Even though The Things They Carried is set during the Vietnam War, in what ways is it relevant today, with regard to war and politics as well as our personal struggles?
As you read the novel, which parts did you connect/relate to best in terms of the struggles, character relationships, or in other ways?
What did you gain from reading this novel? What would you say is the "Big Idea" (or universal lesson) of this novel that will stick with you after reading it? After everyone posts their big ideas, be sure to vote on the best one and we'll have a contest called the BEST BIG IDEA BLOG CONTEST. You will receive a fabulous prize when the 2014 school year commences (think less trophy and more pack of gum to avoid disappointment). Good luck--may the best blogger win!
P.S. Any big ideas from Sparknotes, etc. are disqualified; all big ideas must be the property of your brain.
Several ideas that are spoken of in The Things They Carried, carry over into todays time. One of the ideas that stuck in my mind was the inability to speak about past actions. When O’Brien writes about Norman Bowker not being able to save Kiowa in the disgusting river, he also writes about Norman driving around a lake over and over again. This man looks at the people and wildlife, while going over in his head, a conversation that would take place with his father about his shortcomings. This man went through the entire conversation in his head. He went over his own failures and shortcomings and even replied to himself from the aspect of his father. In the end he never actually spoke to his father. I can relate to the feeling of not being able to talk to someone about experiences. When one has a shortcoming, it seems as though they are torn between wanting to tell everyone about how close they got, but at the same time tell no one about their failure. This happens a lot to me with sports. If I missed my block, or tripped, or just did bad, I would want to tell someone how close I came but at the same time I didn’t want anyone to know I failed. The big idea that one can learn from Norman Bowker is that stories need to be told because the longer they are kept inside, the more potential it has to cause internal suffering.
ReplyDeleteThe big idea is that life sucks and then you die. But in between the lines, some things, like companionship, don't suck. In fact, that's the only thing you can count on. War sucked for all the men; everyone felt guilty and scared and dirty and lost, but the men had each other. They fought for each other; they were all a part of each other and something bigger. I agree with Lily completely that humans are social creatures. The funny thing is, just having someone around to endure suffering with doesn't necessarily help you get out of that bad situation, and yet it makes it bearable to have someone or something by your side. In the novel, O'Brien didn't limit companionship to people; I think he meant to say that the things they carried were like companions for the men as well as all the other men were companions for each other. I think it's irrational but very human to take comfort in just having something by your side.
ReplyDeleteI love your point about the things they carried-- apart from the ammunition and necessary gear, what the men chose to haul around served as a form of comfort and sentimental value. For a place, and men, so weighed by war, they strove to find any form of security they could. And despite the comfort brought by many items that were not the most valuable for war, it was that value to themselves that made each worth it. Jimmy Cross carried the letters he had read enough to memorise, Rat Kiley kept his comic books, Kiowa held his New Testament at hand, Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend's pantyhose, and so on. I believe they were a way of keeping hopeful; all spoke of better times in the past, and despite the realisation that some things may never be (Cross' feelings were never returned, just as Dobbins' girlfriend broke up with him), it still served its purpose. A world full of guns and death, and it is the out-of-place objects that allow one to hold onto their humanity.
DeleteThe novel "The Things They Carried", contains many scenarios in which are relevant to this day; that's what I got from this novel. That no matter the time, place, or setting of an event in war, the individual story itself does not matter, because somewhere in the past or in the future the same story can be told. Take Norman Bowker for example, a man who could not find his place in the life following the war, and eventually committed suicide. As many people know, the suicide rate among veterans today is even higher than before. According to a recent study by the Department of Veteran Affairs, every sixty-five minutes another veteran commits suicide (Shane, Leo III).
ReplyDeleteTake Tim O'brien fearing the war draft, and do any of the World Wars come to mind? Prior to even the Vietnam war, men were avoiding the draft. Some by medical notes, others by running; just as Tim had considered. The story of Tim is not unusual, rather just another edition to the never ending series of men fretting a war. An even more common story, that even the author notes as something everybody has heard of, is the man who jumps on a grenade to save the rest of his brothers. Very recently, the same story appeared in the news. Kyle Carpenter jumped on a grenade in Afghanistan, like stated, the time and setting does not matter. War in my eyes is inevitable, and some things will simply never change about it. There will always be those who fear the war itself, some who fear losing loved ones, some who render up courage, some who are simply left in the war itself. It's just like the cliche saying, "history repeats itself", and war stories one of the most prominent examples.
Shane, Leo III. "Report: Suicide Rate Spikes among Young Veterans." Stars and Stripes. Veteran Crisis Inc., n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2014.
A major theme in The Things They Carried is that coping is essential to survival. Each man in Alpha Company carried something or the memory of someone to help him cope. Whether it was a photograph, a Bible, or a memory, there was some form of comfort given by an object. Something that was permanent could help ease the suffering. Ted Lavender, who could not cope in the field of battle, turned to tranquilizers. Being in a daze resulted in his death. Lavender chose not to deal with the situation he was dealt, essentially giving up and turning to something that would whisk him away to what felt like a safer place. For Norman Bowker, the corrosive memories of war meant his demise. He could not handle returning to a place where society had moved on when he was reliving the horrors every second of the day. He couldn't try to fit in where there were people he couldn't relate to. The inability to cope became too much, and he ended his life. As humans, we need to understand that bad things happen. Either we can bear it on the chin, or let the hurt whittle us down to nothing. Everyone hurts, everyone cries, and in the end, everyone dies. It's sad and morbid and unhealthy to focus on so we as humans have to find ways to cope and move on. Whether it's religion or pantyhose, we can all find solace in something, which makes us stronger in the end.
ReplyDeleteIn Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" the big idea is more than just a representation of the emotional attachment that the soldiers created with some items to help cope with the mental stress of the war. O'Brien was using those emotional attachments to show how incredibly stressful and mentally tasking living in a combat zone was. However, O'Brien also wanted to show that while some people created an emotional attachment to an object in order to find solace and remembrance of old times while in Vietnam, there is nothing more beneficial to the mind than holding onto memories of the past and that happiness and peace is always available. O'Brien showed this by arranging the book into a collection of stories all with separate emotional appeals to show that remembering and telling stories of past experiences is the best way to honor them. Even twenty years after his experiences in Vietnam, the same emotional struggles haunted him and the only way to cope with those was by documenting them in his book. The "big idea" of the book seems to be that story telling and documenting past experiences, both good and bad, is the best way to maintain the same emotional connection to them throughout a lifetime.
ReplyDeleteOne of the big ideas is that you don’t know if you are going to live to see the next day, so make friends while you have time so you have someone to fall back on as you progress through the hardships of the war. Even though war was a miserable time and they had no family to go to if they were feeling lost or confused, the men of the war had each other as well as the things they carried. In my opinion, the author (O’Brien) often mention things the men carried while they were on their journey because the things the soldiers carried were their prized possessions and the things they carried were all they had for “companions” besides all of the other men. Which could be comforting thing knowing that the things they carried and the soldiers of the war always had some ones back.
ReplyDeleteOne of the big ideas in "The Things They Carried", is that as humans we will always have burdens and weight on our shoulders, but how we react to, and what we do with those burdens is what defines us. From the death of Lavender, the men begin to realize that the war is bigger than what they had previous believed. That realization is almost like the transition from childhood into adulthood. Children look at the good in everything, and are oblivious to the evils that society presents them. They soon enter a world full of crime and temptations. These men see and cause death and destruction wherever they go. It's something they'll carry for the rest of their lives. What will make or break them, is whether they can move past what they've seen and done, or live with the guilt and regret of what they couldn't control. This is a concept tested in everyone's lives.
ReplyDeleteOne of the big ideas in Tim O'Briens's "The Things They Carried" is brotherhood. Brotherhood is a commitment to the men around you that you will do everything together giving 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time. When the company loses a brother they use that as momentum to keep on going to show that their death was not in vein. Yes it is true that the soldiers around Tim are not relatives but they are willing to die to protect each other. These men respect each other so much that no amount of wrong doing can break the bond that they share out on the front lines of war. Not every thing about war is horrible, brotherhood is the light in the darkness and the only way to keep your sanity.
ReplyDeleteI believe the big idea that the author is trying to stress in “The Things They Carried” is the importance of stories. Not specifically the truth or untruthfulness of a story, but rather the holding onto of a story. Although this is novel is historical fiction, the author repeatedly states, “[I’m] Forty-three years old…” and then something regarding being a writer and writing stories. Being specific with the “forty-three” shows that time can elapse, but the stories are still meaningful. The author is stressing through the character Tim O’Brien that years later, stories are what keeps him going. He holds onto these stories to keep memories alive and thriving.
ReplyDeleteOne instance, the author wrote, “I’m forty-three years old, and a writer now, still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way… And yet right here, in a spell of memory and imagination, I can still see her…” and also, “I’m young and happy. I’ll never die.” These excerpts prove that the memories and stories he keeps close can free him and save his sanity.
Through reading "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, my perspective of the big idea within the novel changed. It's not just a story about all the physical things the soldiers had carried with them. While yes, the importance of staying in that sane mental state throughout the war was important to the soldiers, it's more than that. What they all carried was something intangible. They carried, thoughts, memories, guilt, pain, shame, and grief of those they lost. The soldiers carried their own personal emotional burdens. They always carried these things. Against their own will, they carried these things. Never could they let go or lose these things, they drug them throughout the land. Each day the load seemed heavier as the memories grew, or as the death count increased. You can't drop those types of memories, they are the things you will always carry with you. You carry the pain of remembrance. Tim writes about how his stories always revolve around the war, the things he had seen, and the people he met. He can't forget those things. He never will. The soldiers tell stories of the war, false stories, but the meaning behind them is true. It's their way of passing along what is that they carry inside them. The easiest way to lighten their own load, release some of the pain within their burdens. To help each other carry on. While the war may be over, its still living in their memories. They will carry the war with them for the rest of their lives, never being able to let go.
ReplyDeleteToday people view war much as they did in the 60’s, you have those who think we should prove our dominance and take out half the world, and the ones who think of the men on the front lines laying down their lives. The personal struggles are always going to be with us where ever we go, or however, old we get, and the politics will go on the same ways that the always have for decades to come whether it be right or wrong. Throughout this book I found that the characters are very relatable. They joke and do things each other hate but at the end of the day there in it together like brothers much like me and my team. I also related to some of the struggles some characters faced, like O’Brien overcome with anger wanting payback, or Bowker just wanting someone to talk to. At the end of this Novel I looked back at my own life, and all the things that shaped me to who I am today, in this novel O’Brien tells of the time he killed someone, and the many deaths of this friends Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Norman Bowker, and Kiowa and I thought to myself how did O’Brien stay himself with all the pain in this life. But then I remember him coming back to the same line over and over again in the novel “I’m forty-three years old...”(223)(232) and I realized he’s not the same person he was twenty-six years ago. He’s forty-three now, a writer with a daughter and stories to tell. Which I why I think the big idea in this novel doesn’t have so much to do with Vietnam as it does how you are changed throughout life.
ReplyDeleteThe Vietnam War shaped the way Americans look at war today. For the past 40 years, we have seen war as America getting involved in someone else's business and nothing more than a waste of money, resources, time, but most importantly, lives. We also see our veterans and know they have seen monstrosities that no human being should ever have to experience. These men and women will have to "carry" these living nightmares with them for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteThe part of the book that spoke with me was when O'Brien was scared of the draft. It makes me think about what would happen if I was in that situation. I would do everything in my power to not fight in a war that isn't worth fighting in the first place. Many of us say we would never kill in war, as many of these soldiers have probably said before, but when death is looking right at us, what will we do? If pulling the trigger is the only way to save ourselves from being blown to smithereens, those words we used to say with a certain pride will be dirt to us.
In "The Things They Carried" the part that connected with me the most was when O'Brien told the story of his nine year old girlfriend passing away and how he would go to sleep and dream of her. Throughout my life I have lost many people that I was very close to and I often would have dreams, soon after they were gone, that seemed real and these people would be in these dreams and it felt as if they had never gone. But soon enough I would wake up, realize it wasn't real, and they really were gone and there was nothing I could do to change that. This novel taught me me that although someone, like the soldiers in the novel, may act tough they are all fighting their own personal battles in their minds. Even though people may seem calm and collected they all have problems that they are dealing with on the inside.
ReplyDeleteThe main idea in "The Things They Carried" is how war is not portrayed the way that it is made out to be in the media and it shows how important brotherhood is to have. The way war is displayed in the book shows the true reality of it all and how horrific it really is. The factor of brotherhood applies to the importance of the soldiers who are by your side supporting every step of the way during the war. When a soldier is lost it truly does feel like the loss of brother, the loss of family. They all show a mutual respect and trust for each other. The way I connected to the story was how it reflected upon the burdens they carry. You are not defined by the burdens you carry, but how you manage to overcome those burdens.
ReplyDeleteAs I read "The Things They Carried", I realized that I really connected with the story of the Linda, the nine-year-old girl who passed away with a brain tumor. Little Timmy was in love with this girl and she ended up dead before she even had a chance to live her life. I too, have lost a friend way too early. It was in elementary school. I was in fourth grade and on the first day I made a new friend. She was funny and smart and had an awesome personality. She was one of those people with the ability to light up a room as soon as she entered it. One day however she got very sick and ended up passing away. I will never forget going to her showing and not recognizing the girl who was laying in the casket. She wasn't happy and smiling like I remembered her. I refused to believe that was her. Much like how Timmy didn't recognize his old friend.
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