War's True Face

Here is something that is a bit more serious and more...I don't know, technical? In my English class we had to write an essay on one of TIm O'Brien's stories from "The Things They Carried". Enjoy.

The imagery of Rat Kiley slowly torturing a baby water buffalo by shooting everywhere except its vital organs begins to tell a tale of the dark side of war. O’Brien tells his stories as a soldier in Vietnam through his collection, “The Things They Carried”. In his short story “How to Tell a True War Story”, O’Brien illustrates the derangement of war. He achieves this through imagery, flashbacks, and the position of narrator.

 O’Brien utilizes imagery to show the derangement of war. The quote, “the booby-trapped 105 round blew him [Curt Lemon] into a tree. The parts were just hanging there…The gore was horrible” illustrates how far war insanity would go to kill off the enemy (79). In a war, every chance to kill somebody, anybody, and everybody who is an adversary, is to be taken advantage of; that's what the Vietnamese did as they planted the trap. This man had died with his body strewn over the tree and the surrounding area; nobody would find this death normal because it does not pertain to what they know because of the brutality of it. War is not a pleasant thing; it is the birthplace of insanity. Because Lemon had died in a brutal, gruesome way, his friend, Rat Kiley had taken an insane course of action.

After Lemon had died, his best friend, Kiley, had sunk into depression. One day, a baby water buffalo had visited the group and Kiley pets it and offers it some rations. This is the time when the reader might believe that Kiley is beginning to heal from Lemon’s death. However, Kiley just pulls out his gun and shoots the buffalo in every part of the body without hitting a vital organ, he was, as O’Brien had said “It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt”, and it begins to show the change in a soldier when faced with a traumatic event. The sentence begins to parallel Kiley’s feelings, thoughts, and actions; the death of Lemon had hurt him greatly. However, war does not only affect an individual emotionally, but mentally as well.

O’Brien wields flashbacks as a secondary technique to illustrate the derangement of war. The quote, from Sanders’ story on page 70 and 71, “...one night they start hearing voices...they lose it” shows how insanity creeps up from behind. The soldiers never expect it, but the fight between sanity and insanity begins. War plays with one’s mind and will twist morals and thinking patterns. War is more than two or more forces fighting against one another, whether it is for beliefs, territory, or another type of justification. It holds the darker side of testing one’s morals and sanity. Unfortunately, insanity is usually the victor. Because war pulls each individual through a series of ordeals, the author reminds the reader through his own words.

O’Brien takes advantage of his position as a narrator to frame the concept of derangement. The quote, “A true war story is never moral”, indicates the struggle and failure of achieving the moral justification the supporters had in mind (65). A supporter back home is just that. They do not know of the consequences of a truly unjust war, but the frontline does. Even there is some justification in a war, the ones who do have a moral reason, begins to corrupt. The battlefield begins to slowly go down an amoral path.

Derangement is a truly horrifying aspect of war. Most, if not all its participants, are pulled through trials that test who they truly are within and face themselves. They will come face to face with derangement and see war’s true face as O’Brien had in his stories. War is an unpleasant luxury which the world learns from its mistakes and achievements.

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York, New York. First Mariner Books edition 2009.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think. If you catch even the smallest mistake, let me know.