Behind the Scenes of War

Behind the Scenes of

War

By: Faith Bischoff

English 3-5/6

Mr.Neiss

February 27th 2013

"This is how war starts--one day you're living your ordinary life. You're planning to go to a party, you're taking your children to school, you're making a dentist appointment," says di Giovanni in today's talk, given at TEDxWomen. "The next thing, the telephones go out. The TVs go out. There are armed men on the streets. Your life as you know it goes into suspended animation." This is what is going through Tim O'Brien's head has he receives the news that he has been drafted into the Vietnam War. In Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, O'Brien takes the reader beyond the bloodshed, gore and action emphasizing how each soldier physically and emotionally grows and collapses throughout war. O'Brien juxtaposes the figurative and physical burdens of the men to emphasize real struggles the soldiers face. O'Brien uses each of the men's literal burdens to undermine the figurative burden to create a stronger sense of what generally these men truly carry, and how their burdens affect them throughout life. By analyzing the characters, their coping mechanisms and how they deal with their specific burdens throughout life, O'Brien and the critics create a sense of reality of the horrors of war.

In Tim O'Brien's short story The Things They Carried the characters themselves probably could not tell you why they carried many of the things they did. Though each character is very different from the next, each of their individual stories is interrelated, by what and why they carry certain burdens. Jimmy Cross, a hopeless romantic carries a picture of Martha whom he obsesses over in the beginning of the novel. This picture is used as a safety net, an escape from reality. Ironically carrying this picture ends up making reality much for difficult for Cross. "He had loved Martha mire than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to Carry like stone in his stomach (O'Brien 42)"By carrying Martha's picture around with him, it became a huge distraction, taking him away from not only his duty, but his proper state of mind. Cross realizes his mistakes and feels the need to discard everything that leads him to thinking of her, "After Lt. Cross blames himself for lavender's death and burns the letters photographs from Martha, he realizes "You couldn't burn the blame" [...] he experiences this choice between Martha and his duty as a loss. (Piedmont)" Cross escaped into is fantasy to flee from his mistakes, ironically escaping them made the reality much worse. While each soldier conveys a different burden, they also obtain different coping mechanisms. While Cross carries a picture, Ted lavender carries tranquilizers, this tangible item helped Lavender move through war because it protected him from the embarrassment of not fighting, dying. Lavender, like many others carried the burden of fear:

Lavender Carried the "more than twenty pounds of ammunition" [...] O'Brien adds one more item even heavier than all that precedes it because it lacks a specific weight and therefore is infinitely heavy-"the unweighed fear"[...] Ted Lavender's heaviest burden, his crippling fear[...] but his means of coping with that fear, his tranquilizers and "six or seven ounces of premium dope" (Piedmont).

Ted Lavender and Cross carry certain items to undermine their heavy burdens. Lavender carries the dope to simply help him escape the realities of war. Ironically carrying the dope made his fear more visible. Fear is a burden they all carry. Ted Lavender just made it more apparent. When the weight of their burdens both concrete and physic become

over powering, Cross and the other men take off into a world of imagination. Since truly escaping is impossible the only alternative is imagining. "Jimmy Cross concludes that his imagined world put the lives of his men at risk 'Imagination was a killer' [...] and here the imagined world and the world of battle are starkly different" (Korb).

Korb's analysis on Cross's condition emphasizes the point of using imagination as an escape route. Going off into this safe haven of imagination was a guilty pleasure for the soldiers. It was dangerous and irresponsible, however it was the only way out from the problems they faced daily, the only way to survive and stay sane. When Korb states that the "imagined world and the world of battle are starkly different" he is describing the true horrors of war. The world of imagination could be anything pleasing to a soldier, anything is better than war itself, "Only in these fantasies can they free themselves of their many burdens; Instead of carrying the weight of the war, they are now carried by a creature that is larger, more powerful and more mystical than themselves." (Korb) . However, drifting off into a fantasy can not only negatively affect the solider himself, but also his team, as noted in Cross's case. In the end, Cross and Lavender yearn for innocence, they long for the life they lived before the chaos, mistakes and the weight they now have to put up with, " 'at night, not quite dreaming, they gave themselves over to lightness, they were carried, they were purely borne' of course O'Brien also means to suggest that the men dream of being "born" as well, of being delivered and returned to innocence" (Piedmont). Innocence is the mocking voice inside of them, reminding them of what used to be and what can never be again. The biggest weight these men have to carry is the weight of loss of innocence. These men carry many heavy imperceptible burdens, any way out provides hope for them, even if it results in the most detrimental of burdens.

O'Brien makes it palpable that these men suffer from more than battle wounds; they suffer from the heavy weight of the burdens they'll carry for ages by accentuating what they truly carry, tangibly and figuratively. As Cross and the other men go throughout life, they are constantly reminded of what they caused and what they could have done to prevent the past from happening. "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 faceless responsibility and faceless grief. (O'Brien 54)"

O'Brien, the main character also struggles with the task of letting go. He makes it apparent that when