The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War. It seems to me that the stories are all unique yet similar. I think a good theme is that life never works out the way you expect and yes I know that is terribly overstated but this is just a rough draft.
First of all, the whole book is arranged somewhat irregularly and I dont mean that in a bad way! I just mean the the boook is put together like a collection or stories as opposed to the traditional style of having chapters. I'm not toosure at the moment what this is sopposed to accomplish. Perhaps it is a way to make each and every story unique or slightly more personal...at least as personal as a war story can be.
Secondly, sice the book is called the things they carried, one would assume that all things being carried would be tangible and real. And the characters do literally carry things like guns and other necessities. However, "For the most part they [carry] themselves with poise, a kind of dignity"(19). Althought the literal translation woult be things or odjects, this storyu also talks about troubles and emotions that the soldiers feel. We cannot take the names literally because each heading carries a deeper meaning.
Furthermore, we find that Lee Strunk and Dave Jenson, at first, do not like eachother. This is established in the story "Enemies". They clearly did not get along because Jenson "wrapped an arn around Strunk's neck and pinned him down and kept hitting him on the nose"(62). The last thing one would expect is for these two, so-called "enemies" to become friends yet by the next story...they gave become friends. And close friends at that! The two were not automatically great friends "but they did learn to trust each other"(65). The fact that the two could go from absomlutely hating each other to watching each others back proves that things change. Thisgs are not always as they seem.
The Things They carried an intersting book mainly due to all the contradictory messages. The book inclodes a story called "Love", yet it is a book of war stories. These two terms completely contradict each other. However, maybe the war and that fighting help the soldiers actually discover what love is.
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Wow Katrina, I never thought about the material in the book contradicting itself!
ReplyDeleteI believe you have a good point. Many stories have a title that says one thing, but the story actually is the complete opposite. Maybe this is because throughout the war, they assume and expect something is going to happen, but the exact opposite happens instead. Wars are entirely unpredictable, and it's hard to imagine what the outcome will be.
I also noticed how "the things they carried" mentions other abstract things that you can't really hold. Like love, and other things you can't control and maintain properly. Also, some of the things the people carry have a much deeper feeling. In one of the stories (I forget which), it describes the stuff that each soldier carries in remembrance to something they care about.
Well, I hope this was somewhat enlightening to you!
Ha! You call this short? Anyways I would like to say that you have some nice ideas there for a rough draft. And I think the theme that you came up with can definitely work, maybe further on into the story you might change your mind, but at least you have a theme idea. I am having trouble piecing mine together to form a theme. I would also like to say that I completely agree that the book contains contradictory messages. I wrote about that in my blog as well, and there was a good line saying exactly that. I think it was like the truth is contradicting, well something like that. I was also confused about whether we were suppose to analyze each little story by itself, or all of them combined as a whole. I find it interesting though that we always end up tying things back to the theme of “things are not always what they seem.” I don’t really have any enlightening ideas for you (as Sean would say) but I think you are off to good start so keep it up =]
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