The library - As I Lay Dying

I saw students studying in the library. Most were browsing the internet. Eyes glazed over, their expressions bleak, their faces overtaken by lifeless emotion. Their bodies, however, restless. Moving back and forth, fingers patter deftly across keyboards and phone screens, something that has become second nature to them. Still, their expressions are stagnant, motionless, and dry as they scroll and type and sit restively in their chairs. 

Piles of assignments cover the tables, stacked over the pale wooden surfaces. Books, unread, forgotten, line the bookshelves with the hope of being dusted off by an interested student. But nobody will come. The air is filled with intensity, the students' individualistic thoughts droned out by the unremitting flow of information. 

Cora - As I Lay Dying

In the section titled "Cora" starting on page 21 of As I Lay Dying, Cora Tull is grieving over the imminent death of her neighbor Addie Bundren. However, what she finds most disturbing is that the Bundren family is not accompanying Addie at the end of her life. "When I lay me down in the consciousness of my duty and reward I will be surrounded by loving faces, carrying the farewell kiss of each of my loved ones into my reward. Not like Addie Burden dying alone, hiding her pride and her broken heart" (23). In particular, Cora is appalled with Jewel. Although Jewel has always been Addie's favorite child, Jewel is out trying to "earn another three dollars" (24) rather than comforting his mother in her final hours. However, Cora is partial to Darl. Cora notes that Darl is different from the rest of the Bundrens and shows genuine compassion for his mother. Although Addie has always favored Jewel, Cora explains that "with Jewel she had just been pretending, but it was between her and Darl that the understanding and the true love was" (24). This is significant because it characterizes Jewel as a detached character, and Darl as a more compassionate and full character. It also shows Faulkner's use of changing narrative to explore different perspectives on the events taking place in Yoknapatawpha.

Time TTTC

"Twenty years. A lot like yesterday, a lot like never" (178).

In the chapter "Field Trip" in The Things They Carried, O'Brien returns to the site of Kiowa's death with his 10 year old daughter Kathleen. Each time he recollects his experiences in the "shit field" and in Vietnam, he is not "remembering" but rather feels that his memories provoke a "re-happening." However, the location that haunts his memories is unrecognizable twenty years later. The field that was once capable of swallowing his best friend, his ambition, his pride, and the person he used to be, was now just an ordinary field glistening in the sun with his daughter's laughter filling the air instead of the rancid smell. The significance of his return to the field demonstrates how, even to a veteran, the atrocities of war are often unfathomable.

The Significance of Tim O'Brien's Job in TTTC

There is extreme irony and significance behind O'Brien's job as a blood "Declotter" in an Armour meat-packing plant. Before his job in the meat-packing industry is mentioned, O'Brien claims that the sight of blood makes him nauseous. However, O'Brien explains his job in extreme, gruesome detail, referring to it as a "lukewarm blood-shower" (41). As a student mentioned during class, there has to be some sort of significance behind the specificity of his profession. Because of his job, O'Brien's identity as a Harvard scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and a summa cum laude is diminished to a nameless, faceless worker in a meat-packing factory. The work is monotonous the day's end often seems unforeseeable. Furthermore, no matter how hard he scrubs, the stench of the decapitated pigs and animal carcasses lingers with him. When he receives his draft notice for the war in Vietnam, he realizes that his life is "collapsing toward slaughter" (41). Similar to his job in his hometown of Minnesota, the days in Vietnam are monotonous, the war's end is unforeseeable, and no matter how hard he scrubs, the memories and trauma due to the war stay on his mind like the stench engrained in his skin from his job as a Declotter. In Vietnam, O'Brien's identity as a Harvard scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and a summa cum laude is diminished to a nameless, faceless soldier.

Glorification of War and Sacrifice - TTTC

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie" (O'Brien, 65).

Today in class, we debated fiction's duty to stay true to history. Most people agreed that although novels and film-adaptations may stretch the truth about an era or event in history, there is no "requirement" to stay true to the original story or facts. As one student said, many authors write for a living, and their career is based upon their ability to sell books -- therefore, they have every right to stretch the truth if it means their book will appeal to and entertain a large audience. However, by stretching the truth, the truth of the story may be lost completely, especially when it comes to telling war stories. The excerpt above from Tim O'Brien's collection The Things They Carried discusses the problem with stretching the truth when it comes to anecdotes from war. Often times, if the story gets distorted for the amusement of the reader or audience, the story is no longer true. If the ending to a story about war makes you feel "uplifted" (65), then some part of the story is simply untrue. Stretching the truth in war stories serves no purpose other than to appeal to an audience, and can actually result in the glorification of war. This brings us back to the question: does fiction have a duty to stay true to history?
While fiction and film can spread awareness about an event in history and even make the reader feel connected to said event, authors and directors need to be cautious about how they portray their message. In many American war movies, the leader of the company, platoon, squad, or crew is an attractive, masculine, all-American man -- a relatable character, or even someone whom a viewer may perceive as a role-model. The first example that comes to mind is the 2014 film American Sniper featuring Bradley Cooper as Navy S.E.A.L., Chris Kyle. (Disclaimer: I thought it was a great film, and I am not attempting to completely bash it) In American Sniper, although Chris Kyle's struggles with PTSD are shown without restrain with very graphic flashbacks and images of war, there is still an appeal to Bradley Cooper's portrayal of Chris Kyle. He is relatable, very attractive, kind-hearted, but also supposedly has the most "kills" of any soldier in U.S. history. This is an example of war-glorification. Because of his relatable nature, and the fact that we have all seen Bradley Cooper in other movies such as The Hangover and Silver Lining's Playbook, we don't only see Chris Kyle. Although I still enjoy American Sniper and believe that it brings the effects of PTSD in U.S. war veterans to light and think that it is an amazing tribute to the sacrifices of Chris Kyle, I believe that The Things They Carried does a much better job at limiting the "silver linings" when it comes to telling war stories. 

The Silver Star

In The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Norman Bowker character portrays the life of a war veteran from Vietnam and comments on his family's, especially his father's, expectations from him as a soldier: "If I could have one wish, anything, I'd wish for my dad to write me a letter and say it's okay if I don't win any medals" (O'Brien, 34). In the story "Speaking of Courage," Norman is back home from the war in Vietnam. Norman keeps mentioning how he almost won the Silver Star if it hadn't been for the smell. The situation is revealed that winning the Silver Star would've entailed saving Kiowa from being completely submerged in the sludge of the "shit field." However, it seems as if not winning the Silver Star was much more regrettable to Norman than not saving his friend: "Norman Bowker remembered how he had taken hold of Kiowa's boot and pulled hard, but how the smell was simply too much, and how he'd backed off and in that way had lost the Silver Star"(147). Although his father does commend him for winning seven other medals in the war, Norman has it engrained in his mind that it will never be good enough.
In the subsequent story/chapter "Notes" the author reveals that the story of Norman Bowker was true, and that the story "Speaking of Courage" was written at his request. As a veteran, Norman Bowker felt as if there was no destination in life, symbolized by him orbiting around the lake in his hometown in the car. There was an emptiness of life at home; people would never understand the hardships he had faced, nobody could imagine the horrible smell of the "shit field." It is revealed that in 1978, Norman Bowker hanged himself in the locker room at the YMCA in his hometown in Iowa. Norman Bowker's character emphasizes the hardships, regret, and mental scars of war on our veterans.

Weight of The Things They Carried

"They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried" (O'Brien, 7).

In the first chapter of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, there is a lot of repetition. For example, O'Brien repeats the phrase "they carried" throughout the whole chapter. Each item the soldiers in the novel carried had a purpose, and varied among individuals depending on missions, rank, specialty, necessity, and even superstition. Furthermore, the weight of each item has an extreme significance and is calculated to the exact ounce because any extra weight places a burden on the soldier carrying the sac. However, O'Brien doesn't only refer to the weight of physical things the soldiers carried in Vietnam, but also the weight of figurative things such as emotional baggage and responsibility for others in the platoon. When Ted Lavender was shot and killed, Lieutenant Cross carries the grief and guilt "like a stone in his stomach"(16) because he loved Martha more than his own men.
Because of the draft, many of the men in Vietnam were not there voluntarily, but rather, as O'Brien suggests, because they were afraid of being cowards. The soldiers endured grief, terror, hatred, pain and fatigue, pushing themselves to their physical, mental, and emotional limits. Men dreamed of being lifted away in the "big silver freedom bird" (22) and have the weights of the war taken off their shoulders, but knew that the weight of the war would never go away. Witnessing death and violence, and the anticipation of death and violence, has its "own mass and specific gravity" (20). The things they carried, such as grenades, guns, pistols, etc. had such immense power, and so much more weight than the just the physical weight on their backs.