Transcript Vietnam War Literature

Vietnam War Literature
Short stories, poetry, art & music
Respond -- 5 min
“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. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you
feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged
from the larger waste, then you have been made the
victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude
whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb,
therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute
and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
–Tim O’Brien
What are you carrying?
 Look through your bags that you’ve
brought to class today.
 Write down a few items that you find inside
 Think about the items you listed and answer
the following questions:
 What is significant about this item?
 What does this item say about you?
 How much does it weigh?
 Be ready to discuss this as a class.
What else do we carry?
 What other things do you carry around
with you, besides the physical things?
 Emotional “baggage” if you will
 On your journal paper, describe something that
you “carry” that is not physical.
 It could be a memory, piece of advice,
burden, etc.
 Why does this item take “up space” in your
life? What is significant about it?
 How much does it “weigh”? Does it weigh
you down or lift the load a bit?
The Things They Carried
 Post Modern
 Semi-autobiographical
 Published in 1990
 Set during the Vietnam War
 Powerfully explores the horror and complexity of war
through a series of vignettes
 O’ Brien “carries” his readers through geographical and
emotional territory that they will never forget
 O’ Brien’s message is that life demands courage and no one
marches without burdens.
Tim O’Brien
 Macalester College (B.S. Political Science)Post-war graduate work at Harvard
 Vietnam War Veteran: 23rd infantry
division, 3rd Platoon
 Semi-autobiographical
 Collection of Short Stories or “Vignettes”
 Originally published in Esquire and other
magazines
 Published in 1990
Key Ideas
 Truth
 Mortality/Death/The constant threat of death
 Fiction vs. reality: Tim O’Brien the character vs. the author.
 Social Obligation: Fight or flight when drafted to war/pressures
from government/city/town/family, etc.
 Moral responsibility: right vs. wrong in times on war
 Loss of innocence
 Courage & Cowardice
 Storytelling & Memory
 Guilt & Shame
Military Terminology
 AK-47: Assault rifle used by Viet Cong
 AO- Area of Operations
 AR- Army Regulation
 ARVN-Army of the Republic of Vietnam
 AWOL- Absent without leave
 CC- Company Commander
 Charlie- Viet Cong; the enemy
Bouncing Betty: antipersonnel mine with two charges: the
first propels the explosive charge upward, and the other is set
to explode at about waist level
 Claymore: antipersonnel mine carried by the
infantry which, when detonated, propelled small
steel cubes in a 60-degree fan-shaped pattern to a
maximum distance of 100 meters
 C-rations- Combat Rations. Canned meals for use in
the field. Each usually consisted of a can of some
basic course, a can of fruit, a packet of some type of
dessert, a packet of powdered cocoa, a small pack of
cigarettes, and two pieces of chewing gum.
 Dust off- medical evacuation by a helicopter.
 DMZ- Demilitarized zone
 Fatigues- standard combat uniform
 Frag- Fragmentation grenade
 Flak jacket- filled vest worn to protect from shrapnel
 KIA- Killed In Action
 Klick- 1 kilometer or 1,000 meters (2.5 laps around a track)
 Mama-san: term used for any older Vietnamese woman
 MIA- Missing in Action
 Willy Peter- White Phosphorous (WP)
 WIA- Wounded in Action
 Napalm- a jellied petroleum substance which burns fiercely
 M-16: Standard US Military rifle used from 1966 on
 M-60: Standard lightweight machine gun used by
US forces in Vietnam
 M-79: US Military handheld grenade launcher.
Read: The Things They Carried
 When you finish, make a list of the
physical and emotional “baggage” the
soldiers in The Things They Carried are
carrying
 Separate these categories into two
columns
Which “baggage” weighs
the most?
 Think about the list you made and discuss: Which
baggage is heavier, the physical things you carry, or
the emotional baggage you carry? Explain.
 Now, compare your experiences to the soldiers.
Which of baggage is heavier for them & why?
 “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who
might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were
intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass
and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (20).
“The Things They Carried”
Discussion Questions
 What do you notice about Tim O’Brien’s writing
style? What are some of his key techniques?
 What is it about the first vignette, “The Things They
Carried” that makes it such a strong introduction to
the book?
 What characters are we introduced to and what do
we learn about them?
 What is it about O’Brien’s writing style that makes it
so convincing to the reader?