Disappearance into the Land
‘I know it sounds far-out,’ he’d tell us, ‘but it’s not like impossible or anything. We all heard plenty of wackier stories...When she came in through the wire that night, I was right there, I saw those eyes of hers, I saw how she wasn’t even the same person no more. What’s so impossible about that? She was a girl, that’s all. I mean, if it was a guy, everybody’d say, Hey, no big deal, he got caught up in the Nam shit, he got seduced by the Greenies." (O’Brien 106-107).
War is not just a battle of one group of men versus another. Rather, it is a fight between Man and Nature. A desperate battle for survival. Will the land take you, or will you survive the horrors that lie in the darkness of night? This idea is one that is explored in Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried. This is a battle of Man vs. Nature, not only for physical survival, but one for emotional, mental, and spiritual survival. It is played out in many ways, and the attacks that are made against man are played out in various subtle manners. From a mere blending of man into nature, to the heart of the man which is lost, to the extreme of someone becoming a part of it, so lost in the war, and in the land. The battle is always fought, and man never comes away from it unscathed.
One manner in which this war is waged is in man’s blending into nature. This becomes a means of survival for the soldier in the field-- a physical blending into the land on which you wage war. In "Ambush", the character Tim O’Brien tells us about how his platoon was hiding, waiting for their enemy, "The whole platoon was there, spread out in the dense brush along the trail." (132). Then, describing the situation further, as an enemy soldier approache...
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...realizes that the land is a big part of the battle that he fights. Man is struggling against it, and working with it, in order to survive. But it is always a fight, harsh, and brutal. A fight which man never leaves without having been changed by it in some way. Man takes some of the land with him when he leaves a combat zone, but he leaves a portion of himself every time.
Works Cited List
Enemy at the Gates. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Paramount. 2001
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1990.
Poppleton-Pritchard, Rosalind. "World beyond measure: an ecological critique of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods." Critical Survey v. 9 no. 2. 1997. Pages 80-93.
Starship Troopers. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. Columbia Tri-Star. 1997
The Thin Red Line. Dir. Terrence Malick. 20th Century Fox. 1998.
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.
In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.
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).
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.
N.A. “Traffic Safety facts 2011: Alcohol-Impaired Diving.” National Highway Traffic Administration. 2012. Web. 2 April 2014. .
As students we are brainwashed by ancient myths such as The Iliad, where war is extolled and the valorous warrior praised. Yet, modern novels such as Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried (THINGS) challenge those very notions. Like The Iliad, THINGS is about war. It is about battles and soldiers, victory and survival, yet the message O'Brien gives us in THINGS runs almost contradictory to the traditional war story. Whereas traditional stories of war take place on battlefields where soldier battles soldier and the mettle of man is tested, O'Brien's battle occurs in the shadowy, private place of a soldier's mind. Like the Vietnam War itself, THINGS forces Americans to question the foundations of their beliefs and values because it calls attention to the inner conscience. More than a war story, O'Brien's The Things They Carried is an expose on personal courage. Gone are the brave and glorious warriors such as those found in the battle of Troy. In THINGS, they are replaced by young men who experience not glory or bravery, but fear, horror, and a personal sense of shame. As mythic courage clashes with the modern's experience of it, a battle is waged in THINGS that isn't confined to the rice-patties, jungles, and shit-fields of Vietnam. Carrying more than the typical soldier's wares, O'Brien's narrator is armed with an arsenal of feelings and words that slash away at an invisible enemy that is the myth of courage, on an invisible battlefield that is the Vietnam veteran's mind.
Good Will Hunting is a film which conveys many interlocking themes and messages to its viewers. One of these nicely woven themes is placing trust in the people we care about as well as people we have only recently become acquainted with. Another message, arguably more significant than the last is finding and pursuing the potential one has and bringing meaning into our lives in any form we choose. I believe the potential and success this film demonstrates is that success, growth, and meaning in a person’s life does not always have to come in the form of advancing in a career or social status but rather in the form of overcoming hardships and developing close reciprocating relationships.
Good Will Hunting is the graceful tale of a young gentleman’s struggle to find out where he belongs in the world, by first finding out who he himself is. In this film, Matt Damon takes on the role of a disturbed genius that has a keen understanding of the deepness of human character. The film is a voyage through the mind of Will Hunting as he is required to undergo psychotherapy as an alternative to serving jail time. With the assistance of a psychologist, played by Robin Williams, Will learns about himself and recognizes his individual worth in the world by comprehending what is most important to him in his own life. This motion picture serves as a source of superb example for film technique. Gus Van Sant’s directing ability joined with the writing skills of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who also plays Will’s best buddy, Chuckie, is a vibrant mixture of technical features used to induce sentiment and compassion amongst the viewers of this heart-warming film. Characteristics of the color, angles, shots, camera movement, editing, and distortions are all each particularly noteworthy to the general composition of Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting.
The narrator in “The Things They Carried” deals with the subjective conditions of war. Throughout the story, straining emotions often brought O’Brien’s teams emotions, especially after a death, causes a “crying jag” with a “heavy-duty hurt” (O’Brien 1185). The fury of emotion associated with death begins to erode the sharp minds of the soldiers and become mentally effective. After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might dies” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taken place in the psyche of the narrator is repressed directly by the war. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is also faced with the task of coping with mental
... could not help themselves, they were not going to be helped. If struggle were encountered, men had personalized ways to reconnect with the real world, and if a tragedy were encountered which affected the entire company, they also found a combined way to cope with this pressure. The priorities of men during the war shifted greatly toward emotional connections to people and events other than the war, and it was these connections that helped them survive and return home. Coping with the stress and burden of war is not an easy task for anyone, yet in The Things they Carried, O'Brien depicts men dealing and coping as much as they can, using only their primeval resources. They learn how to cope with the barest necessities in life, and they learn how to make use of the smallest opportunities to obtain the most relief and joy from every moment in life.
The Struggles in life is something everyone is faced with whether it is physical, emotional mental or personal struggles. These struggles are capable of shaping an individual’s personality and outlook on life. Timothy Findley’s novel The Wars, shows that struggles lead to the character’s ultimate inner struggles, outer struggles and self-discovery. War exists in a person’s physical and psychological aspects. In The Wars, Robert Ross goes to war and fights a personal and physical battle.
Scientists claim that the consumption of fast food leads to rapid weight gain, heart attacks, diabetes, reduced immunity, irreversible changes in the liver, raising the level of cholesterol in the blood. The fat contained in fast food, mainly consists of saturated fatty acids, which are deposited on the walls of blood vessels.
The film “Good Will Hunting” follows the story of Will Hunting (Matt Damon) a self-taught genius who works at one of the most prestigious technology schools; MIT, as a janitor. Will is an orphan with a criminal record of Assault, grand theft auto, assaulting a police officer, etc. Will solves a complex math problem, which leads to him being discovered by professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) as a genius. Professor Lambeau makes a deal with the judge when Will is incarcerated to be on parole under Lambeau’s supervision and Will is ordered to see a therapist once a week. Will Outsmarts many of the therapists, which forces Lambeau to go to his last resort, college friend and psychology teacher Sean Macguire (Robin Williams).
...ar, O’Brien was able to turn his pain into a life purpose by immortalizing his loved ones. On the other hand, Bowker was not able to cope and resorted to taking his own life. In high-pressure environments such as war, instinct is the dominating force behind one’s actions. It is something inherent and extremely difficult to change for it corresponds with the person’s deepest desires. Therefore, instinctive reactions are accurate portrayals of a person’s inner identity and character. The cases of Bowker and O’Brien prove that it is the discovery of oneself during war, and not war itself, that has a profound impact on the human spirit.