One of the most interesting stories in The Things They Carried is
the last story. Not only does this story contain material that isn't really
related to the war, but the story is interspersed with stories about the war. I
think this juxtaposition affects both the stories about war and the story about
Linda.
The story about Linda comes as a surprise after reading most of this book. O'Brien seems to write war stories where the plot doesn't really matter, as he says that much of it is not true, but what comes out of the situation does. In this story about young love and a child dying because of a tumor, I think the specifics do matter, as well as the fact that it supposedly happens to O’Brien himself.
The Story about Linda has many implications about how we read the war stories. One of the main characteristics of O’Brien throughout the book is that he doesn’t really play around with the dead, as some others do, and when the others do it he is sickened. I believe that his early experiences with death shape his views about how the dead should be treated. In the story about Linda, he is struck by how much the corpse of Linda is different from how she actually was. The bloating of the body as well as the stillness that he just wasn’t used to all provide a stark contrast to what she was like when she was alive. I believe this knowledge of the changes to the body after death makes him dislike the behavior because he thinks that the families may not be able to recognize the bodies, they might even decompose, and the soldiers basically playing with the bodies is not really a good way for the bodies to last be seen.
Reading all of the war stories prior to the story about Linda also changes how I view that story. The first way in which the story is influenced is how you can doubt how truthful the story is. The large amount of discussion in the book about how war stories don’t need to be factual to get the message across, and in some cases can’t be factual because what happens is way out there, leads us to question almost every story in the book including the one about Linda. I hope that the story is true as it would seem like betrayal to write this moving story about his childhood love, which was supposedly real, and then have it all be fiction. Even if the truth of the story doesn’t matter O’Brien also raises the point about how war stories don’t have morals but the story about Linda has a clear moral stated at the beginning. This raises the issue of whether the story about Linda is a war story or not.
The question of whether Linda’s story is a war story or not seems complicated in the sense that the story comes out of a war situation but other than that it doesn’t really seem to have a large connection to war. I’ll leave you with this question: is the story about Linda a war story or not?
The story about Linda comes as a surprise after reading most of this book. O'Brien seems to write war stories where the plot doesn't really matter, as he says that much of it is not true, but what comes out of the situation does. In this story about young love and a child dying because of a tumor, I think the specifics do matter, as well as the fact that it supposedly happens to O’Brien himself.
The Story about Linda has many implications about how we read the war stories. One of the main characteristics of O’Brien throughout the book is that he doesn’t really play around with the dead, as some others do, and when the others do it he is sickened. I believe that his early experiences with death shape his views about how the dead should be treated. In the story about Linda, he is struck by how much the corpse of Linda is different from how she actually was. The bloating of the body as well as the stillness that he just wasn’t used to all provide a stark contrast to what she was like when she was alive. I believe this knowledge of the changes to the body after death makes him dislike the behavior because he thinks that the families may not be able to recognize the bodies, they might even decompose, and the soldiers basically playing with the bodies is not really a good way for the bodies to last be seen.
Reading all of the war stories prior to the story about Linda also changes how I view that story. The first way in which the story is influenced is how you can doubt how truthful the story is. The large amount of discussion in the book about how war stories don’t need to be factual to get the message across, and in some cases can’t be factual because what happens is way out there, leads us to question almost every story in the book including the one about Linda. I hope that the story is true as it would seem like betrayal to write this moving story about his childhood love, which was supposedly real, and then have it all be fiction. Even if the truth of the story doesn’t matter O’Brien also raises the point about how war stories don’t have morals but the story about Linda has a clear moral stated at the beginning. This raises the issue of whether the story about Linda is a war story or not.
The question of whether Linda’s story is a war story or not seems complicated in the sense that the story comes out of a war situation but other than that it doesn’t really seem to have a large connection to war. I’ll leave you with this question: is the story about Linda a war story or not?
I really agree with your observation of the implications of the story about Linda in how we read the other war stories. I think that the "emotional baggage" regarding her death that Tim O'Brien brings in to the war gives him a really different feeling about death thatn many of the other soldiers might have. This closeness to death that he has with him allows him to cope more easily and in a less "sickening" way than many of the other soldiers.
ReplyDeleteI believe that many of the points O'Brien makes throughout the book why storytelling is so crucial can apply to any story, not only war stories. He talks about the way stories can have a redemptive quality. I won't go so far as to say "every story is a war story," but I guess what I'm trying to say is, the "truths" that are so evident in "war stories" are not specific to war, they apply to humanity in general. So, to your question, is the story about Linda a war story, I'm going to say no -- but it's not separate from the other stories. The way he takes the "truths" in her story and applies them and contrasts them with the other stories contributes to the collection's overall sense of unity.
ReplyDeleteI would not say Linda's story is a war story. It's telling comes from a situation in war for comparison, but the plot of the story itself is so far detached that I cannot call it one. I can't bring myself to deem a story a war story without any aspect of the story itself relating to war, especially given how normal a domestic situation this one was. As to how true it is, I have doubts about it. Wildly speculating, I feel it may have been a made-up story to explain O'Brien's aversion to bodies.
ReplyDeleteWe might say that the Linda story exists as a stark contrast to the depictions of death (and how the dead are viewed and treated by the living) in the war stories. This is "normal" death, in a civilized/nonwar situation, and young Tim is exposed to this harsh fact of life for the first time in an altogether "civilized" situation (the funeral home, the careful arrangement of the body and his observations about how strange and unbelievable it all is). The soldiers dealing with their own deep anxieties and fears by playing games with the corpse of the old man in Vietnam is a thoroughly *abnormal* death (or, in the context of war, the "new normal"). None of them would have ever behaved this way in a typical context--these aren't sickos who just go around looking to mess with corpses. Their behavior is shaped by this psychologically severe environment, and it makes "normal" people do strange and disturbing things to deal with their fears.
ReplyDelete