Beginning Themes

So... Themes of "The Things They Carried" thus far...

Well, as we all know (or will find), Mr. O'Brien's novel/collection/memoir is an anti-war piece that exposes the uselessness of the black-and-white standard so many seek to still implement today; the enemy is bad, looks different from us, and is across a clear line, a division between the good guys (us) and the bad guys (them). The theory behind the usage of us verses them is to create that certain distinction, much like checkers or chess, the color opposite of your own is the bad guy; there is no blood, no real hardship when a piece is lost, no war smell, and safety behind the rules of the game-you can only move a certain way with this piece during a turn and no one in reality gets hurt. But in O'Brien's novel, every decent rule in checkers is turned around inside-out, and nothing can remain true.

In "Enemies" and "Friends", the tension between the two men changes the rules of the game-the enemy classically is never some one a solider fights along with, and a friend is never worried about his friend killing him when he says not to; however, the roles of enemy and friend are contorted. A real friend is some one who feels relief after hearing his buddy died in mid-air, so he wouldn't have to kill him after all, and enemies are all around. There is so much grey area in the two terms in O'Brien's eyes-there are no longer the clear cut boundaries of good and evil in war.

The lack of an honest truth and clear reason why people at war is also highly present. In "Spin" and "On the Rainy River" O'Brien struggles to form an honest truth about his feeling towards the Vietnam and an honest picture of a war without meaning. In "Spin" only fragments of the war stick with him, stories without a beginning, middle, or end, but snippets of everyday and terrifying moments: Checkers, death of a so-called "enemy," death of Kiowa, death of an innocent puppy, and the need for absolution. In "On the Rainy River," anger for not having the courage to shed the expectations of his family and community and the close-minded attitudes of that same community resonate through the fear of facing something a young person should not-the immanent threat of death in a war that he himself finds immoral and senseless.

So in general, O'Brien=anti-war. And the novel exposes his views on the subject matter. I'm done.

The End of Postmodernism.

Well. We all have spent a semester on Postmodernism, and I am positive most of us have highly different opinions on the matter.

I understand Postmodernism best as described by Lyotard--the death of the unifying Grand Narrative and the diversity afforded by numerous micronarratives. Because of this variety of narrative, the world is "a carnival of colorful and contradictory "(151) view points. It makes for a more interesting place to live and see; however, the world can no longer be unified under one common "truth". Each discourse has its own truth, and since an individual has several discourses, and individual holds several truths as unifying truth; with the individual fragmented by several discourse, the world is too because of its reflection of the multitude of individuals.

The fragmentation of the world's unifying "truth" leads to Derrida's deconstruction of the center of narrative. Because so many different views on the central truth exist in society, there is an absent center in the global society. No longer can we look only to God, but many look to the environment, the Hindu gods, Allah, and other figures for guidance and meaning in life. Society today no longer has the luxury of knowing what the exact truth is, but must tip-toe around every one's beliefs as well as their own. Today's world lacks one "origin, a Truth, an Ideal Form, a Fixed Point" (100) in narrative and in life. So, fragmentation is all too normal because there are a plethora of centers leading to the center of centers--nothing.

Also, the deconstruction of the perfect and undistinguishable is very noticeable in architecture. Gone is the day of international styled buildings, where they all look the same city to city; today is the world of functional art, where beauty meets the everyday wear and tear. “Down with the Universal!” (86) and in with the unique.

Postmodernism is the end of the idealistic unified world under democracy, Marxism, or Socialism. Instead, the world must cope with the fact the world is a wider, more diverse place that cannot be completely homogenized. Societies can merge and cross-pollinate (it is inevitable because of today’s mass technology—the internet) but they remain distinctive and separate from each other. Lyotard and Derrida both describe the end of one unified world, and creation, or realization, of the beauty of the fragmentation in our global community.