Where Do They Go from Here?

“The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six people were missing.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 228

This sentence sums up the general mood of the denouement. Cohn has left Spain, his spirit shattered. Brett has also left the city with Pedro Romero, though considering her past, it is anyone’s guess as to how long the relationship will actually last. Now only the three comrades remain: Mike, saddened and lonely now that his fiancée has left him; Bill, always happy and cheerful, now sobered slightly by the events of the past few days; and Jake, the man who has stood by and helped allow these events to happen.

The fiesta’s closing reflects the end of the conflict concerning Cohn and Brett. Just as the people of the city must now try and revert back to the way things were before the fiesta, so must these three try and return to the lives that they lived before the fiesta. This sentence is rather melancholy and bitter in nature, yet it accurately reflects the problem that these three men will now have to face. How will they move on after such an explosive fallout? Unfortunately, considering only twenty-three pages remain, I am not sure the reader will find out.

Death (Apostrophe)

“Right then I started to cry. After a moment Linda stopped and carried her water bucket over to the curb and asked why I was so sad. ‘Well, God,’ I said, ‘you’re dead.’

“Linda smiled. It was a secret smile, as if she knew things nobody could ever know, and she reached out and touched my wrist and said, ‘Timmy, stop crying. It doesn’t matter.’ ”

-The Things They Carried, p 225

In case we have not noticed, The Things They Carried, being a novel about war, is fraught with death. It seems that one cannot read more than twenty pages without another soldier and comrade being shot or blowing up or drowning in mud. It is this horrific pattern of death which gives O’Brien’s apostrophe in this passage so much power. In his imagined conversation with Linda, O’Brien does not talk to just her. He cries over all of his fallen comrades—Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Kiowa, Norman Bowker, Monty Phillips—as well as Linda.

It is in this moment that the plot comes to its climax. After describing so many deaths, O’Brien finally is overcome with misery and grief. Yet in that moment, his perception is altered. He learns that in the end, “it doesn’t matter.” Yes, death happens. It happens for everyone, and that is why in the end, weeping over those in the past does nothing. The only thing to do is just to live life as best we can without those who have gone before us.

Actions Speak Louder

“Leaning forward, I reached in with the moccasins and wedged them into the soft bottom, letting them slide away. I tried to think of something decent to say, something meaningful and right, but nothing came to me…I wanted to tell Kiowa that he’d been a great friend, the very best, but all I could do was slap hands with the water.”

-The Things They Carried, p 178

It is truly amazing how oddly emotions work. We can feel the deepest, rawest emotions within us—so pure we feel we could explode from the true emotion—but then when it comes time to express those emotions, we can barely say a word. Despite such strong feelings, we simply cannot seem to express our emotions verbally. There are nearly one million words in the English language; yet for some reason, there are no words to describe how we really feel. We may try to express emotions such as love and friendship and honor. We may use fancy adjectives or adverbs to modify impeccably chosen action verbs. Yet in truth, emotions simply cannot be rationalized. Feelings cannot be fettered down by words and descriptions. They can be hinted at, but the true best way to express our deepest emotions is simply to act upon them. Sometimes, words must be abandoned, and actions must take flight.

Getting By

“ ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Those dumb jokes—I didn’t mean anything.’
“ ‘We all say things.’
“ ‘Yeah, but when I saw the guy, it made me feel—I don’t know—like he was listening.’
“ ‘He wasn’t.’
“ ‘I guess not. But I felt sort of guilty almost, like if I’d kept my mouth shut none of it would’ve ever happened. Like it was my fault.’
“Norman Bowker looked out across the wet field. ‘Nobody’s fault,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s.’ ”

-The Things They Carried, p 168

It is interesting to observe the different coping mechanisms that each member of Alpha Company utilizes when faced with harsh realities of war. Some, such as Lt. Cross, feel immense guilt and resolve to become tougher to the cruelties of battle. Some, such as Rat Kiley, release their emotions violently and cathartically. Some, such as Henry Dobbins and Norman Bowker, keep their emotions within—in the case of Bowker, too much within.

Still others, such as Azar, employ perhaps the strangest coping mechanism: they turn traumatic experiences into humor. Instead of displaying grief and bitterness, Azar simply laughs and jokes death off. While most of the company view Azar as cold and unemotional because of this, in truth Azar could be viewed as the most affected by these events. He is so affected that is unable to bear it and is driven to create distractions through humor. Yet even Azar reaches a point where his humor is unable to distract him from the terror of war. In the end, few can escape the trauma of war.

A Load to Bear

“This is why I keep writing war stories: He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him—afraid of something—and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him.”

-The Things They Carried, p 125

Well, this passage certainly produces ethos to the max, eh? In these two chapters (12-13), O’Brien unloads a tremendous emotional burden. There a couple ways by which he confesses to the reader his actions in an almost cathartic manner. In the first chapter, he repeats gruesome details about the corpse nearly to the point of exhaustion. His repetition indicates that he clearly is still affected by the memory to this day.

In between these details, though, O’Brien does something that is remarkably haunting. He vividly describes the young man’s appearance and goes on to meticulously describe an imagined life for this man. Truthfully, O’Brien describes this man more vividly and personally than he does any of his comrades. By giving this corpse a life full of emotions, of love and fear and duty, he humanizes this young man more than the Americans. By the time O’Brien actually describes the man’s death in the second chapter, the reader almost sympathizes more with the man than with Alpha Company. O’Brien unloads his guilt and shame on the ready, and, by doing so, shares it with us all.

A Twisted Garden (Allusion)

“Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin’s real fresh and original.”

-The Things They Carried, p 76

The Biblical story of the Garden of Eden is known throughout the world and by people of all religions. What people seldom realize, though, is that the tale is not about creation; it is about sin. True, the story gives an ancient explanation for the creation of the universe. Yet the chief purpose of the Garden of Eden myth is to rationalize why sin and calamity exist in the world. Sin exists because man creates it.

After the inhumane torture and slaughter of the water buffalo, it is difficult for O’Brein and the company to reflect on anything but sin. The death of his friend pushes Rat Kiley past the brink of madness into a haze of brutality, hatred, and murder. The treatment of the water buffalo can only be described as sinful; cathartic, yes—but still brutal. When Mitchell Sanders alludes to the Garden of Eden and evokes a twisted image of that mythical locale, he does so not conjure a picture of paradise, but of hell.

Peace amid War (Juxtaposition)

“I remember Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers every evening before dark. There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring…You knew where you stood. You knew the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules.”

-The Things They Carried, p 31

This passage struck me for its contrast with the passages around it. Before and after this anecdote, O’Brien recounts terrible instances of the war and its consequences. He writes of Mitchell Sanders mailing lice to his draft board in cold retaliation. He describes Ted Lavender’s desperate addiction to tranquilizers as a coping mechanism. He writes of witnessing the horrific deaths of his friends and comrades. Yet in the middle of this, he includes an account of two friends peacefully playing checkers each night. He juxtaposes these disparate ideas even further by pointing out the differences between a game and the war. In doing so, O’Brien emphasizes even morsel the brutality of the Vietnam War, where you didn’t know “where you stood,” there was no “winner and a loser,” and there were no “rules.”