Things+They+Carried

STUDENT SELECTIONS OF EXTRACTS/QUOTATIONS FROM //THE THINGS THEY CARRIED// TO ILLUSTRATE KEY CHARACTERS Charlie Kiowa, a devout Baptist: Emotional ‘person’ of the Alpha Company who gets people to open up and to whom people open up too

He tried not to think about Ted Lavender, but then he was thinking how fast it was, no drama, down and dead, and how it was hard to feel anything except surprise. It seemed unchristian. He wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger, but the emotion wasn’t there and he couldn’t make it happen. Mostly he felt pleased to be alive. He liked the smell of the New Testament under his check, the leather and ink and paper and glue, whatever the chemicals were. He liked hearing the sounds of night. Even his fatigue, it felt fine, the stiff muscles and the prickly awareness of his own body, a floating feeling. He enjoyed not being dead. Lying there, Kiowa admired Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s capacity for grief. He wanted to share the man’s pain, he wanted to care as Jimmy Cross cared. And yet when he closed his eyes, all he could think was Boon-down, and all he could feel was the pleasure of having his boots off and the fog curling in around him and the damp soil and the Bible smells and the plush comfort of night. (p.17-18) Mariner Edition

•The violence of his death was so striking that “it was hard to feel anything except surprise”. •Doesn’t try to ‘avoid’ the gruesome truth of the death, but is instead omnipresent in his mind. •No emotion, just plain surprise, which is “unchristian” of him. But he feels pleased in still being alive. He finds refuge behind his “New Testament”, with which he soaks all the Christianity out (smells of chemicals, ink, paper, leather and glue). •His physical fatigue makes him feel as if he were floating, which is (I think) ironic seeing he is still physically alive but how his ‘spirit’ or mind isn’t present because he cannot feel any emotion. •Contrast between what he is thinking (death) and what he feels (pleasure of boots off, the smell of the Bible, and the comfort of the night.

Notes added during Class Discussion

Feeling "unchristian" reveals Kiowa feels GUILTY about not feeling what he considers are the appropirate emotions when faced with death of companion e.g grief, loss, sadness. This in turn shows Note irony of Kiowa mis-reading Lt Cross's grief... The narrator has given the reader insights into what Cross really feels
 * emotional damage/breakdown of soldiers
 * soldiers carry burden of guilt
 * guilt also relates to the 'survivor syndrome'

Note sensory imagery ???

25.10.12 Amy **__ Rat Kiley character description __**

Bob “Rat” Kiley is the platoon’s medic. O’Brien has great respect for Kiley’s medical prowess. Though levelheaded and kind, Kiley eventually blows off his toe so that he will be forced to leave his post.

1) “Mary Anne made you think about all those girls back home, how clean and innocent they are, how they’ll never understand any of this, not in a billion years. Try to tell them about it, they’ll just stare at you with those big round candy eyes. They won’t understand zip. It’s like trying to tell someone what chocolate tastes like.” (Page 113)

// Commentary // : Rat Kiley talking about the sense of isolation soldiers feel from their peers back in the United States. While their friends are working at fast food restaurants to raise money for college, the Vietnam young soldiers are killing people and blowing things up. This means they have little in common with former friends when they return.

2) Each morning we’d form up in a long column, the old poppa san out front, and for the whole day we’d troop along after him, playing an exact and ruthless game of ‘follow the leader’. Rat Kiley made up a rhyme that caught on, and we’d be chanting it together : Step out of line, but a min, follow the dink, you’re in the pink. (page 32)

// Commentary: // Rat kiley makes light of a terrible situation by making up a humorous and boyish rhyme. He is a respected soldier amongst their regiment. Amy, you should correct the quotation and write in the meaning of the rhyme that we discussed.

3) Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman or girl. He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He’s nineteen years old – it’s too much for him – so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead and its so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back.

// Commentary: // Here it comes to light how young and innocent Kat Riley is when most of the time he is shown to be quite a responsible and mature man. Explain who is talking here and that this is his judgement. Do we agree with it? Also, you must tackle the language on at least 2 levels - its vulgarity AND the fact this is writing about writing - meta-fiction or meta-cognitive.. Go further!.

Matthew


 * Curt Lemon Character Analysis**

(The extracts were very long, The idea was to select... this is the information I got from them)

- Childish, one of the youngest members of Lt. Jimmy Cross’ platoon

- Good friends with Rat Kiley, both of whom mess around a lot together

- Acts as though he’s a tough soldier, posing and making out he was tough and dangerous

- He’s killed because of his childish behaviour, playing with smoke grenades and sets off a trap. Not really. He walked on it. It wasn't the grenade. No blame.

- Always bragged about made up stories and stupid, dangerous stunts that he had performed to make himself seem better and harder than he was

- War was like a game to him rather than a real danger

- Says he will or wont do something and ends up not staying true to his word. But is this the point? Not being consistent? Go, look further for what O'Brien is saying. e.g. incident with dentist

- Has an urge to prove himself when it's unnecessary e.g. having a tooth pulled out by the dentist seemingly for no reason

You only have the bare bones of a character portrait. The literary analysis requires you to always ask 'So?' What is the point of this? The effect on the reader? The purpose the writer had in mind? The style used and how it contributes to meaning? The themes it evokes? etc. etc.

Matthew Women in The Things They Carried – Martha

- Her role in the novel, as a woman, for Lt. Jimmy Cross is to be a distraction from the harsh realities of the war - Photographs and letters are a “gateway” to home, an occasional reminder that there is a place beyond the war, that there is somewhere they call home Yes, so both pain and pleasure? - Women are used as a reason to strive forward, something to look forward to at the end of the war. - Doesn’t mention the war in her letters – this could suggest two things – she could be ignorant and not realize the harshness and the horrors that the war holds and not ask him about them as she thinks nothing of them. OR she does so as to help Lt Jimmy Cross forget about it for a while - Good alternative interpretations - The enduring distraction that Lt. Jimmy Cross allows himself by thinking of Martha costs him the life of one of his men. She could be represented as a negative distraction as well as a positive one. Yes, but do we completely trust Cross' own self-evaluation anyway? Which themes are brought up here? - Isn’t described as having any sort of emotional values, she seems to be a shell rather than a whole entity. Only a brief, slightly sexual, description is given of her physical aspects – the photo of her playing Volleyball. In the other photo he has of her we are told about aspects such as her eyes and her lips, which could be interpreted as two seduction related parts of her body which don’t reveal who Martha is. Also, he constantly wonders about her virginity, which relates to another aspect of which the men would be thinking of – sex. Once again there is no indication of her having any human, emotional values, only the wonder of whether or not this girl, unknown to us, is a virgin These elements of women not having emotional values but that they are more prizes, a distraction and a link between the war and home suggest that feminist readers would feel as though women are victims as they are not being represented as thinking, feeling beings. **Good thinking, Matthew.** We'll do more on this. Don't forget to look at the later chapter where 'O'Brien' meets Martha.