Tim O'Brien Response #2

My response will be to the story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. This story struck a chord with me because of how it showed a more personal side of every character. It had a way of showing in a small way who that man was. Whither it was Jimmy Cross’s picture of Martha, or Kiowa’s grandfather’s hunting hatchet (O’Brien, p 1-3). All those small artifacts gave each man an identifiable soul. The things they were forced to carry were no less important either. It was a way of making their burdens known.

The normal army gear was a physical burden, but it also symbolized the burden they each felt from what they were doing. The personal effects the carried was a tie to their old lives, and a reminder of what they wanted to go back to. Having these personal insights into each man from outset of the book was a masterful tactic by O’Brien. In essence it made me believe that on some small level I knew those men. It was this, I think, that made the laughs I got and the little uncomfortable feelings down in my stomach more intense. I’ll admit when I opened this book I had no clue what I was getting myself into, and less than a day later when I had finished reading every story with an attention bordering on obsession I was stunned.

This is the story that I think made or broke the book for me. If I hadn’t begun to think of the men in the story as real human beings, but as just characters in a story. I don’t think it would have been as enjoyable. In the end when Jimmy Cross put aside his love for Martha to make himself a better platoon leader. I felt like I knew how hard it was for him. Because in a small part I had felt how intense that love was.


Image: Copyright 2008-2010. Lewis Street Books. All rights reserved.
Tim O'Brien's Wikipedia page

Summary vs. Analysis

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried, On the Rainy River pg. 39

In this chapter of The things They Carried Tim O’Brien tells the story of his actions following receiving his draft notice.

It was June of 1968 when O’Brien receives his notice (O’Brien, p. 40). Following a lengthy internal struggle with his sense of shame at the thought of “running for the border”, and his hatred of a war he didn’t believe in O’Brien decides to make a run for it. It is as he drives next to the Rainy River, which serves as a border between the U.S. and Canada in northern Minnesota that he stops at the Tip Top Lodge (O’Brien, p. 48).

Here he meets Elroy Berdahl, the old man who runs the lodge (O’Brien, p. 48). Over the course of 6 days O’Brien stays at the lodge doing small tasks for Berdahl, and contemplating Canada. It is when Berdahl provides an opportunity for O’Brien to safely get to Canada that O’Brien realizes that his own sense of shame at doing so makes him incapable of actually running away to Canada.

Now for my analysis of this story. What strikes me first and for most about the story is it does follow a “coming of age” story structure, minus space battles and saving the galaxy story plot. Our “hero” (O’Brien) is presented with a destiny he doesn’t want, in the form of his draft notice. He rejects this destiny. Vehemently denies it. He runs from it. Canada represents his denial of this unwanted destiny that’s been forced on him. In reaching it he would make his denial concrete. It is in his escape to this refuge he meets his Yoda in the form of Elroy Berdahl, complete with implied omnipotence, and wisdom.

Elroy meets all the characteristics of the classic mentor figure. He guides O’Brien, not towards any one decision, but to a point where O’Brien’s decision must be made by Tim himself. It is many of the characteristic of Berdahl that spur O’Brien to accept that he can’t run away. O’Brien feels his shame at the thought of running more acutely, not because of what the people at the Gobbler Café would think, but because the quite man with the fishing pole was offering him the choice and not making him go back. O’Brien’s coming of age may not be because of bravery, or courage, but he still meets that ultimate destiny that was forced upon him by fate and goes off to war.

The image is a still from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Sam Hammil Response

The thoughts and views expressed by Sam Hammil in the reading provided seem quite valid to me. Our society today does have a kind of self-defeating aspect to it. I will say that it was a bit over board to essentially call all members of the armed forces murderers. A lot of those people over there have little other options than to do what they do. I’ll stop on that subject before I go off on a soap box.

Hammil’s ideas certainly are impassioned. He does bring up valid points too. Killing a murderer solves nothing, and the prison structure now-a-days is so corrupt on so many levels its terrifying. It’s sad that so many people, in so many terrible situations, do keep silent and continue to suffer. What we have to avoid is a mentality of “That’s just life”. It’s easy to say you will take a stand. It’s only when it is time to rise up that the enormity of that small task hits you.

Poem Response

Poetry has been written throughout the ages. The Greeks wrote poems, the Romans too, even the Sumerians. It is a tradition as old as language. Whether whimsical and light hearted, or a cutting satire, it has been dabbled in, failed at, and mastered. In this paper I’ll give my responses to two of the poems provided.

The first poem I will respond to is Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds. The poem to me is funny at first. I can almost remember those times in my childhood she describes, the whole posturing for dominance thing. The smugness I felt when I realized I had a one up on friend, and then the indifference or ill disguised jealousy when they had something on me. It couldn’t be said better that young boys in groups are a crowd of “small bankers” (Olds, Sharon, “Rites of Passage” from Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.).

The humor I found was quickly tempered at the words she described her son saying. Part of me knows that poetic license was taken. The kid probably never said anything like that. But that has to be one of the most morbid lines of anything I’ve ever read, but therein I understand it. The line is used as a calming influence. Now assured of their dominance as a whole the group of boys settle down.

The next poem I will talk about is Song of Napalm by Bruce Weigl. I began reading this one because I like history. So this is a poem I will understand. He almost had me tricked to. Is a read I began to wonder, “Was it about napalm at all? I can tell he is in the jungle.” I approached this poem in the wrong way and I’ll admit that, but the little girl was a bit much.

I can deal with description, but the ending lines describing how a body when burnt assumes a position and all that. I won’t lie. I was a bit disgusted. This being said I can’t imagine what seeing that would do to you. The lines where he speaks of the lie he was telling himself to make it seem better swinging back on him. That reeks of tragedy to me. No one should have to see things like that. The whole poem strikes me as an angry satire, not of one countries decision to use a vile weapon, but of humanities need to continue to create such weapons.