War is hell. The images that passed through the conciousness of those who participated in the Vietnam War left indelible visions. Rather than giving an opinion of,the war, Komunyakaa writes with a structure designed to allow the reader to experience the images and form their own opinions. The visions, images and experiences of thevietnam War as expressed by Komunyakaa vividly displays the war through his eyes and allows one to obtain the experiences of the war without being there. The title of the book when translated means "crazy soldier." This title gives the reader an immediate sense of the mind set developed by the soldiers. In providing further insight to the soldiers point of view, Specialist 4 Arthur "Gene" Woodley, Jr. states," There was this saying: 'Yeah though Iwalk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil, 'cause I'm the baddest mother *censored*er in the valley... 1. The first selection "Camouflaging the Chimera" first describes soldiers preparing themselves for combat,"We tied branches to our helmets. We painted our faces & rifles.with mud from a river bank," They become nature in order to disappear, yet they are awareof their separateness from it: We wove ourselves into the terrain, content to be a hummmingbird's target .... Chameleons
crawled our spines, changing from day to night: green to gold, gold to black. But we waited till the moon touched metal.
The soldiers must depersonalize themselves. They must be detached."This is a book about seeing and not seeing, about not being there in order to be there. It presents the paradoxes of a psyche, of an art that is compelled to examine itself, and yet is determined to control reality in a way that makes it able to be indured."
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13.Bakthin, M.M.,"Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics",in, Theory and History of Literature,Vol.8,1984.
14.Quoted in Philip P. Davidson: Vietnam at War: The History 1946-1975 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988),p.25
15.Gotera, Vince F., "Depending on the Light: Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau," in, America Rediscovered: Critical essays on Literature and Film of the Vietnam War," Garland Publishing 1990, pp.282-300.
16.Vietnam at War p.19
17.Callaloo, Vol.13, No.2, p.219.
18.Myles, Eileen, "Lost City", in, The Village Voice,
Vol.XXXVIII, No.2, January 12, 1993, pp.80-1.
19. Aubert, Alvin, "Yusef Komunyakaa: The Unified VisionCanonization and Humanity," in, African American Review, Vol.27, No.1, Spring, 1993, pp.119-23.
20.Epoch, Vol.38, No.1, 1989,pg.72
21.Balaban, John, Ca Dao Viet Nam. Greensboro North Carolina:
Unicorn Press, 1982.
Raymond, Michael W. "Imagined Responses to Vietnam: Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato. Critique 24 (Winter 1983).
Anderson, D. (2002). The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
Brigham, Robert K., and E. Kenneth Hoffman. "Battlefield:Vietnam | History." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 19 Sept. 2011.
Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War is a contrapuntal reading to American literature on the Vietnam War. But rather than stand in stark contrast to Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War is strangely similar, yet different at the same time. From a post-colonialist standpoint, one must take in account both works to get an accurate image of the war. The Sorrow of War is an excellent counterpoint because it is truthful. Tim O' Brien writes: ". . . you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil." (O' Brien, 42) Bao Ninh succeeds in this respect. And it was for this reason that the Vietnamese government initially banned The Sorrow of War. A thorough textual and historical examination of both the war and post-war experience of Vietnam reveals that its experience was similar to, if not worse than, that of America.
Wars affect everyone in some way, especially soldiers who fight in them, like those in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. O 'Brien concentrates a lot on the psychological trauma that solders, like himself, confronted before, during, and after the Vietnam War. He also focuses on how they coped with the brutality of war. Some were traumatized to the point where they converted back to primitive instinct. Others were traumatized past the breaking point to where they contemplated suicide and did not fit in. Finally, some soldiers coped through art and ritual.
Each soldiers experience in the war was devastating in its own way. The men would go home carrying the pictures and memories of their dead companions, as well as the enemy soldiers they killed. “They all carried emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” These were the things that weighed the most, the burdens that the men wanted to put down the most, but were the things that they would forever carry, they would never find relief from the emotional baggage no matter where they went.
War has a definite effect on the mentality of a soldier, so much so that many result in insanity during or after the leave of combat. Timothy Findley’s The Wars, portrays the “stupidity, futility and the horror of the terrible losses of the First World War, describing war as an image of the worst that can be within a man” (Anne Nothof Interview). Findley portrays mental aspects as well as physical, that lead to Robert Ross’ demises, specifically, the conditions of war, overall aspect of war taking someone’s life and the feeling of loneliness and silence.
“War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead,” (80). In the fiction novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien reminisces fighting in the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the war with his platoon mates through short stories and memories. He goes in depth about the emotional trauma and physical battles they face, what they carry, and how Vietnam and war has changed them forever. O’Brien’s stories describe the harsh nature of the Vietnam War, and how it causes soldiers to lose their innocence, to become guilt-ridden and regretful, and to transform into a paranoid shell of who they were before the war.
Fussell, Paul. "Vietnam." The Bloody Game: An Anthology of Modern War. Ed. Paul Fussell. London: Scribners, 1991. 651-6.
...often times tragic and can ruin the lives of those who fight. The effects of war can last for years, possibly even for the rest of the soldiers life and can also have an effect on those in the lives of the soldier as well. Soldiers carry the memories of things they saw and did during war with them as they try and regain their former lives once the war is over, which is often a difficult task. O’Brien gives his readers some insight into what goes on in the mind of a soldier during combat and long after coming home.
Willbanks, James H. "The Real History of the Vietnam War." ARMCHAIR GENERAL Nov. 2007: 54-67. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.