Shadows of the Night

“Squinting down at Jorgenson’s position, I felt a swell of immense power…It was cruel, I knew that, but right and wrong were somewhere else. I heard myself chuckle. And then presently I came unattached from the natural world. I felt the hinges go…I was the beast on their lips—I was Nam—the horror, the war.”

-The Things They Carried, p 198-199

This passage honestly sounds as though it could have come straight out of Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Up until now, O’Brien has recounted instances where other men had cracked under the reality of war; now he, too, succumbs to the madness. It seems that the night brings out our darkest selves, no? We may live our lives innocently and righteously during the day, but at night, a separate personality often emerges. It is no coincidence that the majority of crimes take place during the night, and the reason is not simply because fewer people are out. In the shadows of the night, we seem to be freer to indulge in our animalistic instincts, especially those of questionable morality.

In O’Brien’s case, the night unleashes all of the revenge and hatred that had brewed within him. In the blackness of the night, he becomes an embodiment of his revenge and lust for violence. Yet as he learns, revenge and violence does not make us feel better. It simply reveals how twisted and savage we truly are.

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.

No Hope

“Eight months later he hanged himself. In August of 1978 his mother sent me a brief note explaining what had happened…He used a jump rope; his friends found him hanging from a water pipe. There was no suicide note, no message of any kind. ‘Norman was a quiet boy,’ his mother wrote, ‘and I don’t suppose he wanted to bother anybody.’ ”

-The Things They Carried, p 154

It is a terrible tragedy that those who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are only now receiving substantial attention and diagnosis. For hundreds, even thousands, of years, soldiers would return home from war and be expected to move on from the bloodletting with grace and ease. If men were affected by the war, they were simply labeled cowards and were shunned, punished, and often even killed for their cowardice. Human emotion and normal response to senseless bloodshed, it seemed, were crimes punishable by death.

Even in recent times, the prevalent expectation of soldiers when they return home is to keep discussion of the war at a minimum and simply return to normal life as if they had never experienced the brutality of war. It has only been recently that soldiers are being examined for symptoms of PTSD, and even those who are medically diagnosed with the disorder often are forced to engage in legal battle with the military and government in order to receive pension for disabilities. Yet if PTSD is terrible enough to cause depression, violence, and even suicide, then why is the military not in the forefront of those researching and treating this disorder? If people really want soldiers to return home comfortably, the government must either further research PTSD or cease to send soldiers into such traumatic circumstances.

A Cycle of Despair (Motif)

“On his tenth turn around the lake he passed the hiking boys for the last time. The man in the stalled motorboat was gone; the mud hens were gone…The band shell was deserted…On his eleventh revolution he switched off the air-conditioning, opened up his window, and rested his elbow comfortably on the sill, driving with one hand. There was nothing to say.”

-The Things They Carried, p 146-147

In this chapter, O’Brien utilizes the image of Norman Bowker’s driving repeatedly around the lake as a motif throughout the tale. As O’Brien gradually reveals Bowker’s memory of Kiowa’s death, he weaves in the idea of Bowker driving along the town lake over and over again, disconnectedly observing the lives of the townspeople. After the war ends, Bowker returns home from Vietnam; yet in reality, Bowker has lost his home. The years have gone by, and the town has moved on without him. The war has affected him so that he is unable to share his experiences and emotions with others. Isolated in a town that does not understand his plight and simply does not care, Bowker is stuck in a rut, going in circles with no end in sight.

This circular motion is captured in the motif of Bowker driving around the lake. Even when he attempts to escape the circle by stopping at the town’s A&W, he is socially despondent and is unable and unwilling to open up to others. He returns to his circle around the lake, back into his cycle of withheld emotions and tortured reclusion. Just as the lake is constantly before Bowker, so are his memories constantly gnawing at Bowker, leaving him entrapped in a cycle of guilt and shame.

Whether Pink or Blue, They All Bleed Red

“At times, in fact, she seemed fascinated by it. Not the gore so much, but the adrenaline buzz that went with the job…In times of action her face took on a sudden new composure, almost serene…A different person, it seemed, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

-The Things They Carried, p 93-94

Isn’t it nice to know that war traumatizes and alters women, too? This passage accurately reflects the societal views which still hindered women in the sixties and seventies. Yet it points out that war does not discriminate. It does not lessen the brutality which women experience. Nor do women respond to war differently than men do. The true difference is the expected reaction to war. Mary Anne, however, is proof that this expectation is grossly inaccurate. Women are brutalized and transformed by war in the same way as men. If countries want to protect women from the savagery of war, they should not discriminate and bar women from fighting in the front lines. They should simply cease war altogether.

Music of the Night

“Follow me? The rock—it’s talking. And the fog, too, and the grass and the goddamn mongooses. Everything talks. The trees talk politics, the monkeys talk religion. The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam—it truly talks.”

-The Things They Carried, p 71

Well, this is a rather interesting passage, no? To be honest, I don’t really know what to make of it. Whether or not the tale is true, though, is rather irrelevant. Thye purpose of the tale is not to make the reader believe that Vietnam is haunted or anything similar to that. In fact, it is not really even to illustrate the effects of Vietnam on the soldiers. Truthfully, this story is included to depict the effect of war in general. Yes, Vietnam was extremely traumatizing, yet it could easily be argued that the main reason modern wars are viewed as more traumatic is that trauma is better documented in recent times. History books give the facts and figures of war, but they don’t capture the humanity—or lack thereof—of battle and death. That is the true message of Mitchell Sanders’ story: the savagery and brutality of war in principle.