Tim O'Brien
American
Published 1990
Politics | Social/Cultural
| Art | Life | Pictures
| Glossary | Questions | Group Questions | Secondary Sources
Transcript
to Two Days in October
Online
copy of the novel for note taking
Introduction
Here we begin a look at a different genre -- the novel. And The Things
They Carried is a great introduction to this genre because it will seem
very familiar after short stories. It's constructed from interconnected
stories that cumulatively pack the emotional punch and sustenance of a novel.
We'll be looking at the title rather closely: one of the "things"
we'll be working is to figure out just what this novel is "about"
-- and it isn't just "about" the war. This is a test: "How does this work" -- does it look okay?
The Times
Political
Given the contentious nature of American involvement in the war, it's
especially important to understand the political background surrounding the
war chapters.
In the 50s, the lines between good and evil were clear:
America=democracy=good -- Russia/China= communism=evil. The Cold War was
at the sub-zero mark, with kids practicing the desk protection system
(ducking under their desks for protection when they saw the flash of an
explosion), people building bomb shelters in their back yards, and by the
early 60s, enemy nukes on our shores (Cuba). This led to an undercurrent
of malaise disturbing the seemingly placid facade of the 50s: fear is a
powerful drug, often rendering things like reason and morality powerless --
and for all the country-clubs and drive-ins and days at the beach with Biff
and Barb, we were very fearful in the fifties.
When Vietnam seemed headed towards communism in the 50s, American
political and military leaders grew worried that all of Southeast Asia would
gradually succumb to the lure of communism (the Domino Theory). This
would mean that the subcontinent of Asia would be, in the "us v.
them" vernacular of the time, "lost." While the Geneva Accord
(1956) stipulated that free elections were to be held throughout Vietnam to
determine its fate, the leader of South Vietnam, Diem, blocked the elections,
with the support of the US (both Diem and the US knew that in free elections,
the Vietnamese people would vote for unification under a communist
rule). The North Vietnamese, tired of waiting for a political solution
to the country's division, opted for a military one.
Two years earlier, in 1954 (after the French lost their war [called the
Indochina War] in a decisive defeat in Dien Bien Phu), the CIA had begun
funding covert operations against North Vietnam (see Gulf of Tonkin above for
how we became more directly involved). Since the US had just defended
(and tentatively won) a war to defend an Asian country from the evil of
communism (South Korea), we were primed to act again to support
"national security interests." Of course, one nation's
"national security" is another's "war of independence,"
and we found out rather quickly that not everyone in Vietnam was ready to
welcome the smiling face of American democracy with open arms. Our
response to this equivocation by Vietnam was simple: as one US military
official said regarding a Vietnamese hamlet that had been reduced to charred,
smoking ruins by a napalm strike: "we had to destroy the village in
order to save it."
The narrator's induction and service in the army occur in 1968, a year
which marks a turning point in American politics. Four major events
occurred that year: the Tet Offensive; the assassination of Martin Luther
King; the assassination of Robert Kennedy; and the Democratic Convention in
Chicago. The Tet Offensive, attacks by the North Vietnamese throughout
South Vietnam (including the American Embassy in Saigon) during the Vietnamese
New Year (Tet) celebrations, weakened support for the war among citizens at
home. Our officials had been framing the war as a "wrap up"
operation with the enemy on the run. When film of the attacks, including
summary executions (see below) and US soldiers cowering behind walls within
the embassy in Saigon, was beamed into living rooms in full color, many
Americans finally began to see that there was a disjunct between what the
military said about the war, and what was actually occurring on the
ground. And this interpretation is not just idle peacenik
speculation: as the publication of the Pentagon Papers revealed in 1971
and as then Secretary of War Robert McNamara has more recently revealed in a
self-serving mea culpa memoir (In Retrospect, 1996), much of what the
government reported to the American people about the war were, to be blunt,
lies.
South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes
a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon at the height of Tet (1968). This photo and
the film of the execution considerably weakened American support for the war.
(AP Photo/Eddie Adams)
Click to enlarge
The assassination of Martin Luther King touched off rioting in most major
US cities, and (sadly -- why is it that someone has to be martyred to move
people?) probably ensured the success (such as it was/is) of the civil rights
movement. The rioting led to an increased police/military presence -- a
student of mine recalled going to work every morning in Northern Jersey with
armored personnel carriers rumbling in the streets -- which fed the general
feeling of unease started by the Tet Offensive.
Still, there was the hope of "doveish" political leaders, like
Bobby Kennedy, who had changed from a "hawkish" view of the war in
his brother's administration, to a more reconciliatory approach towards the
conflict. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan ended this faint ray of hope with a
handgun in a Los Angeles hotel. The photo on the right shows him being
comforted by a busboy.
The brutal police suppression of demonstrations outside the Democratic
Convention in Chicago -- broadcast to the nation at large -- showed a nation
at war with itself, and the violence unwittingly became associated with the
Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, insuring Nixon's election as president.
The cumulative effect of these events meant that O'Brien and, of course,
the nation faced a society in flux, a time when accepted political values and
beliefs were being challenged; we had moved from the paternalism of
Eisenhower to the "what you can do for your country" of Kennedy,
but had yet to agree on what to "do."
The aftermath of the war, which help shape the narrator's thoughts,
included a curtailment of the enlightened ideals of President's Johnson's
"Great Society" (circa 1964-68) -- freedom from poverty,
illiteracy, etc. -- which were compromised by the costs of the war effort.
Money that could/should have been used to counter social ills was spent
financing the war (final cost, 1 trillion dollars). And of course, the
political backlash against military actions and fear of causalities has
changed America's foreign and military policy. We're more wary of
incursions into other territories for fear of body bags (notice how quickly
we exited Somalia after "Black Hawk Down"), and rely now on
"Smart Bombs" and other ordnance instead of soldiers on the ground.
Unfortunately, one of the main "lessons" our government has learned
from the war is to control information and to spread misinformation (no more
reporters tagging along in helicopters to send compromising footage back home
to the folks in Peoria).
Social/Cultural
The events in the novel occur against a background of liberation: Women's
Rights, Civil Rights, youth rights . . . in other words, a time of change.
The various constituencies agitating for change were responding to the 50s
(cf. Modernist's response to the repression of the 19th century), a time of
drive-ins, stay-at-home moms, and a conservative government embodied by
Dwight Eisenhower. In the 50s, if you were different, you were a beatnik
and your opinions were marginalized. If you protested too strongly, you could
find yourself labeled a communist (remember, the temperature of the Cold War was around zero at this time), and find
yourself out of a job (McCarthyism). This
was a time when God, Guns and Guts ruled the land: the words "under
God" were inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance in the 50s, and Westerns
(white man with a revolver and courage saves the world) were all the
rage. But the war years of the novel takes place in the interim period,
when America was making the change from Leave it to Beaver to Laugh-In (which
was, if you aren't familiar with it, a politicized Saturday Night Live).
Yet while many agitated for change, there were some -- who Nixon
mistakenly labeled "the silent majority" -- who wanted things to
remain the same. Think of it as Levitt town v.
Haight Asbury -- hard hats v. egg heads (note that the segregationist George
Wallace was a candidate for president in 1968). And that last contrast
gets at an essential part of the debate of the war -- and of American culture
in general: anti-intellectualism. Consider the loci of the protests:
college campuses. For those in favor of the war, the problem with the
protesters was that they thought too much. Joseph E. Sintoni, a soldier who
later died in the war, wrote to his fiancée' "The press, the television
screen, the magazines are filled with the images of young men burning their
draft cards to demonstrate their courage. Their rejection is of the ancient
law that a male fights to protect his own people and his own land"
(252). He adds "We must do the job God set down for us. It's up to
every American to fight for the freedom we hold so dear. We must
instruct the young in the ways of these great United States"(252).
Joseph represents the Levitt town approach to war -- God, Guns and
Guts. The ideals of the Haight can be found in Mark Rudd's open letter
to his college president, Grayson Kirk, of Columbia University: "We do
have a vision of the way things could be: how the tremendous resources of our
economy could be used to eliminate want, how people in other countries could
be free from your domination, how a university could produce knowledge for
progress, not waste, consumption, and destruction . . . . how men could be
free to keep what they produce, to enjoy peaceful lives, to create"
(248). These two competing visions were at the root of American views of
the war and its causes -- and the catalyst for much of the internal strife.
Of course, I'm painting a rather rigid dichotomy. Many Americans
rejected Sintoni's jingoism just as they objected to Rudd's
idealism. And there were many who, I'm sure, really could care less as
long as the Dodgers still played and the Milwaukee's' Best still
flowed. Sad, isn't it, how some things never change.
For a "you are there" perspective, read Don Duncan's "The
Whole Thing Was a Lie!," a serviceman and participant's take on the
Vietnam war. This is an edited version: see me for the entire essay.
It's important to note that, contrary to the stereotype of Vietnam
veterans as seething caldrons of repressed anger ready to explode at a
moment's notice, most veterans readjusted to civilian life as well as
veterans of previous wars. Yet serving in Vietnam was a different experience
from previous war. For one thing, soldiers were not assigned for the
duration of the conflict: soldiers only had to serve 365 days of combat duty,
and then were rotated out of country (as opposed to "in-country").
This abbreviated service meant that soldiers did not have the opportunity to
form the lasting attachments to others in their units that would help provide
emotional support -- and a sense of continuity. Additionally, the alien
country and culture lead to a disorienting feeling, as did the nature of
guerilla warfare (where your enemy could be the smiling woman selling you
mangos). And of course, some soldiers faced a hostile reception upon
returning home. These all contributed to the post traumatic stress
syndrome suffered by some veterans. This wasn't a new disease -- it's
simply a label for an affliction that has affected soldiers for centuries
upon their return to civilian life.
The
Arts
Two broad movements form the aesthetic background to this novel: the
surrealism of the 60s, and the post-modernism of contemporary literature.
Surrealism adds a hallucinatory quality to a work of fiction, the prose
equivalent of the swirling washes of color and stream of consciousness
imagery of the psychedelic posters (and those mind-bending Grateful Dead and
Allman Brother's album covers) from the 60s and 70s. Yet the surrealism
on display in the novel isn't merely a period piece; it's our old friend the
unconscious, the Id, showing up again to topple the existing order. It's
a method of conveying the often tortured and tortuous mental landscape of a
mind in conflict with itself.
The Post-modern aspect of the novel appears in its self-referential
quality -- more particularly labeled metafiction, which means fiction about
the nature of fiction itself. While this has a long history (Tom Jones by
Henry Fielding is an 18th century example), the emphasis on form in Modern
literature led to an exposure of the same (i.e. illustrating the artifice of
fiction) in much of contemporary literature. Literary movements usually move
in reactionary cycles: authors grow frustrated with established conventions
and have to reinvent the art of literature to fit the new age. Thus, in
Things They Carry, you'll find a writer who ironically discusses the act of
writing itself: he both tells a great story -- and tells us he's telling a
great story. And watch for references to the "author" himself
-- and be aware that post-modern writers love to play around with the idea of
the narrator/author.
Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" is
relevant here and will be discussed in class
XVIII (765 in Textbook
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The
Life
Tim O'Brien grew up in small-town Minnesota (where he experienced first-hand
the clash of small-town morals with the outside world). He credits his
mother, a first grade teacher, with investing in him the importance of paying
attention to details when writing. Attending a state college in
Minnesota, he majored in Political Science and was elected the student body
president. Upon graduation, he was drafted in August of 1968, and served
seven months as a radio operator in Chu Lai. Wounded twice, he spent the
last five months of his Vietnam tour as a clerk, away from combat duty. After
his tour of duty, he attended graduate school at Harvard, and completed (but
did not defend) his dissertation, and began writing for the Washington Post
in 1972 (Kaplan 1-9). His first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, a
memoir of his service in Vietnam, established him as a writer of talent, and
his novel Going After Cacciato (which is also set in Vietnam), after winning
the National Book Award in 1979, vaulted him into the upper ranks of American
authors.
He has a very generous spirit as a writer, regularly appearing at
workshops (my office mate worked with him years ago and found him
refreshingly unpretentious and "down to earth") and giving copious
interviews on his craft. On his penchant for writing about Vietnam, he noted
"[my] concerns as a human being and . . . as an artist have at some
point intersected in Vietnam -- not just in the physical place, but in the
spiritual and moral terrain of Vietnam" (qt. in Kaplan 4-5). And as
this novel makes clear, this is a terrain well worth exploring.
"I'll Take You There"
Photos below ©AP click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
My Lai Massacre
* For a compelling overview of My Lai, see the page below (note -- it's
on a rather repellent site, but the material on the page I've linked is
quite good).
http://www.rotten.com/library/history/war-crimes/my-lai-massacre/
Another good My Lai site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
Long and detailed article on the massacre
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/index_1.html
For a contemporary version of My Lai, see the following
http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/prison/abu-ghraib/
|
click to enlarge
Visual of a soldier's life: lots of "humping."
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Effects of naplam. See article
on this famous picture
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Walking along a dike separating rice patties
(click to enlarge)
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Connections between Vietnam and Iraq? See Ron
Kovic's essay published on Truthdig. Note: it's a partisan view.
Vietnam
Glossary
In this novel you'll find several military acronyms, topical references,
etc., that may need a bit of explaining. Hence, a glossary.
Let's clarify three things, right off the bat.
Vietnam: Area/country in southeast Asia with an
independent language, culture, and government. Partitioned into North
and South Vietnam in 1954 in response to the western fear of communism, the
two countries were rejoined in 1976 after the fall of the South Vietnamese
government. During the war years, the country was bisected by the DMZ
(Demilitarized Zone).
North Vietnam: The communist controlled area of Vietnam
-- they wanted to unite the country under one rule. South Vietnam's and,
because of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), our enemy.
South Vietnam: The non-communist, nominally democratic
(but really autocratic) area of Vietnam. Our ally due to SEATO which
stated that any member which comes under attack will enjoin all members in
its defense. South Vietnam and America were members: North Vietnam was
not.
Interactive Vietnam map
click to view
|
Period Maps (circa. 1968) click to view
1968 (period map)
http://www.vietvet.org/visit/maps/1968map.htm
|
AK-47: Standard issue rifle used by North
Vietnamese. Cheap, reliable, deadly. Now a designer weapon for drug
dealers.
America: love it or leave it: phrase adopted by the great unthinking class as
a response to protests against the war. It stifles dissent by suggesting
that "you're either with merica', or you're with the
terrorists." Oops, wrong war -- but same idea.
ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Considered poor
fighters by US service men.
Bao Dai: The "playboy emperor." Last emperor
of Vietnam, courted and assisted by both communist and American regimes
because "the people" accepted him as a sovereign ruler. An
opportunist, and for that reason, a survivor.
Bouncing Betty: a type of land mine. After a soldier,
civilian, or water buffalo would step upon it, a little rocket/bomb would
shoot up that exploded at about waist height. Usually deployed by the
North Vietnamese.
Claymore: rectangular mine set off by remote control. It
would send a shower of lead in a triangular killing field. Usually
deployed by Americans. See picture below
Diem, Ngo Dinh: Autocratic ruler of South Vietnam from
1955-63. Corrupt, a Roman Catholic in a Buddhist country, he was propped
up by American officials because of his hard line stance against
communism. Assassinated by his own military in a 1963 coup.
domino theory: argument used by American political leaders
to support a war against communism. They believed that if one country
fell to communism, then others around it would fall as well (like a line of
dominoes). What they never seemed to address was why communism would
prove so attractive. I mean, it's not a virus or anything, it's merely a
political system.
Gook: US military slang for a Vietnamese person.
Gulf of Tonkin: located in North Vietnam (see map
above). Important because US military and intelligence reported that a
Navy destroyer, the USS Maddox, was attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats in
1964, which lead to a resolution to increase military presence and its role
in South Vietnam. It is now generally accepted that the attack did not
take place and some feel that the military and intelligence agencies
perpetuated a hoax to prompt deeper US involvement in the war.
Hawks and doves: shorthand to describe support for (hawks)
or opposition to (doves) the war. Prominent hawks from the era include
John F. Kennedy (though he was there before the term really was bandied
about), Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger.
The main dove mentioned in the novel is Senator and Democratic Presidential
Nominee Eugene McCarthy.
Ho Chi Minh: The political and spiritual (in an agnostic
sense) leader of North Vietnam. In the 1950s, after reading the
Declaration of Independence, he approached American officials in France
(where he was educated) and asked them for his help in overthrowing the
French colonial powers. We refused due to treaty alliances and because of
cheap rubber (Vietnam's primary export) and Minh then turned to Russia and
China for support.
R&R: Rest and relaxation. A vacation from the
battlefield typically involving a trip (or trips) to a brothel, drinking,
and, if such was your preference, drugs. Sleep and good food as well. In
other words, creature comforts for 19 year old males.
klicks: slang for kilometers
Eugene McCarthy: presidential candidate in 1968 elections
who was against the war. To support him meant you too were against the
war.
M-16: Standard issue rifle used by the US and South
Vietnamese. It was expensive, semi-reliable, and deadly. Because of
its toy-like look, it has not become a designer weapon for drug dealers.
Three for one: 1) M-16 rifle; 2) Flack Jacket; 3) "hootch"
or grass house, typical of Vietnamese civilian villages. Very flammable --
which helped make napalm (see below) such a useful (?) military tool.
from http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k188
mortar: tube like cannon, easily hidden, transported, and
operated. A favorite of the Viet Cong.
napalm: bombs filled with jelled gasoline which ignites on
contact with the air. Usually dropped from jets which resulted in a
streak of fire (momentum of bomb would spread flame).
tracer rounds: bullets treated with a chemical to make them
flammable on contact. If fired at night would leave a streak of light --
handy for aiming, though it also made a great target.
Sterno: metal cans of jelled petroleum. Pop the top,
instant stove.
Tran Hung Dao: Vietnamese general who repelled Mongol
invasions in the 13C. (roughly equivalent to George Washington in
America -- i.e. military founding father).
Tot Dong: field where the Vietnamese defeated the Chinese in
1426, leading to their independence (think Bunker Hill).
VC: short for Viet Cong, the communist guerilla fighters who
lived in South Vietnam.
Walked point: walking at the head of line of soldiers in a
patrol. Dangerous because you would be the first person to encounter a
landmine, sniper, or ambush.
Willie Peter: Short for White Phosphorous, a incendiary
explosive material.
Questions to Mull Over As You Read
"Things They Carried"
- Consider the following
sentences "It was't cruelty, just stage presence. They were
actors" (20). Why? Why characterize the soldiers as
"actors"? And what effect does this have on their actions --
and our understanding of them?
- Why the accumulation
of specific weight and specific detail in the lists of the things they
carry? What effect does it have on the reader? And how do they contrast
with the other paragraphs in the story?
- What is LTV. Cross
crying about (17)? What is this story really "about"?
- Why is this the first
story/chapter in the novel? How does it connect to the other stories?
"Spin"
- How does this story
function as a foreshadowing for the rest of the novel? Pick out
pages/details and explain.
"On the Rainy River"
- Why does the narrator
work in a pig slaughter house? Does it foreshadow his experiences in Vietnam
in some way? See, especially, page 42.
- Why is Tim so upset
with the people that support the war?
- What is
"courage" to the narrator? Given the story, do you agree or
disagree with him?
- What is Elroy
Berdhal's function in the story? Why not just have O'Brien standing on a
windswept prominence, debating whether he should go to Canada or not?
What does Berdhal represent?
General questions
- Consider the relevance
of the following quote to the entire story: "Absolute occurrence is
irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie, another thing may not
happen and be truer than the truth" (83). How does this relate to
1) the story/novel itself; 2) the nature of story telling in general?
- Which "True"
is he talking about in the title of the story/chapter ("How to Tell
a True War Story) -- the "happening-truth" or the
"story-truth" ("Good Form" 179)? How can you tell --
or not tell? Does O'Brien feel this distinction is important? Why or why
not?
- Trace the
transformation of Mary Anne "Sweetheart:" she changes from
____ to _____. What could she symbolize? Why/how?
- What
"Courage" is referred to in "Speaking of Courage"?
- How does the metaphor
of the "shit field" resonate throughout the story. Why not,
for example, a regular muddy field?
- How is imagination something
positive in the book? (consider, for example, "Lives of the
Dead," "Good Form"). How is it negative ("Thing They
Carried," "Ghost Soldiers" -- other stories?)? What's the
point?
- Why does Bowker taste
the water at the end of "Speaking of Courage" (173)?
- What can the narrator
O'Brien do that Bowker cannot? How can this ability save the narrator?
(Consider "Notes")
- How does the narrator
change? From what to what? (Take this in stages -- use particular
chapters to trace this change) What stories show this? Where in those
stories? Does your opinion of the narrator change?
- What's Linda doing in
the novel? How does she or her story connect with other themes? If she
and that chapter was not in the novel, how would it change? Another way
of looking at this is why does "Lives of the Dead" conclude
the novel?
- In an interview,
O'Brien stated "If there is a theme to the whole book it has to do
with the fact that stories can save our lives" (qtd. in Coffey
202). So, where's the theme? Point to at least three quotes that prove
this.
Group Questions
Group questions #1
- What is Elroy
Berdhal's function in the story? Why not just have O'Brien standing
on a windswept prominence, debating whether he should go to Canada or
not? What does Berdhal represent?
- Think about the
following story connections: "Things They Carried" --
"Love" / "Speaking of Courage" --
"Notes." What is O'Brien attempting to construct/show
with these stories pairs? It may help to connect these story pairs
to "Good Form." Why does O'Brien include this ("Good
Form" chapter? Why doesn't he place this chapter earlier?
- In an interview,
O'Brien writes that "If there is a theme to the whole book it has
to do with the fact that stories can save our lives" (qtd. in
Publishers 202). How does the novel show this? Trace out this theme
in the novel by showing that, indeed, the novel does argue that
"stories can save our lives."
- Though ostensibly a
war novel, the stories touch on many other issues as well. What,
for instance, does the novel suggest about ____, _____, love, courage,
how people cope?
Group questions #2
- Consider the relevance
of the following quote to the entire story: "Absolute occurrence is
irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie, another thing
may not happen and be truer than the truth" (83). How does
this relate to 1) the story itself; 2) the nature of story telling in
general?
- Much of the novel
deals with questions of truth: write an essay that first states
O'Brien's definition of truth ("For O'Brien truth is
_______.") and then explains how the novels illustrates this
definition.
- How does one of the
questions O'Brien raises in the novel -- the slipperiness of truth, the
ease with which people can be fooled, the apathy and willful ignorance
of much American society, etc. -- manifest itself in 21st century
America? Another way of answering this questions is to ask yourself
"How is this novel still relevant?"
- Using the definition
of metafiction which follows, explain how the novel can be interpreted
as a work of metafiction:
Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which
self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an
artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction
and reality. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction,
such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative
fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the
literary fictional text. (qtd. in Calloway)
- Using the description
of postmodernism below, explain how the novel can be interpreted as a
postmodern novel.
"Distinctive features of this school [postmodernism] include
switching between orders of reality and fantasy (see magic realism), resort
to metafiction, and the playful undermining of supposedly objective kinds of
knowledge such as biography and history."
"postmodernism." The Concise Oxford Companion to English
Literature. Eds. Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer. Oxford University
Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Web. 19 January 2012.
Works Cited
Kaplan, Steven. Understanding Tim O'Brien. Columbia, South
Carolina: U of South Carolina, 1995.
Rudd, Mark. "We, the Young People." Ordinary Americans: U.S.
History Through the Eyes of
Everyday People. Ed. Linda R. Monk. Alexandria, VA: Close Up
Publishing, 1994.
248-49.
Sintoni, Joseph. "Our Country, Right or Wrong." Ordinary
Americans: U.S. History Through the
Eyes of Everyday People. Ed. Linda R. Monk. Alexandria, VA:
Close Up Publishing,
1994. 252.
Secondary Sources
- The
Undying Certainty of the Narrator in Tim O'Brien's The Things They
Carried. Steven Kaplan. Critique 35.1 (Fall 1993): p43-52.
NOTE: if the link is not working on your computer, try lowering the
privacy/security settings on your browser. If that does not work, click
on the "Library Links" from the course menu on the left, go to
"Literature Resource Center" and get this article (hint:
search by subject "The Things They Carried" or author
"Kaplan, Steven.")
- Salvation,
Storytelling, and Pilgrimage in Tim O'Brien's The Things They
Carried. Alex Vernon. Mosaic 36.4 (Dec. 2003): p171-188. NOTE:
if the link is not working on your computer, try lowering the
privacy/security settings on your browser. If that does not work, click
on the "Library Links" from the course menu on the left, go to
"Literature Resource Center" and get this article (hint:
search by subject "The Things They Carried" or author
"Vernon, Alex.")
- Making Things Present: Tim O'Brien's
Autobiographical Metafiction. Silbergleid, Robin.
Contemporary Literature, Spring2009, Vol. 50 Issue 1, p129-155, 27p.
(Article) CLICK ON PDF TO READ THE ARTICLE. NOTE: if the link is not
working on your computer, try lowering the privacy/security settings on
your browser. If that does not work, click on the "Library
Links" from the course menu on the left, go to "Literature
Reference Center" and get this article (hint: search by subject
"The Things They Carried" or author "Silbergleid,
Robin.")
- `How to tell a true war story':
Metafiction in The Things They Carried. Calloway, Catherine.
Critique, Summer95, Vol. 36 Issue 4, p249, 9p. (Literary Criticism)
NOTE: if the link is not working on your computer, try lowering the
privacy/security settings on your browser. If that does not work, click
on the "Library Links" from the course menu on the left, go to
"Literature Reference Center" and get this article (hint:
search by subject "The Things They Carried" or author
"Calloway, Catherine.")
- Conversation
with Tim O'Brien. Tim O'Brien and Tobey C. Herzog. Writing Vietnam,
Writing Life: Caputo, Heinemann, O'Brien, Butler. Iowa City: University
of Iowa Press, 2008. p88-133. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena
O. Krstovic. Vol. 123. Detroit: Gale. Word Count: 21839. From Literature
Resource Center. NOTE: if the link is not working on your computer, try
lowering the privacy/security settings on your browser. If that does not
work, click on the "Library Links" from the course menu on the
left, go to "Literature Resource Center" and get this article
(hint: search by subject "The Things They Carried" or author
"Herzog, Tobey." You'll have to click on the
"Biography" tab at the top of the page.)
- A
Conversation with Tim O'Brien. Tim O'Brien and Patrick Hicks.
Indiana Review 27.2 (Winter 2005): p85-95. NOTE: if the link is not
working on your computer, try lowering the privacy/security settings on
your browser. If that does not work, click on the "Library
Links" from the course menu on the left, go to "Literature
Resource Center" and get this article (hint: search by subject
"The Things They Carried" or author "Hicks,
Patrick." You'll have to click on the "Biography" tab at
the top of the page.)
- An
interview. Tim O'Brien and Martin Naparsteck. Contemporary Literature
32.1 (Spring 1991): p1-11. NOTE: if the link is not working on your
computer, try lowering the privacy/security settings on your browser. If
that does not work, click on the "Library Links" from the
course menu on the left, go to "Literature Resource Center"
and get this article (hint: search by subject "The Things They
Carried" or author "Naparsteck, Martin." You'll have to
click on the "Biography" tab at the top of the page.)
On a different note . . .
Below find links to essays which more generally address many of the same
aspects of truth, fact, reality and perception as the novel.
- "The
Most Curious Thing" by Errol Morris -- on torture at Abu
Ghraib.
- Plato's Allegory
of the Cave
- David Broyles "Why Men Love
War"
- From Ramparts
magazine: "The
Whole Thing Was a Lie"
- From the New York
Times: "The
Hollow Man"
Radio Essays
© 2001 David Bordelon
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