Elroy Berdahl

While O'Brien already had the guilt trip covered, Elroy sure did help out. He didn't even have to say anything or ask any questions; he just knew. Elroy is a flat character. He is not complex and does not change himself, but he acts as a catalyst and brings about a change in O'Brien, thus making O'Brien a dynamic character. O'Brien describes Berdahl as having a "willful, almost ferocious silence" on page 47. Although Elroy never questioned him about his stay at the Tip Top Lodge or his strange behavior, he found a way to make young Tim O'Brien realize that he had to go back home. He never said a word, but his silence was enough to convince Tim that he would be making a mistake which he would regret forever if he jumped out of that boat and swam for Canada. The old man changed O'Brien's life with just six days of silence and an aura of wisdom.

To Desert Or Not To Desert; That Is The Question

Personally, I think he's crazy for not swimming to Canada, but that's just me. That opinion could be partially rooted in the fact that, had he swum to Canada, I wouldn't be reading his book right now. The guilt got him. It's as simple as that. He was so close that he could have just backstroked to freedom, and he chose to stay in the stupid boat. I understand that he was and still is "feeling the shame" (37), but I can't imagine shame strong enough to make me go to war especially if I didn't believe in the cause. American culture was different then, and there was a bigger focus on honor, so I also understand that he felt more pressure than a draftee would today. It still stands to reason, though, that a quality soldier has to believe in the cause. He has to have strong feelings about the prize for which he's fighting. Why would someone who had participated in even minor anti-war demonstrations be drafted?

Past and Present

I really like how O'Brien describes the war but also his life after the war. On page 36, he says "...the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now." At the beginning, it seemed like the book was going to focus on the war and the experiences one would have in a war and the emotional trials of being away from home. Chapter three and part of chapter two, however, give it a new spin. O'Brien shows the reader how memories of the war can affect a person for years to come. There are certain things which are too painful to talk about or things that people wish they could forget, and when Jimmy Cross and O'Brien visit with each other after the war, this becomes apparent. They have a mutual understanding of this which the reader sees on page 29 when Cross says "And do me a favor. Don't mention anything about--" and O'Brien responds with "No...I won't." Based on O'Brien's descriptions, memories of the war never go away, and neither do the details.

I Guess I Was Wrong...

Okay, so on that point of view thing, I think I was wrong. In chapter 2, O'Brien says "Many years after the war, Jimmy Cross came to visit me at my home in Massachusetts..." This implies that the narrator was, in fact, in on the action of the war. So the narrator is using first person now. I can see how this might get confusing throughout the book, so I think I might be liking it a bit less. With a mix of third and first person narrations, it's hard to tell if he's omniscient or not. Is he making up the other men's emotions and thoughts, or did he ask them about their feelings? And is Jimmy Cross still the main character, or is this a story about Tim O'Brien?

Colloquialism

On page 19, the jargon of a soldier really comes into play, and O'Brien makes obvious the meaning of it all. He says "They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping." While these terms may not make sense in everyday life, to a soldier, they make perfect sense. When Ted Lavender was killed, he was "zapped while zipping." When the men carried all of their gear and ammunition, the "humped" it. Makes perfect sense to any man who was there or witnessed something of the sort. This language draws the reader into the soldiers' lives. By using the jargon which they used, he makes the reader feel a connection to the soldiers which is strengthened by all the other details of the war.

Point of View

The Things They Carried is told from a third person point of view. The narrator describes the love life of Jimmy Cross and on page 15 says that "Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe." While the narrator is able to describe all these things, he never uses the pronoun "I" or indicates that he has taken part in any of the action. He also seems to be an omniscient third party. On the first page of the novel, he talks about Jimmy "imagine[ing] romantic camping trips" with Martha. A limited narrator could not know Jimmy's thoughts, so he must be omniscient. After finishing the first chapter, I really do like this book a lot better than TSAR. It's much easier to follow, and it's more entertaining.

Second First Blog Post. We're Carrying Things Now.

Firstly, I like this book way better than the first one. TSAR was awful, and The Things They Carried actually has a point. At the beginning, O'Brien lists the thing which were literally carried by soldiers in Vietnam such as "a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, and a .45-caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded" (page 5). O'Brien continues to list these literal burdens and then moves to emotional ones. At the end of the chapter, it seemed to me that the weights of the literal items connected somehow to the "weights" of the emotional ones. They seem to be a kind of indirect metaphor. "20 pounds of ammunition" (6) is equal to the emotional weight of a dead comrade or a girlfriend back home. It isn't said directly, but the heaviest equipment seems to correlate with the biggest emotional issues.