O’Brien illustrates the physical and emotional barrier Vietnam creates between men and women. The letters soldiers write to their girlfriends in the United States demonstrate the physical barrier between the two genders. O’Brien describes a soldier’s relationship with a girl in America: “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey” (O’Brien 1). Vietnam physically separates men from…
Men were drafted into war without a choice and some had even chosen to move in order to avoid this draft. One man who attempted to leave was the author, Tim O’Brien, once he saw his draft letter he soon became paranoid and thought of ways to leave the United states, “I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything. It couldn’t happen… I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me queasy.” (O’Brien, 39). A young man in his twenties trying to avoid war because he thought he was better than it, the boy scouts out in the woods and him hating every moment of it, all images that come into a reader's mind as the draft letter is revealed and reasons…
Bruce Dawe has used a variety of literary devices to represent specific marginalised groups in ways that challenge their reader’s perceptions. Two of his poems; ‘Homecoming’ and ‘Weapons Training’ are key and transparent examples of literary devices being utilised to represent specific marginalised groups. Both of these poems were set during the 1950’s, with Vietnam being written to represent soldiers pre-war and homecoming to represent soldiers returning to Australia. During this time period, the Australian nation lived via a very patriarchal manner, and had the utmost respect and admiration of their soldiers that fought during the world wars. However, it has been noted in Australian history that there was very little to no compassion given towards the returning soldiers from Vietnam; Homecoming is an attack at society for their reverence and respect-or lack of. This represents the marginalised soldiers from the Vietnam War, for the War Veterans from WW1 and WW2 had always traditionally returned home to a hero’s welcome, greeted at the airway and society’s full support to the brave soldiers who had risked and possibly given their lives for the country. Weapons Training is another war poem, but this time targets young soldiers pre-war on what can be assumed as a final addressing before taking into the ranks, this poem however various from the previous, the soldiers would have gone into the War with the expectation of being given thanks and praise for their bravery, instead they were barked at, abused and insulted. Dawe has represented both of the marginalised soldiers in both of the respective poems through his use of literary devices which can all fall under the brackets of a) Imagery and b) language, integrating into some finer details.…
Owens opens up his claim about the equity among female and male participants in the military by providing evidence from professors across the nation, who seem against it or supporting the idea in the military. He wants to explain one of the dangers that women face, however, as well as to mention his opinions that a woman’s weakness should not stop her from being part of combat. Thus allowing his paper to be purely on women throughout the paper introducing methods of how women should be treated with potential equivalent to male soldiers. He offers statistics to balance out his assumptions about a concept from his claim to prove what he is trying to explain in his argument.…
On brisk September mornings, civilian residences often answer the door to a military officer whom bears bad news about their sons. During the reconstruction, the sex ratio is off balance and many women do not have a full grasp on why they are lonely. In “War is Kind” by the famous poet Stephen Crane; he adopts sarcastic diction and syntax to display war as a destructive force.…
War is devastating to the soldiers fighting in it, and they react in ways that seem abstract and foreign. Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” details the struggles of a platoon that represents the entire U.S. Army throughout the war effort in Vietnam. O’Brien writes about of the strange tactics of the people within First Lieutant Cross’ Platoon; whether it is bad leadership, drug use or the struggles of being Native American within Vietnam. O’Brien addresses the issues that were taking place in Vietnam by using the platoon to mirror what he saw was wrong. The initial issue O’Brien saw when he went to Vietnam was awful leadership.…
War is a terrible thing. It destroys lives and can forever change the landscape of the mind and soul. Harold Krebs from Ernest Hemingway’s story “Soldier’s Home” and Norman Bowker from Tim O’Brian’s story “Speaking of Courage” both show that coming home from a military lifestyle and reintegrating themselves into a civilian lifestyle can be both difficult and emotionally draining to one’s self esteem and psyche.…
War has existed since the dawn of time and, since the beginning, has impacted humanity in various ways. While wars do mold and transform nations, more importantly, wars have had and will have a great impact on soldiers, those willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. The novels A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien give us a glimpse into how war has impacted soldiers and those close to them. The novel A Farewell to Arms talks of a man who falls in love with a woman he works with, a nurse in the hospital, Catherine Barkley. The narrator, Frederic Henry, meets the nurse while he is working in the army.…
Since the beginning of time the topic of human gender its differences has been a controversial subject that always attracts attention. After the Spanish-American War, many men were seen as heroes, some even put into important positions in our nations’ government. Men like McKinley and Roosevelt, for example, used such praise and recognition to reinforce their positions of President and, later on, Vice President, respectively. “One of the men who benefited from this line of thought was President McKinley, who no doubt was delighted to find that being a commander in chief during a war restored his image as a capable leader” (110). Roosevelt was a man with power, being the assistant secretary of the navy, but he gave it up to join 1st United Stated Volunteer Cavalry, more commonly known as the Rough Riders. He received nationwide praise and everyone knew him as a hero. “Two years later, Roosevelt’s military record helped him win the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket” (112). Women held many important roles during this war, such as nurses. While women were vital to the war effort, many people did little to spread the news. “In magazines and newspapers of the time, stories glorifying soldiers and sailors are hard to miss. In contrast, stories covering women’s wartime contributions are difficult to find” (128). How does considering gender change our views of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars? This is the argument that Kristin Hoganson makes in Fighting for American Manhood.…
It is claimed that “sex is the weapon of life, the shooting sperm sent like an army of guerrillas to penetrate the egg’s defenses-the only victory that really matters.” With this being said, sex, and how the sperm must go through several enemy territories to declare victory, is war. Interchangeably, according to William Broyles in his novel Why Men Love War, war is actually sex. The power generated through war and the bonding of individuals “heightens…sexuality” and as a result makes “war…a turn on.” People love war because people love weapons and the power and opportunity to destroy nations, infrastructure, and/or ideas. War therefore is the union between sex and destruction—between love and death. Broyles believes that to fully understand the seduction of the opposite gender, it is crucial to hear the war stories of women. If their voices are heard, the gender-encoding stereotypes in war and the war stories can be denaturalized. We must understand the women’s viewpoint of the war to grasp the importance of ideological power for people, cultures, and humanity overall (Schneider 6). When we reach this understanding and gain insight on “the other side” of war, the parameters of war literature can be altered and we can “re-conceptualize aspects of…war’s political history” (Scott…
“Young Man in Vietnam” by Charles Coe goes against the 1980 patriotic views of Vietnam veterans, as he positions readers to be sympathetic towards veterans. Through the use of characterisation and symbolism Coe has positioned readers to be sympathetic towards the young man in Vietnam.…
Within the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien said, “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it.” O’Brien is a Vietnam veteran who does not consider himself a hero. This is interesting because while growing up in the United States of America, people have learned that all veterans are heroes. Americans were raised on hearing war stories that were uplifting and encouraging, but when O’Brien wrote the book, The Things They Carried, he wrote it in the sense that not all war stories are true. That is why he called the book “a work of fiction”;…
“On the rainy river” is a short story that wonderfully depicts the showing of the time in 1968 where men were sent letters in the mail that drafted them into the war with a mentality that men are stronger and cannot show fear or emotion. These men had a feeling of shame and unmanly which imposed them to sexism towards the women in the society.…
In the book, The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, the challenges faced by war are explained in the form of stories. The effects that war can have on a soldier in Vietnam are not solely limited to the physical state, but also the mental state, as is shown when O’Brien introduces the character Mary Anne Bell in chapter nine. The corruption that war brought to an individual’s life led to an altered view of morality and Innocence, as well as the desensitization of an individual.…
War evokes many different emotions for some soldiers. Some are drafted and demanded to serve, others volunteer their lives for the sake of not being titled as cowards. Some get to fight another day, some don't, others get captured and become prisoners or hostages. But one thing is certain, for those who have experienced war know first hand that it has the power to change you as a person. In the short stories “Guests of the Nation“ and “The Things They Carried,” authors Frank O’Connor and Tim O’Brien share the same central idea of the horrible effects of war. Both stories are about a young male soldier who faces the true reality of war as well as the emotional and impacts these experiences leave with them. Though the…