Myth of Courage Exposed in The Things They Carried Essay -- The Things

Ah for a young man all looks fine and noble if he goes down in war, hacked to pieces under a slashing bronze web he lies there dead. . .but whatever death lays b are all wounds are marks of nimbus. (Homer 22.83-87) As students we are brainwashed by ancient myths such(prenominal) as The Iliad, where war is extolled and the valorous warrior praised. Yet, modern novels such as Tim OBriens The Things They Carried (THINGS) argufy those very notions. alike The Iliad, THINGS is about war. It is about battles and soldiers, victory and survival, yet the essence OBrien gives us in THINGS runs almost contradictory to the handed-down war story. Whereas traditional stories of war take place on line of businesss where soldier battles soldier and the substance of man is tested, OBriens battle occurs in the shadowy, private place of a soldiers 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, OBriens The Things They Carried is an expose on personal courage. Gone are the digest 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 mythologic courage clashes with the moderns experience of it, a battle is waged in THINGS that isnt confined to the rice-patties, jungles, and shit-fields of Vietnam. Carrying much than the typical soldiers wares, OBriens narrator is armed with an arsenal of feelings and words that slash out-of-door at an invisible enemy that is the myth of courage, on an invisible battlefield that is the Vietnam veterans mind. An analysis of structure in ... ...ings They Carried. Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 35.1 (1993) 43. Expanded faculty member ASAP. Lopez, Ken. Tim OBrien An Introduction to His Writing. Ken Lopez - Bookseller. 1997. 8 Oct 1999. http//www.lopezbooks.co m/articles/obrien.html. Works Consulted Chen, Tina. Unraveling the Deeper Meaning Exile and the Embodied Poetics of geological fault in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried. Contemporary Literature. 39.1 (1998) 77. Expanded Academic ASAP. King, Rosemary. OBriens How to Tell a veritable War Story. The Explicator. 57.3 (1999) 182. Expanded Academic ASAP. Passaro, Vince. The Things They Carried (Review). Harpers Magazine. 299.1791 (1999) 80. Expanded Academic ASAP. Robinson, Daniel. Getting It cover The Short Fiction of Tim OBrien. Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 40.3 (1999) 257. Expanded Academic ASAP.