Vietnam War Literature Unit

Background for the Teacher

Synopsis

The Things we Carried is collection of short stories presented by a narrator named Tim O’Brien. It shows his experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Most of the stories take place in Vietnam during the war, and a summary of the actual events is included, however is brief. After college, the narrator is drafted unexpectedly. He almost flees to Canada to avoid the draft, but decides not to and goes to fight instead. While fighting he experiences the pain and tragedy of war. One of these tragedies includes the killing of an enemy soldier while on ambush. He also witnesses the death of many of his friends. He is also shot, and spends the final part of his tour of duty convalescing. The narrator returns to Vietnam years later with his daughter.

The Things They Carried does not have a traditional narrative structure, but it does follow a progression of events. They revolve around a series of instances of pain and death instead of progressing linearly through time. The first soldier that is killed is Ted Lavender, who is a scared, young kid that dies. Lieutenant Cross blames himself for his death, daydreaming over his friend Martha instead of watching out for his troops. Lavender is not a close friend and is the least traumatic to tell. Lee Strunk is the second death discussed and is also only a minor character.

The third death described is that of Curt Lemon, whose body needs to be pulled out of a tree. Lemon’s death then becomes the most traumatic so far due to the narrator’s gruesome involvement. After his death, the narrator describes some lighter tales from the platoon, then mentioned a completely devastating event: the time he killed a man.

The death of the narrator’s next closest friend, Kiowa, is the next major story. This is essentially told in three stories, moving from a third-person narration to a more personal first-person. During this story we also learn of the senseless post-war death of Norman Bowker.

Finally, the narrator himself has a close brush with death and spends the last part of his tour of duty recovering from his injury. The final story of the book completes his journey into memory and trauma, as the narrator revisits the death of a childhood love while remembering a host of encounters with death and loss experienced during war.

Things Students Need to Know

Historical context. This is a historical novel regarding a soldier’s experiences during the Vietnam War. Many students will have romantic thoughts regarding war and the heroes war makes; this story tells a completely different and realistic point of view from someone who was “in the trenches.” Students should have a good introduction regarding the Vietnam War, including the events leading up to the war, the motives for why we were there, and perhaps what even was going on at home while this was happening to our soldiers abroad.

Military terms used in the book. This book uses several military terms in which students should be aware of.

AO: Area of Operation

PFC: Private First Class

RTO: Radio and Telephone Operator

PRC-25: Pronounced “prick 25”

Psy Ops: Psychological Operations (Warfare)

R&R: Rest and Relaxation

SOP: Standard Operating Procedure

US KIA: United States Killed in Action

USO: United Service Organization (Volunteer Entertainment and Morale)

Strong Language Issues. This novel is realistic in the fact that it uses the strong language that was used by the soldiers that were in Vietnam. Parental permission should be obtained when choosing this book.

Vocabulary Development

	The Things They Carried: rucksack, foxhole, canteen, elusive, tranquilizers, fatigue, precaution, hatchet, paddy, booby-trapped, perimeter, poncho, grunts, intransitive, taut, tweed, platoon, satchel, morphine, plasma, malaria, magazine, topography, bayonet, bandoliers, antipersonnel, shrapnel, monsoons, phantom, machetes, carotene, inertia, ambiguities, volition, arsenal, entrench, tangible, muzzle
	Spin: tactics, enlisted, mellow, dink, ammo, grid exuberance, fungal
	On The Rainy River: velocity, adrenaline, cryptic, psychic, maul, reticence, irrational, hallucination, ferocious, Diem, stash, dispense, aggression, stooge, imperative, province, summa cum laude, infantry, jingo, smoldering, decapitate, eviscerate, schizophrenia, censure, acquiescence, platitude, pious, gentry, bewilderment, chrome, giddy, reticence
	Friends: tourniquet, plasma, dustoff
	How To Tell A True War Story: cooze, contradictory, grotesque, phosphorous, rectitude, salvage, denotation, skewed, artillery, scenario, mongoose, ordnance, definitive, rucksack, drudgery, napalm, anarchy, civility
	Dentist: exploits, sentimental, casualties, hygiene, sadism, hoist, bawling,
	Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong: improbable, bedlam, mundane, warranty, vulnerable, sniper, intrigue, casualties, gore, adrenaline, hammock
	Stockings: plod, invulnerable
	Church: pagoda, swab
	The Man I Killed: cadre, cowlick, piaster
	Speaking of Courage: hamlet, causation, gargling, mortar, hoist
	Notes: catharsis, nucleus, valor
	In the Field: platoon, giddiness, condolence
	The Ghost Soldiers: cushy, battalion, bunker, hooch, botch, rapport, illustration, specimen
	Night Life: grope, defoliant, kilter, ghoulish, mongooses, vouch
	The Lives of the Dead: infatuation, chronology, taper, tranquilizer, translucent, essence, blatant, formaldehyde

About The Author

William Timothy O’Brien Jr. was born on October 1, 1946 in Austin, Minnesota. He grew up with a younger brother and sister in the small middle class town of Worthington, Minnesota. His father had served in the navy during World War II, and often told O’Brien many humorous and heroic tales. O’Brien attended Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he majored in political science, was active in liberal politics, and protested the war in Vietnam. He graduated summa cum laude as well as Phi Beta Kappa.

O’Brien was drafted in 1968, two weeks after graduation, and entered the military on August 14^th of the same year. He had originally considered dodging the draft, but chose not to despite his opposition to the war. According to biographer Tobey Herzog, “[O’Brien’s] decision to go to war torments him to this day.” O’Brien landed in Vietnam in February 1969 and was assigned to Third Platoon, Alpha Company, Fifth Battalion of the 46^th Infantry, 198^th Infantry Brigade, American Division, which he refers to simply as “Alpha Company” throughout The Things They Carried. After an intense tour of duty, during which he won several military decorations, O’Brien returned home in March of 1970. He entered Harvard as a graduate student working toward a Ph.D. in government. By 1978, however, O’Brien decided to fully commit to writing after the publication and success of Going After Cacciato.

O’Brien continues to write and publish today, and is considered by many to be one of America’s greatest living authors. O’Brien is not especially prolific, having published only seven books over the last twenty-six years, but he is considered a writer of great craft and precision. The Things They Carried exhibits his stylistic trademarks: a focus on the Vietnam War and an exploration of the processes of memory and fiction.

Ideas Suggested by the Story

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried explores the Vietnam War primarily in terms of pain, and is full of motifs that focus on the varieties of pain endured by the American soldiers. For example, the book focuses on the psychological stress caused by the ambiguous nature of the Vietnam War, which deprived the soldiers of the strong moral sense of justice that their predecessors had experienced in Korea and World War II. The narrator questions this aspect of the war throughout The Things They Carried; for example, in the stories "Church" and "Style", characters struggle with the morality of their missions. Another related theme is the personal incongruities that many soldiers exhibited during the Vietnam War, and the stories' characters often behave in ways that seem irreconcilable with their personalities. O'Brien uses this contradictory behavior to explore the complexity and depth of the Vietnam experience.

The book also addresses the suddenness and absurdity of much of the violence in the war. Unlike the wars the U.S. fought in the past, which were conducted on big battlefields, the Vietnam War was largely fought by small platoons in the jungle, where death often came in the form of mines, traps, and sneak attacks. The book explores the terrible, unexpected physical pain inflicted upon the soldiers.

More unusually, a major theme of The Things They Carried is the idea of shame and embarrassment as significant motivating forces in wartime. Most war narratives focus on "bigger," more noble emotions, such as strength and bravery, but The Things They Carried emphasizes the more human side of the soldiers. O'Brien explores the soldiers' youth and weaknesses, and the fact that even in the face of danger, they cannot push their foibles aside. In "On the Rainy River," in particular, the narrator argues that cowardice was a bigger part of his wartime experience than bravery. The themes of shame and embarrassment might seem out of place in a war novel, but O'Brien makes a point of exploring the aspects of war that are not usually talked about, and that are often the most painful.

Along the same lines, the narrator introduces the themes of loneliness and isolation, which every soldier suffers from but most are unable to express. This final theme of isolation is the theme that connects The Things They Carried's war themes to the more abstract themes the narrator explores in some sections, such as "How to Tell a True War Story", "Notes", "Good Form", and "The Lives of the Dead." At these moments in particular, The Things They Carried may seem like a series of unconnected short stories. Each story, however, is part of larger overall trajectory, where the narrator progresses deeper and deeper into his traumatic memories, much in the same way as his platoon progresses deeper and deeper into Vietnam's lethal jungles.

In the end, The Things They Carried is primarily about a young soldier, who is clearly a stand-in for O'Brien himself, dealing with the isolation and trauma he experienced before and after the Vietnam War. In the last sentence of the book, O'Brien adds a note of urgency to his work by describing his writing "as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story." For O'Brien, as for many other veterans, the violence and stress of the Vietnam War caused them a sense of loss so deep it is almost impossible to communicate. O'Brien's book is his way of dealing with this sense of loss, of carrying, as the title suggests, a great emotional burden. Writing and self-expression, therefore, emerge as the real heroes of The Things They Carried. The most striking dichotomy in the book is the difference between Tim O'Brien the author and Tim O'Brien the soldier. Only by fictionalizing his memories is O'Brien able to deal with some of the more complicated emotions caused by the war. A phrase in "Good Form" sums up this idea: "story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." This is a complex statement, but it lies at the heart of the book's central themes: that fiction allows the narrator to explore and express memories and traumas that might not otherwise be expressed.

Savior Motif: Tim O’Brien uses a writing theme in the story referred to by some as a “Savior Motif.” It comes from the idea that human beings have the capacity to sacrifice themselves from others. Not all do it, and some do the opposite: making some suffer so they can have better lives (i.e. Adolf Hitler). But we have the ability to make the lives of others more bearable, more worthwhile, more livable, even if those some people have to suffer and die for the others. This ability to self-sacrifice runs contrary to basic survival instinct.

Authors have been exploring the idea of self-sacrifice forever because it is so important. The Greeks told the story of Prometheus who suffered ignominy and torture in order to bring the fire of enlightenment to humanity. Jesus Christ was the ultimate savior who died for the sins of humanity. The aim of these stories is really to discover what it is that a person has to live for and the answer to what it is that we will live for is not discovered until we discover what it is that we would die for. To explore the savior motif is to explore our own purpose in life.

The various clues that hint to the savior motif in The Things They Carried include Jimmy Cross’ initials (J.C.) and his last name (Cross), the name Martha (referential to Jesus’ friend Martha), and the reference in the story about Lee Stunk rising from the dead in the way the author tells it. Jimmy also suffers heavy grief for the platoon in a way that none of the other soldiers could feel.

Related Books

Herzog, Tobey C. Tim O'Brien. New York: Twayne Publishers/Simon and Schuster Macmillan,

1997.

Kaplan, Steven. Understanding Tim O'Brien. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995

Wharton, Lynn. Lynn Wharton's Tim O'Brien Bibliographies. , 2001

Introductory Activities

The Things They Carried

Provide copies of the following poem, or show it on an overhead projector. Have students read it in groups, and then read it aloud to the class.

The Things They Carried

They carried P-38 can openers and heat tabs, watches and dog tags, insect repellent, gum, cigarettes, Zippo lighters, salt tablets, compress bandages, ponchos, Kool-Aid, two or three canteens of water, iodine tablets, sterno, LRRP-rations, and C-rations stuffed in socks. They carried standard fatigues, jungle boots, bush hats, flak jackets and steel pots.

They carried the M-16 assault rifle. They carried trip flares and Claymore mines, M-60 machine guns, the M-70 grenade launcher, M-14’s, CAR-15’s, Stoners, Swedish K’s, 66mm Laws, shotguns, .45 caliber pistols, silencers, the sound of bullets, rockets, and choppers, and sometimes the sound of silence. They carried C-4 plastic explosives, an assortment of hand grenades, PRC-25 radios, knives and machetes.

Some carried napalm, CBU’s and large bombs; some risked their lives to rescue others. Some escaped the fear, but dealt with the death and damage. Some made very hard decisions, and some just tried to survive.

They carried malaria, dysentery, ringworms, and leaches. They carried the land itself as it hardened on their boots. They carried stationery, pencils, and pictures of their loved ones – real and imagined. They carried love for people in the real world and love for one another. And sometimes they disguised that love: “Don’t mean nothin’!”

They carried memories

For the most part, they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity. Now and then, there were times when panic set in, and people squealed – or wanted to, but couldn’t; when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said “Dear God” and hugged the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and God and their parents, hoping not to die.

They carried the traditions of the United States military, and memories and images of those who served before them. They carried grief, terror, longing and their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear: the embarrassment of dishonor. They crawled into tunnels, walked point, and advanced under fire, so as not to die of embarrassment. They were afraid of dying, but too afraid to show it. They carried the emotional baggage of men and women who might die at any moment. They carried the weight of the world.

They carried each other.

Discuss the reactions that the students had as they read the poem moving from the physical items that they carried to more emotional. What impact did this realization have on them? How would they feel if they were suddenly drafted into the army to fight a war, or if they had been alive at the time of the Vietnam War? Discuss the impact that the war made on people their age, perhaps both the one who chose to be a soldier, and the one who chose to be the anti-war demonstrator. (Emotional Connecting)

Survival Skills 101

This activity can be done individually, in groups, or as a whole-class brainstorming activity.

If you were going away from home for a year and could only take a one-gallon zip lock bag for your personal belongings, what would you take? List the items and explain why you would take them. (Critical Thinking)

Readings

Read “The Things We Carried” pgs 1-26

Class Discussion Points:

Savior Motif. See “Savior Motif” in Things Students Should Know section. This idea is really played out during this first chapter and can be chosen as a point of discussion with the class.

Dynamic Character. By the end of the story (chapter), Jimmy Cross has determined that he will forsake his feelings about Martha and will concentrate his attention on the company in his charge. He will shift his focus. He burns Martha’s pictures and letters and he will dispose of the pebble. He plans on doing all of these things because he is a changed man. (Or, will he?)

Questions:

1. In what sense does Jimmy love Martha? Why does he construct this elaborate (mostly fictional) relationship with her? What does he get out of it?

2. When is Jimmy most likely to think about Martha? Why is he thinking about her while one of his platoon members is in the tunnel?

3. Why did Lieutenant Jimmy Cross feel guilty about Ted Lavender’s death? In what sense is Ted Lavender’s death his fault?

4. Here is his excuse for allowing his men to be lax: “He was just a kid at war, in love.” Why does Jimmy use this excuse? In what sense does it excuse him? In what sense, doesn’t it?

5. Why do the soldiers tell jokes about war, about killing? Why do they use profanity?

6. How is the idea of weight used and developed in this story (“Jungle boots, 2.1 pounds.”)? How do you, as a reader, feel reading those lists of weight? What effect does it have on you?

7. If this is a story about sacrifice, what does Jimmy sacrifice, and why?

8. How has Jimmy changed by the end of the story? How will he be a different person from this point on? What has he learned about himself? Or, to put it another way, what has he lost and what has he gained?

9. Do you think the war will effect him in a different way now that he refuses to think about Martha? How will it be different? What did “Martha” save him from?

Processing Activity:

Have the students fill in the character chart as they read the first chapter. If the character has a military specialty, make a note of it under his name (eg. Platoon leader, radio operator, etc.) This character chart can be very useful for the student later on for a resource.

Character Chart for

“The Things They Carried”

Tim O’Brien

Name of Character	Physical Things the Character Carried	Feelings and Emotions the Character Carried
Jimmy Cross
Henry Dobbins
Dave Jensen
Ted Lavender
Mitchell Sanders
Norman Bowker
Rat Kiley
Kiowa
Lee Strunk
Tim O’Brien (Author)

Read “Love” pgs 27-30 and “Spin” pgs 31-38

Class Discussion Points:

Author’s Technique. In “Love”, the narrator describes a meeting between Jimmy Cross and himself after the war. Could this meeting be based on real events and real people? Of course it could, but “Based on” and “True” are two different things. In this chapter, O’Brien is attempting to get you to see a new point of view and see reality in a whole new way. He takes it on as his obligation to try to change the way you think. Later in the novel he will try to explain the concept of Truth and what we must do in order to understand the truth in a fictional story.

Love. Why is this story called Love? Love between whom? What kind of love are we talking about? Is it between Jimmy and Martha? Jimmy and the men of the platoon? Jimmy and Tim? Tim and his writing?

Static Character. Remember that in Chapter one Jimmy had decided to burn the photos of Martha and discard the pebble that she gave him so that he could keep an alert mind regarding his platoon. But, Jimmy received a new picture of Martha, and not much is told about any changes in Jimmy’s leadership after Lavender was shot. Was there a change in Jimmy at all, or has he, still in fact, remained a static character?

Vignettes , Contrasts and Metaphors. Spin is made up of a group of interesting vignettes that reveal the characters and setting to the reader. We begin to see the inhumanity of Azar, that Kiowa has a philosophical side, and that Rat Kiley is a bit dense. Lavender’s character is developed a bit more. The war itself is now described and so is the fear that the soldier’s feel.

The war is often described as unexpected contrasts. “You’re pinned down in some filthy hellhole of a paddy, getting you’re a** delivered to kingdom come, but then for a few seconds everything goes quiet and you look up and see the sun and a few puffy white clouds, and the immense serenity flashes against your eyeballs – the whole world gets rearranged – and even though you’re pinned down by a war you never felt more at peace.” (O’Brien, 39) (For a good visual that reflects this idea see The Thin Red Line.)

One of the most telling lines in this chapter is a single sentence that describes a metaphor for the war in Vietnam: “A field of elephant grass weighted with wind, bowing under the stir of a helicopter’s blades, the grass dark and servile, bending low, but then rising straight again when the chopper went away.” (O’Brien, 40). This sentence describes how it was to fight the Vietcong. The helicopters would come in and the enemy would give way, but as soon as the helicopter would leave, the Cong would come back in to fill the void.

Final Thought. “That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story. (O’Brien, 40) This sentiment seems to echo in the whole bases for another story of war, Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose.

Questions:

1. What did Jimmy Cross carry AFTER the war, both physically and emotionally?

2. What do you think O’Brien was referring to with the title “Love?” What kind of love was he thinking about and between whom? Jimmy and Martha? Jimmy and the platoon? Jimmy and Tim? Tim and his work? Love of country?

3. What do you think that the narrator meant when he could put a “fancy spin on it, you could make it dance” regarding the war?

4. What was the average age of the soldiers in the narrator’s platoon?

5. What does Tim, the narrator, say the role of stories is?

Read “On the Rainy River” pgs. 39-61

Class Discussion Points

Irony and Point of View. The climax of this plot depends upon the irony of O’Brien’s final decision. Your understanding of this irony depends upon your ability to understand the narrator’s point of view. Remember that O’Brien thought the war was wrong, and had even protested the war in college. This chapter provides a great opportunity to research the internet for articles regarding the Vietnam War. Encarta encyclopedia online is a good place to start (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761552642).

Questions:

How do the opening sentences prepare you for the story: “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone”? What effect do they have on you, as the reader?
Why does O’Brien relate his experience as a pig declotter? How does this information contribute to the story? Why go into such specific detail?
Why did the Vietnam War seem morally wrong to O’Brien (the narrator)?
After receiving his draft notice, the narrator experienced a variety of new emotions. What were they and what did they cause him to do?
What is Elroy Berdahl’s role in this story? Would this be a better or worse story if young Tim O’Brien simply headed off to Canada by himself, without meeting another person?
After his time with Elroy, why did the narrator realize that Canada was not an option for him? Explain.
At the story’s close, O’Brien almost jumps ship to Canada, but doesn’t: “I did try. It just wasn’t possible” (61). What has O’Brien learned about himself, and how does he return home a changed person?
In the last paragraph of Chapter 4, the narrator says, “I was a coward. I went to war.” Why do you think O’Brien believed it was cowardly to GO to Vietnam rather than stay home?
Why, ultimately, does he go to war? Are there other reasons for going he doesn’t list?

Read “Enemies” pgs 62-64, and “Friends” pgs 65-66

Questions:

1. What agreement did Jensen and Strunk make in Chapter 6?
2. Why did Dave Jensen break his own nose?
3. Why was Jensen relieved of "an enormous weight" when he learned that Strunk had died?

Read “How to Tell a True War Story” pgs 67-85, and “Dentist” pgs 86-88

Class discussion points:

Theme. “How to Tell a True War Story” is the center piece of the novel. Its theme is about everything O’Brien has been building toward with his tricks regarding the accuracy of the stories. These are fictional stories, but the fiction has truth because fictional stories can be used to relate a truth. O’Brien creates a paradox by writing a wrenching, violent but gripping story about Rat Kiley and then at the end tells the reader that the actual event did not happen as he described. It has happened in an entirely different way to other people. Thus he is challenging the reader to discover what the truth of the story really is. Where is the truth? It lies not in the plot or characters or setting, but in the theme.

Re-establishment. Now that O’Brien has told you in the previous chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” that none of what he is telling you is real, he now must bring new life to the characters. He does this through this story of Curt Lemon. Lemon is the type of person who is constantly testing himself and gauging himself against some inner criteria he has about what it means for a person to be brave or what it takes to be a man. With each test he passes, he feels he has to brag about it, probably because he is the one most surprised by it. The narrator’s final conclusion is that, “Maybe it was a low opinion (of himself) that he kept trying to erase.” When he failed the test with the dentist, he is embarrassed to the point where he needs to create an even more difficult situation than the one he just failed. He wakes up the dentist and forces him to extract a healthy tooth just so Lemon could show he could endure the pain and the fear. Telling the story also gives the narrator an excuse to not mourn Lemon’s death and does not want to become sentimental about him now that he is dead.

Questions:

Why does this story begin with the line: “This is true”? How does that prepare you, as a reader, for the story? In what sense is “this” true?
In this story O’Brien relates a number of episodes. What makes these episodes seem true? Or, to put it another way, how does O’Brien lull you into the belief that each of these episodes are true?
Find a few of O’Brien’s elements of a “true war story” (such as, “A true war story is never moral.”) Why does O’Brien believe these elements are important to a “true” war story?
In what sense is a “true” war story actually true? That is, in O’Brien’s terms, what is the relationship between historical truth and fictional truth? Do you agree with his assessment that fictional truth and historical truth do not need to be the same thing?
According to O’Brien, why are stories important? In your opinion, what do we, as people, need from stories – both reading them and telling them?
Why is the baby water buffalo scene (85) more disturbing than the death of one of O’Brien’s platoon members, Dave Jensen (89, top of page)?
Why does Rat Kiley torture and kill the baby water buffalo? Explain the complex emotions he experiences in this scene.
Explain how, according to the narrator, war can be both ugly and beautiful.
On page 90, O’Brien explains that this story was “not a war story. It was a love story.” In what sense is this a “love story”? Why?
Finally, O’Brien says that “none of it happened. None of it. And even if it did happen, it didn’t happen in the mountains, it happened in this little village on the Bantangan Peninsula, and it was raining like crazy…” If O’Brien is not trying to communicate historical fact, what is he trying to communicate? Why change the details? What kind of truth is he trying to relate, and why is the truth set apart from historical truth? Is it OK that this “true” war story may or may not be entirely true?
What additional things does Tim O’Brien say about war stories at the end of this chapter?
Why did Curt Lemon what his tooth pulled?

Read “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” pgs. 89-116

Class discussion points:

Plausibility: How important in fiction is this idea of plausibility? Is the story Rat Kiley tells in “Sweetheart” plausible? Or is it more important here for O’Brien to show some of the fantasies of the mind that soldiers had while in combat? What was O’Brien’s purpose in telling this story?

Tasting Metaphor. Rat Kiley describes Mary Anne as a person who has “tasted” the war as other civilians back home have not. Mary Anne says, “Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country – the dirt, the death – I just want to eat it and have it there inside me.” For Mary Anne, coming to Vietnam irrevocably changed her. She found something in life she wanted to consume and in the end the country, the jungle, the war, consumed her.

Greenies. The “Greenies” of the story are Green Berets, special forces of the army. They are the army equivalent of Navy SEALS. They are elite troops who possess special combat and survival training.

Questions:

Is this a war store, per se? Does it use those elements we’ve discussed in class? If so, who is the main character, and why?
Again, this story plays with truth. In the first paragraph (101), O’Brien tells us, “I heard it from Rat Kiley, who swore up and down to it’s truth, although in the end, I’ll admit, that doesn’t amount to much of a warranty.” How does O’Brien engage you in a story which, up front, he’s already admitted is probably not “true”? How does this relate to his ideas for a “true war story” found in an earlier story?
How does O’Brien use physical details to show Mary Anne’s change? (Think of her gestures, her clothes, her actions.) How, specifically, has she changed? And why?
Why do you think O’Brien keeps stopping the story so that other characters can comment on it (i.e. page 108)? How do these other conversations add to Mary Anne’s story?
Does it matter what happened, in the end, to Mary Anne? Would this be a better story if we knew, precisely, what happened to her after she left camp? Or does this vague ending add to the story? Either way, why?
Why do you think she changed? What did the change symbolize?

Read “Stockings” pg. 117-118 and “Church” pg. 119-123

Questions:

1. Why did Henry Dobbins continue to carry his girlfriend’s stockings even after she broke up with him?

2. What was Kiowa’s reaction to setting up camp in a pagoda? Why?

Read “The Man I Killed” pgs. 124-130, “Ambush” pgs. 131-134, and “Good Form” pgs. 179-180

Class discussion points:

Guilt. The title of “The Man I Killed” alludes to a powerful poem by Thomas Hardy called “The Man He Killed.” This story is mentioned several more times in the novel, so it really needs to be read carefully. The purpose of this version of the story is to make you aware of the guilt that O’Brien feels regarding the death of this Vietnamese soldier. He wants you to believe the guilt is real. In “Good Form” however, O’Brien the narrator tells you that he was not the one who killed this man. If this is so (as anything can be so in fiction), what is O’Brien’s guilt? Why does he feel guilt about this dead man?

In “Ambush,” O’Brien again relates the story of the man he killed in the war. This time the emphasis is on the memories he has of the event “really happened” and not the event as a story. Because it is a reflection given the reader by the “author” (really by the author’s persona), the story now seems more real. As we will learn later on or should have learned previously with “How to Tell a True War Story,” this sense of reality is an illusion.

Questions:

When Tim O’Brien introduces the subject of “The Man I Killed,” he does it with the following description. Why does he start here? Why use these details? “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped whole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull,” etc.
“The Man I Killed” describes fairly intimate aspects of the dead man’s life. Where do these details come from? How can Tim O’Brien know them? What is going on here? “(From) his earliest boyhood the man I killed had listened to stories about the heroic Trung sisters and Tran Hung Dao’s famous rout of the Mongols and Le Loi’s final victory against the Chinese at Tot Dong. He had been taught that to defend the land was a man’s highest duty and highest privilege. He accepted this,” etc.
For the remainder of the story O’Brien portrays himself as profoundly moved by this death: “Later Kiowa said, “I’m serious. Nothing anybody could do. Come on, Tim, stop staring.” How would you describe O’Brien’s emotional state in this scene?
In “Ambush,” Tim O’Brien’s daughter, Kathleen, asks if he ever killed a man: “You keep writing these war stories,’ she said, ‘so I guess you must’ve killed somebody.” Following this, O’Brien relates two possible scenarios of the death described in “The Man I Killed” to explain, “This is why I keep writing war stories.” In your opinion, why does O’Brien keep writing war stories?
Reread “Good Form” (it’s extremely short). In it, O’Brien tells two more versions of “The Man I Killed” story. In the first, Tim simply sees a dead soldier, the one with the star-shaped hole in his cheek, lying at the side of the road. “I did not kill him.” Following this, O’Brien admits, “even that story is made up.” In the second version, he explains that he merely saw many faceless, dead men. Where does truth reside in this book? What is the connection between O’Brien’s actual experiences and the events in this book? Why is O’Brien using lies to get at “the truth”?
In “Ambush,” O’Brien tells part of “The Man I Killed” story to his daughter, Kathleen. Consider that O’Brien might not actually have a daughter. Would that change how you felt about the story? If he doesn’t have a daughter, what is she doing in this novel?

Read “Style” pgs. 135-136 (this can even be done in class.)

Questions:

1. Why did Azar make fun of the dancing girl later back at camp? More importantly, maybe, why do you think Dobbins’ defended her?

2. For what reason do you think the girl had to dance, if any, around all the death and destruction of her village?

3. Why do you think that O’Brien included this story in the book? How did this event impact the soldiers in the company?

Read “Speaking of Courage” pgs. 137-154 and “Notes” pgs. 155-161

Class discussion notes:

Post-war trauma. “Speaking of Courage” is an important tale if only to read “Notes” with more insight. On it’s own it’s a troubling tale of a young man who is unable to speak about his experiences in the war and thus is forced to relieve them and the guilt they inspire. Norman Bowker circles the lake in his hometown in Iowa over and over again because he can’t get to the center of the problem and always has to go around it. The lake is the correlative setting to the latrine in Vietnam where Kiowa is killed. As the story goes back and forth between postwar Iowa and Vietnam, Norman can only imagine having conversations about what he has gone through. He cannot have a real conversation, not with his father, not with his old girlfriend, not with a stranger on a speaker at a car hop. Because he cannot confess his pain, Norman relives it over and over again.

O’Brien then tries his technique of telling the reader “the real story” in “Notes.” He has just presented “Speaking of Courage” and now wants to give you the inside scoop of the “real” Norman Bowker. It is effective. The reader feels as if he has been given the logical outcome of what would happen to the repressed Bowker who cannot express the guilt he feels from the war. However, the reader is admonished to remember that there was no Norman Bowker. Bowker is a fictional character.

“Notes” uses this technique of “the story about the story” in order to deliver the real punch of the plot here. In explaining the origin of the story, the persona named Tim O’Brien gives the history of where the story came from. The setting came from his memory of a Minnesota lake, the inspiration came from a letter from Bowker after the war. Finally, the narrator says, the part about how Kiowa died and who let him die, “[t]hat part of the story is my own.” If we forget that the narrator too is a fictional character, we are tempted to believe that the real Tim O’Brien is purging his guilt in a confessional story. It is powerful. It is a well done manipulation on the author’s part.

Questions:

To begin with, why is this story called “Speaking of Courage”? Assume the title does NOT hold any irony. In what sense does this story speak of courage?
Why does Norman Bowker still feel inadequate with seven medals? And why is Norman’s father such a presence in his mental life? Would it really change Norman’s life if he had eight medals, the silver star, etc.?
What happened to Kiowa? Where did this happen?
What is the more difficult problem for Norman – the lack of the silver star or the death of Kiowa? Which does he consider more and why?
Like other male characters in this novel (for example Tim O’Brien and Lt. Jimmy Cross), Norman Bowker develops an active fantasy life. Why do these men develop these fantasy roles? What do they get from telling these fantasy stories to themselves?
Why is Norman unable to relate to anyone hat home? More importantly, why doesn’t he even try?
In “Notes,” Tim O’Brien receives a letter from Norman Bowker, the main character in “Speaking of Courage.” Why does O’Brien choose to include excerpts from this seventeen page letter in this book? What does it accomplish?
What happened to Norman Bowker? Why?
What did Bowker what Time to tell a story about?What was his reaction to the first version of the story? How and why did Tim change the original story?
What does the narrator say about his transition from Vietnam to civillian life? Do you think this is true? Give evidence to support your answer.
Who else felt responsible for Kiowa’s death?
Consider for a moment that the letter might be made-up, a work of fiction. Why include it then?
In “Notes,” Tim O’Brien says, “You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain it.” What does this tell you about O’Brien’s understanding of the way fiction relates to real life?

Read “In the Field” pgs. 162-178 and “Field Trip” pgs. 181-188

Class discussion points.

Dramatic irony. “In the field” takes “the story about the story” technique one step further. Now that the reader knows the “true” story about what happened to Kiowa, she can view the aftermath of the evening with a sense of dramatic irony. The reader is shown several characters that feel responsibility and guilt over the death of Kiowa. Lt. Jimmy Cross, a young soldier, Azar and Norman Bowker. Norman at one point says, “Nobody’s fault…Everybody’s.” The added irony that only comes from the knowledge the reader has received from “notes” is that it is Tim O’Brien, the narrator, who should express the personal guilt, but is not saying a word in this story. Norman Bowker'’ comments take on a profounder meaning because we see that the pain he will eventually not be able to cope with comes from his association with the events and not from the actual abandonment of Kiowa. But none of this really matters because it is all a fiction. The events in fiction do not matter because they are made up. What does matter is that the theme is true. Everybody needs to share in the responsibility.

When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the rain. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, he climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame God. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote.

Questions:

What does Jimmy Cross blame himself for? Why?
What was in Kiowa’s rucksack when they found it?
Who do you think the “boy” was?
Why did the boy think he was responsible for Kiowa’s death?
What, for Tim, was the symbolism of the field where Kiowa died?
When Tim returned to Vietnam 20 years after the war, what did he bring with him and what did he do that surprised his daughter?
What was the significance of this action for Tim?

Read “The Ghost Soldiers” pgs. 189-218 and “Night Life” pgs. 219-224

Questions:

Knowing Rat Kiley’s personality, why does he hug O’Brien when he gets lifted off by the chopper? Does it show a little more insight into who Rat Kiley really is? How were you affected by this show of emotion?
What was the main “ghost” in Vietnam? How did O’Brien become the ghost of this story?
How had the relationship between O’Brien and the rest of the soldiers from Alpha Company changed after O’Brien’s transfer?
Why did O’Brien what revenge against Bobby Jorgensen? What was Tim’s plan to get revenge against Jorgensen? How did Tim feel after carrying out that plan? Why?
How did the relationship between O’Brien and Jorgensen change after the “trick” O’Brien and Azar played on Jorgensen? Why do you think Azar went along with O’Brien’s trick only to turn on him once Jorgensen figured out what was going on?
How does Tim say he changed during war?
How did Rat Kiley get out of active duty in Vietnam?

Read “The Lives of the Dead” pgs. 225- 246

Class discussion points:

Final lessons. The major question about “The Lives of the Dead” is, Why is it here in this position in the novel? When the rest of the novel focuses on Vietnam, –life prior to Vietnam, life during, and life following the war, –why does O’Brien now choose to focus on a nine year old girl? Is this a mistake in construction? Maybe. You may just come to that conclusion, but you at least need to know what O’Brien was intending. Whether it works for you is then your own decision.

O’Brien begins his story with one of his last shots at the game Truth or Fiction that he has been playing with the reader throughout the novel. “But this too is true.” If an author has been repeating a phrase until it becomes a refrain, we must pay attention to it. There is truth in this story, but it will have nothing to do with the facts. This lesson we have learned back in “How to Tell a True War Story” and some of the stories that have followed. The truth in this case is about how people deal with the past. By showing the reader why he remembers Linda and writes about her, the narrator is explaining a fundamental truth about fiction and the creation of stories. In this story Linda says, “[Death]’s like being in a book that nobody’s reading.” Logic will tell us that therefore reading a book is like bringing the elements in the book to life. When we read, we give life to the places, events and the people in the work. “Once you’re alive,” Linda says in the novel, “you can’t ever be dead.” How does this statement make us now think about people such as Rat Kiley, Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Henry Dobbins, Michell Sanders, Kiowa, and Tim O’Brien?

Writers create characters and events and settings in order to teach readers points of view and lessons about life. Through these elements theme is born. With theme comes new ideas and learning. Stories can help us learn about ourselves and others. Stores enrich our lives by giving us new lives to vicariously live through, new settings to explore.

Questions:

Reread the first paragraph of “The Lives of the Dead.” How does O’Brien set us up to believe this story? What techniques does he use to convince us this story is “true”? In general, how are details used in this collection of stories in such a way that their truth is hard to deny?
Who was Linda and what happened to her?
Why do you think the narrator tells us the story about Linda? What does it accomplish?
According to O’Brien what was the role of stories in Vietnam and after? Why does he continue to tell stories about the Vietnam War, about Linda?
Reread the final two pages of this book. Consider what the young Tim O’Brien learns about storytelling from his experience with Linda. How does this knowledge prepare him not only for the war, but also to become a writer? Within the parameters of this story, how would you characterize O’Brien’s understanding of the purpose of fiction? How does fiction relate to life, that is, life in the journalistic or historic sense?
Would it change how you read this story, or this novel, if Linda never existed? Why or why not?
At the end of the book Tim says, “I realize it is Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” Explain what you think he means by that.

Post Reading Questions:

What new insights about the Vietnam War have you gained from reading this book?
Why do you think Tim O’Brien chose the title The Things They Carried for his novel?

Culture of War Thematic Unit: Grades 11-12

Fallen Angels

Walter Dean Myers