Infomation



Task: Produce a series of journal responses based on your reading of the novel The Things They Carried and topics discussed in class. You will be required to complete entries throughout the term to coincide with the stories read in class.  



This assessment must meet the following criteria:
  • Each journal entry must be a minimum of two paragraphs (min. 5 sentences per paragraph)
  • Each entry should be completed on an ongoing basis (Do NOT leave them all until the end as that is beside the point and you will be penalized)
  • Each entry should be typed or neatly hand-written
  • The journal must be presented to a high standard. You are encouraged to include images, quotes, audio, video or other material that compliment your entries and show deeper engagement with the text and topic.

Journal Entry # Four



Do you think the character of Tim O’Brien is a coward for going to war or courageous? Justify your answer by using evidence from the text, clearly explaining what a paradox is and reflecting on what we learned in class about conscription, conscientious objectors and Vietnam War protests.

No, I do not think that the character of Tim O’Brien is a coward for choosing to go to war. This is because to have the courage to come back after nearly running away, to come back and face that shame would be brave enough, but to then willingly go to war for his country should make him a hero in his own right. The fact that Tim is thinking himself a coward for going to war can be seen as a paradox, a seemingly contradictory statement that has no singular answer, but has many depending to the perspective in which you look at it. It can be seen as a paradox as he is brave for going to war therefore he would be a coward for running away, but on the other hand, he would also have been brave to resist the conscription, the “lottery” in which decided who went to war, and run away to Canada, and therefore if he had gone to war, we would have been a coward for giving into injustice. This concept can be related to the half glass of water, it can be both seen as half-empty or half full. Therefore, as I am solid in my resolve that he is a brave man for going to war, he and others would say that he is a coward for going. It really is, in reality, a two edged sword, you can either go to war and possibly die a “hero” or become a conscientious objector and  possibly be charged with treason and maybe die a “peoples hero”. Either way, you both lose and win. O’Brien states this sad fact in the story “on a rainy river”, where he talks about how he came home from the war, how he survived but how “it’s not a happy ending” (Page 25). Because either way he did not die a hero, he did not die defending his country.

Journal Entry # Nine



Give a personal response to the novel.

This novel for me was a stark confrontation with a topic that I had heard about for years before. That being, what are we really, and what does it matter what we do. In the case of this novel it represented human kind, particularly the dead as meat, perishable meat, that must be buried, frozen or burnt before the rot sets in. And as for the question about what does it matter what we do, O’Brien presented for me that is does not matter what we do in our life, there is no supreme purpose to life, only that we live and die, we make contributions to society, but in the end we are all dead. This can be related to a colony of ants, or a hive of bees, each individual creature has a purpose, created by society, that they fulfil and when their time comes, they die. How are we, the superior “human race”, any different to the ants that toil in the dirt, serving society is all they know, and all we know, and maybe that will change in the future, nobody knows, but I doubt that this will ever change, we are who we are, and we cannot change that. As Linda stated, “we just got to be ourselves” (Page 98).

Journal Entry # Eight



Choose two members of the Alpha Platoon and discuss their transformation throughout the novel. You should refer to character traits in your answer: actions, speech, emotional/psychological state, physical appearance, personality, etc. Provide evidence. You may want to consider if they have changed for better or worse. Has war affected them positively or negatively?


Within this novel, Tim O’Brien illustrates to the audience of the personal development of many of the members of alpha company, though the two most notable of these characters would be Lt. Jimmy Cross and Mary-Anne Bell.
To start with, Jimmy Cross, we can see his transformation from the effects of the war through the story “the things they carried”. In this short story, we can see how he goes from being just another soldier, doing his job and just wanting to go home, back to his love, a woman named Martha, and becomes a leader, emotionless and calculating in his deeds. An example of his longing for Martha would be that every evening, Cross sits at the bottom of his foxhole and reads the letters, sometimes touching his tongue to the envelope flap, knowing her tongue had been there before. He imagines her, and somewhat fantasising over her, while they “hump” their gear over the tracks and through the jungle. He is in love with her. However, as the story progresses, this longing is both a blessing and a curse, as it both draws him through the war and gives him a reason to go home, but this longing and love eventually leads to his downfall, in the form of Ted Lavenders death. We can see this as in the minutes precluding Lavenders death Cross was reading the letters from Martha and imaging her, while he should have been focusing on his job and scouted the land around them. This negligence leads to Lavenders death and the guilt that befell and consumed Cross. In the end, he burned the letters Martha had sent him and had become the leader he always should have been. He became “realistic about it, there was a new hardness in his stomach” (page 11), this shows us his new determination he feels about getting home, and all his men along with him. This development of character also shows us how, in this instance, war and instinct had won over innocence and love.

We can also see this development of character through Mary-Anne Bell and the transformation from innocents into instinct that occurred in the chapter “Sweet-Heart of the Song Tra Bong”. Within this chapter, Mary-Anne is introduced as the innocent, shy, ignorant girlfriend of Mark Fossie, who worked as a Medic in the compound overlooking the river Song Tra Bong. However, she soon reveals to the men that she is willing to learn about the war and warfare itself. She had glimpsed the secrets of Vietnam and she wanted more. She quickly picks up the skills needed to survive in the jungle and even begins going into the jungle for days at a time with the quiet and reclusive Green Berets, learning and killing in the dark. The pen-ultimate moment in which her transformation is revealed to the readers, where it is shown hoe she has come form innocents is where Mark Fossie busts through the door into the Green Berets hooch and confronts Mary, where she replies “you are in a place, where you don’t belong” (page 45, (book 2)). This means that she, an “innocent” shy woman is more suited to the vast jungles and the dangers of the war than was her boyfriend Mark Fossie. She had transformed into the shadows and had become one with Vietnam. It is later revealed that the Green Berets have seen her walking through the jungle, one with the darkness, with a necklace of tongues on her neck. This is another example of how war and “evil” can win over innocence and love. How war is a corrupting influence on the core psyche of a human being, turning them into their worst fears.