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

Ah for a young man all in all looks fine and magisterial if he goes down in struggle, hacked to pieces under a drubing bronzy blade he lies there dead. . .but whatever death lays b are all wounds are marks of glory. (Homer 22.83-87) As students we are brainwashed by antiquated myths such as The Iliad, where war is extolled and the valorous warrior praised. Yet, modern novels such as Tim OBriens The Things They Carried (THINGS) challenge those very nonions. Like The Iliad, THINGS is about war. It is about fightings and soldiers, victory and survival, however the message OBrien 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, 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 attenti on to the inner conscience. more than than a war story, OBriens 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 moderns experience of it, a battle is waged in THINGS that isnt bound to the rice-patties, jungles, and shit-fields of Vietnam. Carrying more than the typical soldiers wares, OBriens narrator is armed with an arsenal of feelings and words that slash away at an occult 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. grow pedantic ASAP. Lopez, Ken. Tim OBrien An Introduction to His Writing. Ken Lopez - Bookseller. 1997. 8 Oct 1999. http//www.lopezbooks.com/articles/o brien.html. Works Consulted Chen, Tina. Unraveling the Deeper Meaning Exile and the incorporated Poetics of Displacement in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried. Contemporary Literature. 39.1 (1998) 77. Expanded Academic ASAP. King, Rosemary. OBriens How to Tell a True 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. acquire It Right The Short Fiction of Tim OBrien. Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 40.3 (1999) 257. Expanded Academic ASAP.