The Things They Carried and The Ghost Soldiers - Research Paper Example

Tim O’ Brien: The Things They Carried and The Ghost Soldiers       I am the enemy you killed, my friend.       I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned       Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.       I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.       Let us sleep now . . .                                     (Owen, Strange Meeting)       Power mongering and infliction of reckless hate against fellow human beings have always tormented the sympathetic human souls. Since the ancient times, through the writings of the literary figures the picture of suffering of common people due to warfare has appeared in different dimensions to us. Yet, the process seems to be endless as the lust for power and desperate urge to prove respective political superiority over one another have finally proved to be a matter of great harm for the society and humanity. It was the wish of the common people, aftermath the Great War II period that there would not be any more loss of life and destruction, that the nations will realize harmonious existence can only ensure peace in the world but the new age capitalist as well as colonialism tortured and brutalized the spirit of humanity. One of the greatest examples of such acts is the Vietnam War. “The Vietnam War remains one of the most traumatic and painful events in all of American history. Throughout much of its duration, the bitterly contested conflict … ultimately result in the loss of fifty eight thousand American lives …” (Hillstrom, xi)       Apart from such huge loss of youth resources of the nation, U.S. soldiers, who were there in Vietnam also witnessed tragic plight, not only of their fellow human beings but the most horrible form of death that their fellow soldiers were also facing, created a huge impact over the general U.S. psyche. Different forms of art have elevated the theme of human misery and through the paths of art the importance of asserting universal brotherhood has also been reemphasized, “Some of the most compelling efforts to explore the Vietnam War’s impact on its participants and on the collective American psyche have been made by American writers, filmmakers, and musicians.” (Hillstrom, xi) Tim O. Brian has been a direct participant in the Vietnam War and at the same time he has also observed the plight of the common soldiers due to such arbitrary political aggression. It was a great pain and burden for his human psyche that common people, in the hands of the state, are only considered as the instruments of executing state functions. He chose his stories as the avenue for expressing his rage and criticizing the arbitrary actions of the statesmen.        Vietnam War marked one of the most significant losses of the United States of America in the battlefield after the Second World War. U.S. approached the war at the background of its enormous victory in Second World War. Due to the difference in parity between military strength of the two nations, it was quite like a battle between Goliath and David. In his widely acknowledged story “The Things They Carried “, Tim O’ Brien begins by describing the background of this war and the condition of the U.S. soldiers at the battlefield. The weight of the luggage they carried has described their physical burden but more significantly the psychological burden of each soldier during Vietnam War. The seventeen soldiers, described in this story, have become the representative of all the American soldiers in the battlefield of Vietnam, though they may not be belonging to the same place and time. Apart from the common appliances that soldiers were carrying, the poncho or a polythene rapper has occupied a symbolic place in the story of O’Brien. Though soldiers at the Vietnam War have used it as a bed sheet or protection against rain, but finally it serves the purpose of coffin at the time of a soldier’s last voyage, “because the night was cold and because the monsoons were wet each carried a green plastic poncho that could be used as a rain coat or a ground sheet or a make shift tent. With his quilted liner the poncho weighed almost two pounds, but it was worth every ounce. In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to rap him up, them to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away.” (O’Brien; quoted in Anisfield, 81) Ted has always been the person, who feared death the most among the other people of the group but he was the one who was shot first. Such incident was a great shock for the lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who enjoyed being lost in the thoughts and loving letters of his girl friend. Finally, Jimmy learns to accept the reality and starts acting as a lieutenant, who is assigned to take care for his group and even if required, ready to die for them too.        The story gives a vivid description of the weight of each physical element that has been carried by each soldier. This description flowing all over the story has been strategically given in order to draw the picture of the overburdened life that the American life that the American soldiers were subject to in Vietnam. The author has adopted such method not only to fuse the elements of humor in the story that in reverse effect makes the contrast of life and death more conspicuous but at the same time, he also exhibits the helplessness of an American soldier in the hands of the plight that awaits him. Jimmy Cross, being a lieutenant, though bears lighter physical burden compared to the others but at the same time he is actually assigned with the greatest responsibility of taking care of the soldiers under his command. However, in the real context we see that he proves to be quite incompetent in performing his role, as most of the time either he is lost in the love letters of his beloved or he is concerned about her level of commitment. The character depiction of Ted Lavender evokes the element of pathos in the story. Ted Lavender carried “more than twenty pounds of ammunition plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers” (O’Brien, 6) Portraying the character this way, O’Brien not only gives a clear picture of the heavy burden that has been carried but rather the enormous fear the person is carrying with himself also gets portrayed. This may be called in the words of O’Brien, “the unweighed fear” (O’Brien, 6). Death seems to be a relief to his already dead soul, which had died long before out of fear and ground many times with “the six or seven ounce of premium dope” (O’Brien, 4) he carried all the times. Lavender’s fear actually reflects the psychological condition of almost all the American soldiers involved in the different battlefields in Vietnam. Not only that, infectious in nature, this fear was transmitted amongst all the members of his troop. This fear took a toll on the soldiers and forced them to involve in a lunatic affair with life.         The same theme of Vietnam War has been reflected in a different and more complicated manner through ‘The Ghost Soldiers’: “The Ghost Soldiers is a problematic narrative with a dual plot employing contrasting themes.” (Nagel, 148) This story mentions, at the physical level, autobiographical element of how the author was wounded twice during the Vietnam War. The first time he was properly treated by Rat Kiley, who helped him to receive a fast cure but on the second time he was kept under the supervision of Bobby Jorgenson, who deliberately delayed the process of providing proper attention to him, finally resulted in severe inflectional diseases. Seeing such reluctant approach on part of Bobby, he developed a sort of revengeful approach against the fellow soldier. To satisfy his mode he planned with the help of Azar, another fellow soldier to frighten Bobby. They came up with the plot to frighten him as if the dead Vietnamese soldiers were on the quest of attacking Bobby. “The events are darkly comic in tone … since Jorgenson is never fooled into thinking that enemy ghosts are attacking him.” (Nagel, 148) This story is an excellent depiction of a person’s psychological journey while he is engaged in the process of warfare. The protagonist explores that he is not only becoming psychologically more focused over capacity of executing evil deeds but in the broader way he is actually developing an hostile approach to the fellow soldiers, “I’d turned mean inside. Even a little cruel at times …. I now feel a deep coldness inside me, something hand and beyond reason. It’s a hard thing to admit, even to myself, but I was capable of evil” (O’Brien; quoted in Nagel, 148) The brutal act of warfare has cast such tremendous effect over his psyche that he not only hurts himself but at the same time he wants to inflict the same hurt over others. The coldness and the capacity of performing evil symbolizes the death of humanism as well as emergence of the social evil at the psychical level o the human beings. The decision of the protagonist to join the Vietnam War was actually resulted from the fact that like most of the other American youths he also looked at warfare, initially, from the viewpoint of patriotic glorification as well as through the colored glasses of heroism but gradually he learns to explore the meanness that he gradually has developed in him, “I'd come to this war a quiet, thoughtful sort of person, a college grad, ... all the credentials, but after seven months in the bush I realized that those high, civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under the weight of the simple daily realities. I'd turned mean inside.” (O’Brien; quoted in Nagel, 148)         Though both these stories have dealt with the problems of the young generation engaged in the brutal act of warfare, but at the same time, the common theme has been explored thorough two different techniques. In “The Things They Carried”, the author has focused much over the interaction between the soldiers and through such interactions he has masterfully explored the theme of universality, plight of the common psyche during the time of war and journey of an individual from the level of his emotional attachment to dutifulness. In the other story “The Ghost Soldiers”, the author has explored the quest of a person in his self understanding and exploration of darker side in him. The author comments in the story about the process, “It’s like you are in a movie. There’s a camera on you, so you begin acting, you’re somebody else.” (O’Brien, 204; quoted in Smith, 111) However, trough both the stories, the author has explored the theme of warfare and its impact over the psyche of the soldiers and at the same time he has also explored the aspects of how such arbitrary bloodshed can destroy not only lives but the tender faculties of the human mind as well.          Works Cited 1. Anisfield, Nancy, Vietnam anthology: American war literature, Popular Press, 1987 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=GTrx_iwTuI0C&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=Vietnam+anthology:+American+war+literature&source=bl&ots=rUB2LDn5o0&sig=OlgsIoJdxoDHso8JR2XfmXG94Lc&hl=en&ei=d08nSsTJHZL6kAWa0tToDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA81,M1 2. Hillstrom, Laurie Collier, The Vietnam experience: a concise encyclopedia of American literature, songs, and films, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fuJEHNjvRSQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Vietnam+experience:+a+concise+encyclopedia+of+American+literature,+songs,+and+films#PPR11,M1 3. Nagel, James, The Contemporary American Short-Story Cycle: The Ethnic Resonance of Genre, LSU Press, 2004 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=OvqqMp1L3HwC&dq=The+Contemporary+American+Short-Story+Cycle:+The+Ethnic+Resonance+of+Genre&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=Y1EnSr7XBYXc7AOn_vicBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPA148,M1 4. O’Brien, Tim. Things They Carried, Houghton Mifflin, 1990 5. Owen, Wilfred, ‘Strange Meeting’, available at: http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_strange_meeting.htm, (accessed on: 3rd June, 2009) 6. Smith, Patrick A., Tim O'Brien: a critical companion, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, http://books.google.co.in/books?id=EU68efRfTvsC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Tim+O'Brien:+a+critical+companion&source=bl&ots=-dBqlVQHKF&sig=rP4uYSIGAiJ3h8g3_6JeTKQNcqc&hl=en&ei=ZVQnSsn4G86JkQXox9nVBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#PPA111,M1 Read More