the vulnerability of war itself

Metaphorically Speaking

War is Hell. Wow, those are some bold words. By using a metaphor and not a simile (which says one thing is merely "like" another thing, O'Brien is able to fully convey how he feels about war as a whole. To me, metaphors speak louder than similes. By saying something "is" something else the reader is left no room for interpretation and not given any space to qualify the degree to which the two things are alike. Like O'Brien says, this phrase is a generalization. Yes, it is used to convey to the reader what he believes war is, but what is hell? Is it Dante's vision of an iced-over, center-of-the-world chamber one is summoned to? Or is it the common, cliche, we all grew up around- the one where the devil is red with horns and breathes fire to all those who he has "possession of"? I think the decision is up to us individually to decide how we interpret the metaphor.

Didactic in the Diction

On page 74 when O'Brien and Sanders are talking about the situation of the men "hearing" things in the mountains, Tim asks Mitchell what the moral of the story is. After a moment of hesitation, Mitchell responds by saying the moral is to "hear the quiet" and "that quiet is your moral." I am not going to lie, I struggled quite a bit with this one, after all how could "quiet" be a moral. However, after I read farther down in the diction , O'Brien goes on to say basically say one cannot extract the literal meaning of the word at the surface without digging down to find the deeper meaning. Here, I think the two men are just as confused as I am when trying to wrap their heads around the moral of the story. Quietness is something that does not face a soldier often in war; however, when it does, (like the men of the anecdote) men have to adapt their mindset and perhaps if they don't they will "hear" the many battle cries of war.

Playing with Parallelism

On page 73, O'Brien includes some parallelism into his text. The second paragraph on the page Mitchell Sanders tells his fellow comrade, Tim that he think he knows the moral of the whole situation of the men thinking they were hearing voices and sounds in nature while at a lookout point. He believes that in the case of these men they actually listened to their enemies. Now, whether or not the sounds they heard were real or a figure of their imagination, they believed they heard them and that's all that mattered. Now, as for the parallelism. O'Brien compares these men to politicians, all civilian types, your girlfriend, everybody's sweet little virgin girlfriend. By doing this the reader is shown that they need to listen to their enemy, contrary to what the soldiers in Vietnam did.

It's up to you to decide

Going along with my last comment on diction, I think a sentence containing ambiguity found in the text should be noted. The sentence, “In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to March, but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive.” Once again, O’Brien goes with the idea of the intangible factors weighing more than the tangibles they carried on their backs. Here, we are fortunate enough for O’Brien to give us the duplicitious meaning of the word “hump”. However, from this point on, I believe it us up it us to recognize how he often implies this idea with future diction found in the text.

"Weighed" down diction

One thing I observed and I would like some help from others regarding the matter is how O’Brien said how much everything weighed. At first I just thought he was adding details to the diction in order to paint a more vivid picture for the readers, but then after it kept occurring, I think his purpose in doing so was to convey the vulnerability of the men fighting abroad. By adding such details O’Brien shows how every little one pound item adds up on one’s back, and before they realize it, they are not only weighed down by their own tangible items necessary for battle, but also their fears that keep them bogged down mentally.

Dejavu- Haven't I heard this before?

I am not going to lie, I was kind of apprehensive as to what to expect after getting through the first chapter; however, I have found many concepts and ways of thinking in which I can relate, or which others in my family can. My older sister, who is in her mid-twenties is known around our house as being the one who makes rash decisions or accusations without any argumentation to back up her comments. With that being said, she once made the comment that, “some people should not be forced to fight on the front line, but should instead stay back and be the ones instrumental in keeping the country running along with maintaining the position of the ‘figure head’ who makes the military decisions (this was paraphrased, for I do not recall the direct dialogue, just the content of).” In awe, I did not know how to respond, other than being appalled and hoping her eyes will one day be opened and she would not be able to place the life of one person above another. Upon reading the last passage of page 39, I couldn't help but recall this comment my sister made. This mindset shared by her and the main character allowed me to open my eyes to the harsh accusations that some people actually believe in in certain points in their lives.

What is a Rhetorical Question?

Page 38, oh how I love you! This page is FILLED with literary terms and devices along with many concepts and ideas fundamental to the book as a whole. However, one literary device essential to the concepts of the page would be the numerous rhetorical questions asked by the writer. I have always been lead to believe that rhetorical questions are posed by the writer to challenge the reader to stop and think about where they stand on the matter at stake. But, after reading over the passage once again, I think these questions offer insightful knowledge into the life of the character who “asked” them. By adding these questions to his diction, Tim O’Brien offers the readers the knowledge necessary to fully understand the main character’s way of thinking along with insight into the way in which his brain processes the current status of the nation.

Love is in the air

The Chapter entitled “Love”. This chapter serves as an anecdote in the scheme of the whole story. To me, it allows the author to convey the long-term effects of the war on the Veterans once they returned home. O’Brien had just got done explaining what life was like on the battle front, but he then takes it a step farther and explains “the things they carried” with them later in life. Instead of necessities for battle, these men carried memories and life-altering experiences as vivid memories with them to their grave. To me, this chapter allowed the readers like myself to have an insight into what these veterans experienced in the years following their last mission in the jungles of Vietnam.

Anastrophe/Inversion- You choose!

Once again, this could be a stretch, but when I was writing the definition for anastrophe (a.k.a inversion), I was a little confused as to how this could be applied in reali literary works. However, I believe I might have found an example on page 15. The latter part of the sentence, which reads, “...all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at loss for things to carry.” In previous sentences, “they carried” (or some version there of) appeared at the beginning of the sentence, but in this particular example it is at the end. As to why the syntax allows for the phrase to be at the end, I think it has to do with the fact that here, O’Brien is not talking about what they carried as he did previously, but instead he explains how in their (the soldier’s) minds, they have assured themselves they would always have something to carry- be it something physical or be it emotional or something untangible. In order to convey this to the reader, I think the writer purposefully uses anastrophe as a “red flag” to pay attention to the point being made.

Maybe a Motif?

Okay so this may be a stretch, but I am going to go for it. Even though I have only tackled the first 56 pages of the book, I think I may have found a motif. On page 38, O’Brien mentions the novel (novel during this era atleast) concept of America “not fighting a war unless knowing why". Hmm does this not resemble what is currently happening in the second Gulf War? (tell me what y’all think!) I could be wrong at this point in the novel, but my intuition tells me this notion will keep appearing in the book. I also think that as of right now, this could develop into the common theme of the story- one of questioning and uncertainty.

First Impression

As I sit on a flight from Ft. Myers to Indianapolis listening to “The Space Between” by DMB, I decided I would start typing some of my thoughts regarding the book on Pages, (since I cannot access the internet.) After studing the Vietnam war in APUSH just a couple of months ago, the words on the pages of this book kind of bring a sense of reality to what was printed in my text book. Yeah we studied the Gulf of Tonkin Resolutions, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong, but most importantly how unpopular the war was at home. To me, in the first few pages of the book, I think O’Brien did an exceptional job of conveying the harsh reality of the war that forced those at home on American soil to question not only why we were fighting this war but also the credibility of those “men in pinstripes” (p 38).