Throughout the last five chapters in The Things They Carried, the theme that really stuck out the most to me was in the chapter The Living Dead. The theme was even though some people or events have become part of the past, they can become alive through stories. Throughout this book Tim O'Brien had written various stories about the experiences that were encountered in the Vietnam War, he brought the characters such as Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, Kiowa, Norman Bowker, and several more unnamed. The passed events were also brought back to life through the stories. In this chapter in particular, Dave Jensen, Rat Kiley, and Henry Dobbins were introducing themselves to dead people, trying to make light of the situation. Tim O'Brien refused to do so, and Kiowa agreed with him saying it was inappropriate. Then that reminded him of Linda, his first date at age nine. The last paragraph Tim O'Brien states the following: "I'm young and happy. I'll never die. I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story." (OBrien, 233) This is a meaningful quote that wraps up the whole chapter, perhaps the book considering it is the last couple sentences of it. Tim is bringing bits and pieces of his past back to life through the stories that he had written.
After developing a couple of research questions, one question that I had was the following: "What percentage of the armed forces were draftees in Vietnam?" I became curious about this after reading this book because of the situation O'Brien was facing; he had a conflict with being drafted because he had no interest in going to war in Vietnam. I wanted to see approximately how many were drafted as he was. After researching, I found that the total number of draftees from 1965-1973 totaled to 1,728,344 draftees. 25% of the total forces, which is equivalent to 648,500 draftees that were involved in the Vietnam War.
This picture is a picture of four men getting drafted into the war in the year 1965.
Resources
“VIETNAM WAR STATISTICS.” Hebrews, A History Of The Hebrews Including Solomon, history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm.
“Vietnam War Draft.” The Vietnam War, thevietnamwar.info/vietnam-war-draft/.
I really didn't know that that many people where draftees. That was a good research question and im happy I got to read it and find that out.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good research question! I hadn't thought about how many soldiers were draftees until I read this. Now that I know that 1,728,344 people were drafted a whole 25 percent that information is amazing to have in my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your theme of events coming alive through stories. Literature is very powerful in the sense of it altering your mind into remembering things vividly, or persuading you to think that it is the truth, like in O'Brien's case!
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