Obscenity In Truth, By Tim O Brien

Prompt: "You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; and if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty" (O'Brien 69).

Drawing on your reading, knowledge, and experience, write a carefully reasoned essay defending, challenging, or qualifying O'Brien's view of the relationship between truth and obscenity.

Obscenity in Truth Truth and obscenity have a direct correlation, even in everyday life. This is especially true for war stories. The truth in war is very obscene and hard to believe, people change from their normal being and transform into something that helps them survive. Because war stories are
so unpredictable and shocking, it leaves the common person to see these soldiers as crazy and obscene, but this can also be true for crimes in cities too. Derrion Albert, a sixteen year old boy, was beaten to death in a melee by other boys in Chicago. The reason this death is obscene is because he was an honor student and not even a part of the problem. He was just a good kid caught in a bad place at an extremely bad time. This is just one of the many examples of the truth being obscene that occur daily. Tim O'Brien states in The Things They Carried that a truth is obscene; this is shown through the behavior of the characters Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley, as well as the behavior changes of some of the other soldiers. To begin with, O’Brien introduces the concept of obscenity in truth through the character Curt Lemon and his actions.
Lemon’s character is one that is easy going, but has a strong sense of pride and manhood. Curt’s manhood had cost him his tooth and his life. He had a terrible fear of dentists ever since he was in high school. This is why when he entered the dentist’s office he fainted, and he had to redeem himself by pulling out his tooth, “The dentist couldn’t find any problem… and yanked out a perfectly good tooth.” (88) Lemon’s decision to pull the tooth was done to prevent a sense of shame, which is a major theme in the novel. Shame leads men in America to the decision to enter the war, and shame also lead to the harm and death of the soldiers. Pulling out a perfectly good tooth is done for self satisfaction and to avoid shame. O’Brien’s use of Lemon was to show how shame can drastically alter a person’s lifestyle and how much people are willing to give up in redeeming themselves. This act would be thought of as obscene by the common person, but in a situation like war man is forced to show strength and no signs of weakness, and what Lemon did took a lot of self applied pressure off him. Lemon’s acts were also shown as shameful and stupid by the way he played with grenades, “Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch with smoke grenades.” (70) The game played with this grenade was called “Yellow Mother”, they would pull the pin of a smoke grenade and toss
it back and forth and the first one to back down was a yellow mother. They played this game to show manhood and fearlessness. The theme of shame is once again shown, this being one more between himself and Kiley. He played the game to the end multiple times to show that he was tough. He would take an explosion in his hands, but not back down. The obscenity of this is clearly shown through their actions. Most people view this as stupidity, but like pulling his tooth it gives Lemon a sense of accomplishment and pride, that he is not a “yellow mother” or wimp. Lemon’s actions lead to his death not by grenade, but by trying to catch one and stepping on a land mine. His death produces guilt in Rat Kiley and O’Brien. O’Brien while looking back on Lemon, says “I still see the sunlight on Lemon’s face… when is foot touched the ground he must’ve thought it was the sunlight killing him.” (84) The death of Lemon is still thought of years after his death. O’Brien’s guilt is shown here. He wonders if he should have done anything to prevent Lemon’s loss, similar to the way O’Brien felt of Ted Lavender’s death. Next, Rat Kiley was a character that showed how obscene the truth can be. Rat Kiley’s obscenities involved the killing of a baby buffalo, using vulgarity and anger towards his sister, and shooting himself. First, the killing of the baby water buffalo showed the obscenity of mankind. Rat picked up a baby water buffalo and took it back to the campsite, “Rat stepped back and shot it in the knee. The animal didn’t make a sound.” (78) The murder of this innocent, defenseless animal was not retaliation for physical damage done to Rat. It was Rat’s natural instinct, his id, which takes control of him. For Rat, the psychological reason to kill the animal, is to release his guilt and frustration that is there from the death of his best friend, Curt Lemon. The friends a person gains when at war or far from home become their family, and when a person loses a family member, another part of their body takes over. For Rat this part is his id. Rat’s id instinct is to become savage and kill and use vulgar language. The second instance of Rat’s obscenity is when he writes a letter to his sister and never receives one back, “Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful letter… and the dumb cooze never writes back.” (69) The use of this quotation shows Rat’s lack of a family and his desire for one is taking a large toll on his life. The lack of his family’s presence makes Rat feel irritated that he has no one, and he expresses his anger through anger and vulgarity. Overall, both the quotes develop Rat’s internal id and make him express it. He feels betrayed by no response from a person that is supposed to care greatly for him. He really loved his sister and wanted a response from her, but he cursed at her, and started to build up a hate for her, which makes the truth seem obscene again. Because if someone truly loves another person, they will never act that way towards the other person even behind their backs. Later on in the novel, O’Brien shows how the war was starting to actually change Rat. Rat had been a fearless guy, but when Rat’s platoon moved out to the west hills of Quang Ngai City, everything changed. The platoon was now for forced to fight at night, in pitch black darkness, where a man can be lost at any time. Rat was greatly affected by this, he tried to vent to the other soldiers, but that did not help. Rat was in deep pain and fatigue of the war, “The next morning [Rat] shot himself.” (223) The war built up an extreme amount of stress, and the only reason Rat kept going was to avoid shame, but everything has its breaking point. The avoidance of something can only go so long, until it catches up. In addition to the behaviors of Kiley and Lemon, many other characters experienced the obscenity of war and the truth also.
This is true for characters such as Mary Anne, Azar, and Kiowa. Mary Anne, a character brought up as a civilized home grown girl, changed her entire life going to Vietnam. She became an addict of war, craving it as drug addicts crave drugs. She later disappeared into the night and crossed over into savagery, “She was part of the land now. She was wearing… a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill.” (116) The necklace of human tongues shows savagery and animosity of Mary Anne. As O’Brien stated she was part of the land now, her id, natural instincts and completely taken control of her. The id’s goal is to get all wants and desires first, no matter how cruel or necessary, and Mary Anne did this she fulfilled her natural instinct to become one with nature and to kill. The image of Mary Anne is a clear example viewing, of the obscenity of the truth. The second example of other characters falling to obscenity is Azar. Azar is the character that is pure id from the start. He lives to kill, “Azar strapped [the puppy] to a claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device.” (36) Similar to the death of the baby water buffalo, Azar killed an orphan puppy, but the purpose of this death was different. Azar has already lost to the id, he was out to fulfill his desires and the id’s desire was to kill anything.
The savagery at war is not an uncommon thing. Savagery maybe be the reason most soldiers make it back home, but it should not be taken to the extent where men kill defenseless animals. The obscenity of killing animals is the same as killing a baby, but that is the truth. The third example of a character being taken by the obscenity of truth was Kiowa. Kiowa was the Christ-like figure in the novel The Things They Carried. The Christ-like figure is a character that is good, and preaches only the good, and ends up dying usually in an obscene way. Kiowa was in combat, and faced death, “Kiowa was almost completely under [the shit field]…” (149) Norman Bowker in a valiant effort tried to save his friend but failed. This death was forever contemplated by Bowker; he wanted his best friend more than he wanted anything else. Bowker, later committed suicide, through the guilt that he felt from letting Kiowa die. This death also the cruel death of a man, he died by sinking into a field of sewage, and suffocating, a true obscenity, of the cruel truth. All in all, O’Brien’s theory that truth is obscene is true. Many people may disagree, and say that truth is not always obscene and it can be all good, but in all truth someone gets hurt. This is shown throughout the novel The Things They Carried, through the behaviors of the characters Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, as well as the actions of some of the other soldiers. Not only is this novel an example, but any novel or any real life situation people get hurt from the truth. If truth benefits another person, people will wonder why did not happen to me. Overall, the obscenity of truth is someone some where will get here by every truth; the important thing is how one can over come that pain.