Cultural Context of The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien - Essay Example

Cultural Context of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien Tim O’Brien’s short story d The Things They Carried is a meditation on the experience of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Despite the fact that the overall tone of the piece under consideration is flat, sometimes emotionless and matter-of-fact and that the narrator seems to be detached from what he describes in the short story, The Things They Carried has a profound impact on the reader due to the reality it describes. The short story as an inventory of things soldiers carried during the march through Vietnam is the reflection of the worries, difficulties and traumas they experienced and endured being at war. Alongside with the composition of the piece, it is the historical and cultural background that helps understand those both physical and psychological difficulties and severities experienced by soldiers during the American military campaign in Vietnam. The Things They Carried is the first piece in Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories of the same name. In a nutshell, this short story presents the list of things that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’ unit comprised of seventeen soldiers carries while working the way up through the Vietnamese countryside. At first, it seems that the short story can be regarded as the inventory of necessary things soldiers should have with themselves on the march. However, with the unravelling of the narration, it appears that the things soldiers carry with themselves have deeper and more profound meaning. In fact, these things are the reflection of both the physical and psychological stress and trauma the men experience during the war. In the short story, O’Brien uses pun throughout the entire piece: “They carried Sterno, safety pins, safety pins, trip flares, spools of wire, signal flares […]. They carried infections. […] They carried the land itself. […] They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, […] they carried gravity. […] They carried their own lives”; “They all carried ghosts”; “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (236). O’Brien uses this stylistic device with the aim not to embellish the language but to escalate the intensity of emotional charge of the piece and present the full picture of the situation the young men found themselves in. By means of listing the things the men carried, the author of the piece addresses the difficulties, both physical and emotional, the soldiers faced during the war in Vietnam. The historical background on the participation of Americans in the Vietnam War, the reasons for such participation, the number of casualties, and consequences of such experience explain the emotional tension of the entire short story. Referred to by Americans as the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call this period “The American War”), the US military intervention to Vietnam took place from 1965 to 1973, which appeared to be the longest war in the history of the United States. Before the conflict, Vietnam was split into two parts: the pro-communist north and pro-American south, which were divided by a demilitarized zone. Initially, the elections were planned to hold with the aim to find solution to the problem but they never took place. This was one of the factors that forced the communists on the north to start a guerilla war and seize the southern part of Vietnam. With the aim to keep communism from spreading south and prevent the ‘domino effect’, the American government made a decision to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight with communists in Vietnam. Overall, the war was a failure for the United States for the enemy was difficult to identify and America lacked public support. Billions and billions of dollars were spent on the military campaign by the USA and, more importantly, a great number of people were killed almost for nothing. In particular, during the American intervention, about 250,000 of South Vietnamese soldiers and about 60,000 American soldiers were estimated to be killed or lost in action (BBC News). Those American soldiers who were lucky to return home also suffered a lot. Many of them found it very difficult to adjust to the life they used to lead before the Vietnam War. It was problematic for them to talk about their experiences at war, especially with nonveterans; they felt guilty because they returned home while others died. In other words, life after the war was a turmoil for them. In addition to this, many of the veterans, about thirty percent, experienced posttraumatic stress disorder which included such symptoms as depression, insomnia, flashbacks, feelings of estrangement etc. (Westheider 163-165). Finally, finding employment was another problematic task for them because they lacked basic civilian skills after the war (Westheider 165-166). That is to say, the Vietnam War veterans were detached from the society they returned to after the military campaign and experienced great troubles in fitting into it. Even though many of them returned without any wounds, they were emotionally damaged, and that had not less important influence on their further lives in the society. Despite the matter-of-fact tone, emotionally charged episodes are scattered throughout The Things They Carried. One of the most significant of them is the description Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’ grief over the death of one of the soldiers, Ted Lavender: “He used his entrenching tool like an axe, slashing, feeling both love and hate, and then later, when it was full dark, he sat at the bottom of his foxhole and wept” (O’Brien 237). From this relatively short description, it is seen that the character experiences shock after another soldier’s death. In this regard, historical and cultural context shows even wider picture of the problems, mostly emotional, soldiers experienced during the Vietnam War. The explanation of the reasons why the USA entered the conflict, number of casualties, and consequences for soldiers informs the short story. In particular, it reveals the dead weight of the ‘things’, such as the emotional baggage, soldiers carried for nothing and psychological repercussions of carrying these ‘things’. Works Cited BBC News. "The Vietnam War. Introduction." BBC News. n.d. n. page. Web. . OBrien, T. "The Things They Carried." Trans. Array Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. . 7thCengage Learning, 2012. 232-239. Print. Westheider, J. E. The Vietnam War. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press, 2007. Print. Read More