One thing I found particularly interesting from “In the Field” is how Tim O’Brien uses the shit field as a symbol to represent that the war is hopeless and dreadful. Throughout the story, Tim O’Brien does a very good job with incorporating senses to help the reader understand how smelly, uncomfortable, and disgusting the stink field is. At one point in the story, O’Brien describes a young soldier continuously digging into the ground “as if something might finally be salvaged from all the waste” (173). This soldier is literally digging into shit, hoping to find something, and then coming up with nothing in the end. This symbolically represents the fact that many soldiers at war go through the whole horrendous process trying to find a meaning for the whole thing, but eventually come up with nothing. And in the end, all they are left with is the filth and the effect the war has had on them, the same way this young soldiers ends up only to find his hands and body covered with feces.
I really like what you are saying Jason about how the shit field symbolizes the hopeful nature of the war. I also agree that the strong description of the scene helps the reader visualize it, which I think ties into O’Brien’s argument that the war is unimaginable unless you experience it yourself. However, I think that through his strong description he is at least attempting to overcome this barrier and allow the reader to have the most authentic sense of war that they can. While I think that the shit field could certainly exhibit the process of trying to find meaning when at war, I also think it could represent how much of a waste war is. O’Brien says, “The rain was war and you had to fight it” (156). Through saying that the “rain was war” he is implying that he doesn’t really understand what the war was about. When it was raining it was about rain and if they were somewhere else it would be about something else. The shit shows that they weren’t really out there fighting for something. They were just suffering in a shit field in a meaningless war.
Jason, I agree with your point that O’Brien utilizes the shit field to represent soldiers’ inability to escape the stench and filth of war. Yet what I also find so interesting about the use of the shit field is that it not only speaks to the truth of war, but also to a larger truth of life. The sense of purposeless many American soldiers felt during the Vietnam War is one that many people also experience every day in normal society, though it is on a much greater magnitude. In his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen recalls that “Men marched asleep” in World War I. When soldiers return from war--as we saw before with Norman Bowker--they struggle to remain present in daily life. But soldiers also struggle to be present on the battlefield--as we see through Jimmy Cross’s interactions with a young soldier, who seems to be no more than a reflection of the feelings of inadequacy and guilt inside him. In this way, soldiers can spend their entire lives “marching asleep.” The difference is that during war, soldiers actually see what they are marching through--the shit field of life--and that tangible confrontation with mortality and purposelessness is one most will never have to experience.
Jason, I really liked your interpretation of the shit field as a metaphor for the dreadfulness of war. However, I think that to elaborate, the shit field reveals not just the ugly part of war but how the soldiers are ultimately viewed by society. When Jimmy Cross looks out on the field he notices a boy but cannot recognize him because he is covered with the mud: " The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier, which was exactly how Jimmy Cross had been trained to teat them, as interchangeable units of command" (156). The loss of identity is not just seen by Jimmy Cross--who at least tries to avoid it by treating his men like human beings-- but fueled by society. The environment back home when concerning the war I imagine can be very detached. Unless your son is fighting or someone you know is fighting, you are not thinking of a specific soldier on the battlefield and the language of war is not about the specifics but rather who wins what. Even the deaths are generalized and people stop paying attention to the death counts in the newspapers.
Jason, I really love your analysis. I completely agree that the persistence with which the soldiers searched for Kiowa's body reflects their own cluelessness about war and the haze with which they experience it, grappling for some sign of life in a sea of murky waters and, in this case, literal shit. I felt that the young soldier whose name Lieutenant Jimmy Cross cannot remember embodied this idea most, in his hopeless efforts to find the photograph of his girlfriend, Billie, whose name we do learn, yet his we do not in order to reflect the little importance with which his life is regarded by the cruelness of war: "This picture, it was the only one I had. Right here, I lost it...I had it all wrapped up, I had it in plastic, so it'll be okay if I can...I know for sure it's right here somewhere" (165). Despite the unlikeliness of finding his girlfriend's picture, as well as the unlikeliness of her sending him another one, the young soldier--who is only referred to as a boy, in order to bring attention to the absurdity in throwing someone who has lived for so little time into a full-fledged war--looks on with gloomy dedication. He has nothing left, essentially, except for Billie's picture, a tiny reminder of life outside the metaphorical shit field.
Jason, I really liked your comparison between the shit field and the war. Unlike the WW2, there is no direct enemy, or exposed evil they are fighting. Most of the soldiers were drafted- and seem to be unsure what they are fighting for. There is no glory, no victory, no good vs evil. There is just this war, and the entire thing is pure shit. The soldier's attempt to find meaning in this war in order to justify the deaths of their comrads. They aim to covince themselves that their death was not in vain. But in reality, these men died because of the red scare- a fear that the american government fed on and the public produced. They did not die defending their country, they died playing out our fears- and in no way its their fault. I hope that one day our country will learn to stay out of foreign wars such as vietnam and Iraq by first judging themselves and thought process.
In the short story “Spin,” I found the comparison of war to childhood games interesting. O'Brien says, “on occasion the war was like a Ping-Pong ball” and relates the playing field of war to that of a checkers game: “There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score…. There were rules” (31). By relating the war to a game, O’Brien is commenting on the instability of war. War isn’t easy, clean cut, or orderly; war is strenuous, messy, and spontaneous. Soldiers at war seek a sense of stability and the contrast between the simple rules of a checkers game and the lack of rules of war, highlights this desire. Additionally, being drafted to the war meant that soldiers were forced to grow up before they necessarily wanted to. When Azar kills Ted Lavender’s puppy, he says, “What’s everybody so upset about? I meant, Christ, I’m just a boy” (35). There is a large part of these soldiers that wanted to be “just [boys]” and paralleling the war with childish games is a way for them to escape their reality.
Emma, your focus between the war and games really fascinated me. In my response to "Spin" I discussed how O'Brien creates his stories using undertones of distrust throughout. I agree with your commentary on O'Brien's view on the war about instability. I believe that O'Brien uses this instability in order to segue into what life inside and outside of the war is like; he uses the fantasy versus reality concept in order to identify this. In order for the soldiers to identify their situation, they use the ideology behind a game; however, games and their rules occasionally change, which is another way O'Brien allows readers to question reliability of the single and collection of stories.
Emma, the quote about the checkers game also really stood out to me as I was reading the short story. I think that the quote, There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score…. There were rules” (31), really serves to criticize the Vietnam War. The organizations and "rules" in a game of checkers starkly contrast the unpredictability and chaos of warfare. I think that this unpredictability can be especially applied to the guerrilla warfare, conducted by the Viet Cong during the war and that this has the potential to make a soldier wish the fighting was more systematic and regulated by rules or guidelines. In a game of checkers each player also has the power to decide each move for himself, whereas in war soldiers, and especially low ranking soldiers as seen "In The Field" follow orders blindly even if they believe the orders are controversial.
I think it's really interesting that you saw this parallel as well, as I was almost surprised and shocked that someone could really compare war to just a game, but in reality it really is like a checkers game. You have two sides, and you don't really know what the other side is going to do, but they are going to somehow have to make a decision based on what your move is so it takes a lot of thinking, poise, and attention to really succeed in war. But I do think what's even more interesting is this concept of almost blindly attacking your opponent, because in many ways, you don't really know what you're opponent is planning, so you have to anticipate and really analyze every step. I think O'brien includes this here to bring the readers who may not be as familiar to war, to help them understand a little bit how war works, but of course with less rules.
Emma, your reference to ping pong and checkers as childhood games is super interesting, as that is not how I had viewed them. The reference to Azar being, “just a boy” (35), reminds me of the reference to youthfulness in “Sweatheart of the Song Tra Bong”. Perhaps the constant reference to youthfulness and this sense of innocence or maybe even cluelessness, associated with young age is not so much to provide a way for the soldiers to escape their reality, but to cope with it or to justify it. O Brien says, “Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories” (33). Maybe by saying that they are young and aren’t necessarily fully aware of what they are doing, they are helping themselves understand why they are in the situation that they are in. However, as O’Brien is still telling these stories at an older age and sort of reliving them, gives him a sense of guilt, because he is no longer young and dumb and living that life, yet through his storytelling, it is, “replaying itself over and over” (31).
Emma, I love your focus on O’Brien’s comparison between war and games, and how games are a way to allow them to escape their reality. However, a whole other way to view this is that he is contrasting how the games are so predictable and the war isn’t. For example, with ping-pong, you can always see the other person’s paddle, where the ball is going, and the “score”. Also, with checkers, you can always see all your enemy’s pieces. By this, I think O’Brien is trying to say that although that war can be seen as a strategic game, you never know what will happen next, or your opponent's next move. Another thing to note is that with these two games, the soldiers are the ones playing, however, in the war, the soldiers are just the pieces in the game (and that is why they can never understand what is going on). Lastly, with the “score”, O’Brien shows that in these games, there is always a winner. On the other hand, at war there are people dying constantly on both sides of the battle, so in the end there really is no winner.
In the short story “Spin,” I was particularly intrigued by O’Brien’s use of traffic as a metaphor for the creative process. O’Brien describes his experience writing as one based upon the nature of memory to join past and present experiences: “The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is a pick a street and go for the ride” (35). In this way, O’Brien presents writing almost as a lifestyle in the way that writers allow themselves to be vesicles for stories--sometimes, for stories that are not even their own--and must navigate through the traffic of imperfect and painful memories to hone in on the larger emotional truth or societal value in the stories they can tell. Moreover, O’Brien’s technical, almost surgical tone in “Spin”--exemplified by language like “rotary”--highlights the difference between the voices of O’Brien the writer and the characters that O’Brien creates. By presenting these different perspectives of one continual war story, O’Brien speaks to the fluidity of truth and the varying forms in which it can exist.
In the short story "In the Field", I found that the motif of guilt and blame came up a lot. When the lieutenant Jimmy Cross is coming up with the letter he might send to Kiowa's father he admits to himself that it is his fault that Kiowa is dead and that in the letter he needs to assert who or what is responsible for Kiowa's death: "He would place the blame where it belonged. Tactically, he'd say, it was indefensible ground from the start... Carefully, not covering up his own guilt, he would tell how the mortar rounds made craters in the slush... My own fault, he would say"(162). Though it is significant in itself that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is unable to directly admit the true occurrence and responsibility of Kiowa's death, the true significance lies in the fact that it plays to the larger idea that the war in itself is enough of a chaotic mess that its simple occurrence is blame enough; that everything in between is just a result of its presence. This idea is elaborated at the end of the story when Jimmy Cross list off all the possible sources of blame for when a man dies: " You could blame the war. You could blame the the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it... In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever" (169-170). The process of distancing and refraining yourself from placing direct blame and instead choosing to broaden the spectrum takes only takes Jimmy Cross further away from the truth. Honesty, is an important value to have when you're in a war-- especially in a war in which you are drafted and may not agree with the cause. Tim O'Brien believed that he was a coward for not running away and instead fighting in a war he didn't agree with, thus the best way to hold on to that integrity is to not cut corners and to face the specific truth before you move to the broader more obvious and less painful truth.
In both stories "Spin" and "In the Field," O'Brien uses the motif of childhood to harbor empathy in the reader by bringing in the perspectives of soldiers who are nothing more than boys thrown into a fight. In order to survive the war, many of the soldiers in this collection compare their actions to ordinary games: "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" (32). These parallels between war and their old lives which were void of responsibility creates a more endurable reality. By alluding to childhood games at war, the young men humanize themselves. O'Brien aids them in portraying this image through his writing, as he was in the same position. Later, in "In the Field," Azar tries with the best of his ability to lighten the mood by making jokes that reveal the irony in their situation, like "Eating shit" and "Wasted in waste" (158) in regard to the shit field that consumed Kiowa. While the impact of Azar's comments only further disheartened his companions, his intentions were nothing more than a young boy's, only trying to make himself and the people around him feel better about a situation too heavy for his little shoulders to bear.
Clara, I agree with everything you have written here. It is clear that you not only have a deep understanding of these young soldiers, but that you also grasp the effect that war has on them. It is almost as if O'Brien includes these child-like games in order to emphasize the soldiers' forced adulthood. Through the course of the stories, we see young boys being forced out of their childlike ways, and into, as O'Brien writes, "identical copies of the same soldier" (163). I also think it is valuable that you took the time to recognize Azar's provocative words not as those of a horrible human being, but rather as those of a confused and potentially frightened young boy. It is clear, from the stories, that war can twist and manipulate people, ultimately hardening them and making them less prone to sensitivity and empathy. Perhaps this is the reason why soldiers can never truly overcome the war--and hence why O'Brien has this infatuation with war storytelling. This is also, most likely, the culprit for the PTSD that plagues most soldiers after returning from war.
The story "Spin," I found, worked as a ideological basis for the story "In the Field" -- "Spin" provided the concept of forced adulthood that "In the Field" exemplified. At the very end of "Spin," O'Brien writes, "[s]tories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are" (38). Here, O'Brien highlights the effects of the Vietnam draft: it took young men who were just beginning university and placed them in an unfamiliar land with orders to kill people who had done them no harm. The phrase "you can't remember," showcases how unfathomable it all is - so much so that it is difficult to recount how small boys could have become murderers. "In the Field" furthers this sentiment by exemplifying it in a young soldier: O'Brien writes, "[he was] not a man, really--a boy...In his hooded poncho, everything caked with mud, the boy's face was impossible to make out. The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of the same soldier" (163). By referring to the soldier as a "boy," O'Brien stresses his youth, and by discussing his "identical copies" theory, O'Brien illuminates how, through war, the boys are forced to grow up and become hard, emotionless men. Ultimately, these two stories demonstrate the toll that the Vietnam War, and perhaps any other war, can take on vulnerable boys.
In the story "In The Field," I found the idea of blame interesting. After they find Kiowa's body, Jimmy Cross stays in the field, thinking about his role in the events of the previous night, "When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war...You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations" (170). In most of the stories up until this point, characters exhibit only guilt when a someone dies. Here, however, Cross introduces the potential for external blame, revealing a completely different facet of the war, one that allows for extreme bitterness. Earlier stories touch upon this idea, such as "On the Rainy River," when O'Brien looks back and and curses the obligation his home seems to put on him to go to war; "Speaking of Courage" demonstrates the same point with Norman Bowker when he says "[This town] did not know shit about shit" (137), connecting to Cross's idea of blaming people "who were too lazy to read a newspaper."
I like your idea of blame being an idea, especially because the stories have been about war the idea of blame is very important. I also like how you explained different ways of blame, "You could blame the idiots who made the war" and "you could blame the war" that was very clear and helpful.
In the story "Spin" one thing I found particularly interesting was how O'Brien continually allows the reader to question the reliability of the story throughout. In the beginning of "Spin" O'Brien reintroduces the theme of the whole collection by discussing how "the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance" (31). Here, O'Brien once again emphasizes how not only he as an author is questioned but also the stories of the soldiers is questioned--displacing the stories into reality. I think O'Brien does this in order to shed light on how war affects soldiers; that people take away from the hardship and replace it with gratitude. This is likely how O'Brien identifies with his hardships and attempts to uncover those that soldiers face and cover up.
I agree, I also feel like the title “Spin” is significant to "storytelling" itself because when a story is retold sometimes people put their own "spin" on it. The action of spinning is to go around and around to get dizzy in an endless cycle and that is sort of similar to what the war does. The war's dizziness is not temporary though, because it rattles the brains of soldiers manipulating their memories, beliefs, confusing reality with imagination leaving them with only stories.The narrator describes stories as infinite: “stories are for joining the past and the future...when memory is erased, there is nothing to remember except the story” (38) Each of the stories the carry are deeper than memory because it's easier to suppress or ignore a memory or forget one compared to a story.The war stories that are told are forever and they teach more of a lesson than a memory could.
In the short story, “Spin,” an aspect of the writing that I found interesting was how people who are apart of the war remember certain memories from their previous lives. This has been a reoccurring idea throughout the stories that occur during war, of what people should remember and what people should leave behind them. Furthermore, O’Brien decides to reveal that “What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and end” (34). With this, he adds on, a memory that Norman Bowker has brought along with him, “If I could have one wish, anything, I’d wish for my dad to write me a letter and say it’s okay If I don’t win any medals (34).” After being exposed to Norman Bowker’s thoughts from inside his own mind, readers now know that soldiers are carrying pressure with them from their previous lives, to war. Soldiers remember the things that their family members would mention in the slightest sense, that maybe they would never remember, however when they got to war, that little thing would serve as their most important obligation. In reality a medal is meaningless, the aspect that really matters in pleasing a parent or a loved one is doing the best that a soldier can possibly do, and serving in the war itself. However, to the father of Norman Bowker, the medal that essentially will sit in a house all day and serve no purpose, will be the only source to understanding all of his sons accomplishments. O’Brien mentions this to highlight the added pressure and mindset that soldiers arrive at war with, in order to show that they can not fully live up to their own wants and desires, because when entering the war they must be brave, tough, and focus primarily on the lives, needs, and wants of the people of their nation.
In the short story “Spin,” I thought it was interesting how O'brien connected two extremes like childhood, which had a positive connotation and war, and brought the two together to show the differences. O'Brien says, "the war was like a Ping-Pong ball” and relates the playing field of war to that of a checkers game: There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. (34)It's odd that O'brien connects war to a game, but he does so to make a point of how these soldiers almost have to treat it like a game. War is not like a game, war is extremely messy and a difficult subject matter. Soldiers at war need certain guidance and the contrast between the simple rules of a checkers game and the lack of rules of war, furthermore shows that. Also, being drafted to the war meant that soldiers were forced to grow up before they necessarily wanted to. And they had to take on certain responsibilities very early on they may not have been expecting or were mature enough to really grasp.
Felix, I think your analysis is very interesting and I would like to add a bit. Relating back to the presentation we saw in class, we saw how society is very surprised just by hearing astonishing facts about war. Therefore, I was also thinking how for society, war might just be meaningless game. And I think that is because society doesn't have any personal experience with the war, therefore they easily judge war as a game. I also thought it was interesting how you related it back to the fact that war doesn't have any rules, the way a game does. I was thinking that maybe this is connected to human nature and maybe human nature has no rules. Because if the rule of human nature was kindness, war wouldn't exist. Just an interesting thought.
Felix, this riveting response has literally opened my eyes to a new perspective on war stories. Initially, I did not see the connection you tried to make, that somehow childhood and war were connected. With the checkers metaphor, I think O'Brien wanted to show the inevitable immaturity of these soldiers, who were extremely young men keep in mind. This transitions perfectly into what you said about the war being a game started before the game of growing up had even finished. I thought back to our class discussions about PTSD and I could reasonably assume that young soldiers are more prone to more severe cases of PTSD due to their lack of wisdom and development. Connecting this to my own response, I feel like the risk of being traumatized by the aftermath of war can easily be combatted through lots of writing about the experiences themselves. I hope we continue our discussion tomorrow in class.
In the short story "Spin," I found it interesting how Jimmy Cross claims that Kiowa's death was unfair because he was too good to die. This is proven when in the book it states, "Kiowa had been a fine soldier and... a good man to be lost under the slime of a shit field"(103). In general, soldiers participate in war mostly to give back and protect our citizens. Therefore, they choose to risk their lives for our safety. But when Jimmy Cross says that he didn't deserve to die, I interpreted that in a way that Kiowa was probably never ready to sacrifice his life for others, while he should've been because he's a soldier. However if he had the mentality in which he was ready to sacrifice his life for others, then the war shows the dramatic change it causes to the mind. Which is that: war is so strong that it can lead one from a mentality of fighting for others safety into believing a survival of the fittest mentality, in which soldiers rethink about sacrificing their lives for others.
Parminder, there are aspects of your response that I agree and disagree with. Although it may be true that some soldiers participate in war to protect their country, I do not believe this applies here, as it is the Vietnam War, and the majority of these soldiers have been drafted against their will. Contrary to your claim, Tim O'Brien himself says that he did not want to participate in the war, almost escaping to Canada to avoid it; yet O'Brien ends up "sliding gracefully from Vietnam to graduate school, from Quang Ngai to Harvard" (151). Similarly to Kiowa, O'Brien was drafted and is in Vietnam forcefully, not voluntarily. Yet O'Brien gets off easily, which I believe is more thanks to luck, than to his mindset-- as that is how unpredictable war is.
I understand your point Parminder and I agree that some soldiers do volunteer for war, but I don’t think that Cross thinks that Kiowa was not ready to protect and serve. Considering this is the Vietnam War, many soldiers had been drafted and forced to go to war despite their motives on the war. When Cross says that Kiowa was a “fine solder and… a good man to be lost under the slime of a shit field,” I think it was more that he could have had a completely different life if it weren’t for the war (103). I think that it revolves more around the idea of guilt, and Lieutenant Cross feeling that the only reason why Kiowa died was because of him. This is why he begins to write a letter to his father in his head, in a way to understand the whole situation and deal with the guilt he feels.
Parminder, I agree with Lilith, although in some cases soldiers participate in war to give back and protect our citizens, I don’t think that applies in this situation considering that the majority of these soldiers have been drafted against their will. Also while reading “In The Field” I interpreted Kiowa more of a brave, outgoing person. Unlike the other soldier Kiowa always maintained with a positive attitude, “The rain the cold and the steady, the water rising to their knees, but how Kiowa had just laughed it off and said they should concentrate on better things.” (163) Although we don’t know how Kiowa felt when he was told he had to fight in this war, he definitely learned to deal with the possibility that with a blink of an eye his life could end, which is why he often wanted to concentrate on better things.
In the war story "In the Field", Tim Obrien highlights the idea of blame. Following Kiowa's death, every character carries a sense of responsibility: " When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the war. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, the climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read the newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame god. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote" (page 170). This quote speaks volumes. In essence, governments wage wars- yet the burden and responsibility of the war falls on the soldiers. Soldiers, whom experience things that no man can carry. Their trauma leads to acts of violence, and poor decisions during the war. The blame of the war falls on the governments, but also the people who neglect to educate themselves nor participate in government. I wrote out the entire quote because the progression of the blame was fascinating.
In the short story "In the Field", the motif of blame and guilt was repeated and symbolized through Kiowa's death. Being stuck in and engulfed into the mud is parallel to how the soldier's internal struggle of being trapped by the war. Cross blames himself for Kiowa's death and the young soldier does as well and the rest of the soldiers search someone to blame. Putting one person at fault is easier to cope with the death and it helps excuse the actual culprit: the war itself. Norman Booker explains how it's nobody's fault but everybody's (176) which shows that it's harder to accept that tragedy occurs indirectly. Cross later acknowledges that pinning it on someone or something doesn't change what happened or bring Kiowa back, “in the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever”( 177).The war and everyone involved in it is technically responsible and the same time aren't.
I agree with your analysis on how most of the short story was spent on the soldiers' reflecting on Kiowa's death and attempting to place blame onto someone. Their internal struggles of being trapped in the war may be their reasons for lashing out on one another, and resulting in them blaming one another for the death of their comrade. The war itself, being the actual reason for Kiowa's death, is unable to be placed because they are so engulfed in it that their perspectives do not shift away from being within the war zone. I believe that Tim O'Brien also wanted there to be an aspect of the war being an output for the blame and anger that they exert towards one another. Whenever they are unreasonably angry at one another and do something irrational, those actions are blamed on the war, with them saying that it is Vietnam leading them to such things. Cross acknowledging that blame doesn't bring someone back is an example of him accepting that the war is the one thing that is changing everyone and forcing them to act against their usual selves.
The short story "Spin" discusses how in some cases war was not always grim and that O'Brien recalls several instances that he would even describe as sweet. O'Brien talks about himself as he writes the book and argues that writing about certain memories especially ones that are difficult to process aids in the coping of them. O'Brien describes an old man that guided his platoon through a mine field on the Batangan Peninsula and how upon leaving several soldiers gave him their C rations and even started to tear up. This experience and several others that O'Brien discusses in "Spin" starkly contrast the experience in the short story "In The Field." O'Brien portrays the unforgiving terrain of Vietnam as the soldiers seek their comrade in a field of shit. The story also discusses how morally conflicting the death of a fellow platoon member could be. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross struggles to come to terms with the fact that he had his men set up camp in a virtually defenseless shit field even though he ultimately knew better. Again O'Brien criticizes the system of commands that is enforced in the military, one that causes soldiers to do things even if they can assess better options. Likewise, another young soldier whose name Jimmy Cross can not remember feels that he is the reason for Kiowa's death and struggles to come to terms with this. The two short stories contrast each other, but in "Spin" O'Brien acknowledges both the good and bad experiences that he had during the Vietnam War.
Unlike "In the Field", the piece "Spin" is less of a story and more of a self-reflection by Tim O'Brien. Rather than the chapter being one full story, the author chooses to write several shorter stories to paint a bigger picture about war stories and what they mean coming from a veteran. To do such, he writes it in vignette form, creating a choppy, yet vibrant effect to the work. He also personalizes the ending, which I thought was the strongest part of the story. He says that even though the war happened half a lifetime ago, "remembering [it] makes it now" (36). This reminds the reader of the story-telling tone of the book while also highlighting the book's moral of the importance of telling stories. He continues: " Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for eternity..."This is almost poetic in a sense and the echo of the words stories shows how much meaning can be in a story
Rene, you have a very interesting perspective on the short story “Spin,” it is interesting to take into account every little detail that the author chooses to incorporate into his overall story. To further your point, as to why Tim O’Brien choose to include the point, “Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story,” (36) I believe he does it in order to emphasize how large of a meaning stories can have. Through these stories that Tim O’Brien writes, readers are not only given knowledge of the story, but each story is followed by a lesson that should stay with readers, beyond just reading the book. To view a clear example in the this story, Norman Bowker reveals that he wishes that his father forget about the fact that he must come home with medal, by including this small idea, readers are left with a larger massage and hope that by mixing the past with the present maybe the human mind can change their view on what is worth valuing. The larger meaning here would be that one day Norman’s dad would be able to see him for the handwork, bravery, and effort he has put into fighting a war, rather that the medal, that he feels shows all his dedication that he has applied during the war. If stories have a meaning and a lasting impact there is a reason for them to be heard, and I think that Tim O’Brien really wanted people to know what goes on, on the side that we never get to see a perspective from, in this case the soldiers perspective.
Great analysis! I found that Tim O’Brien’s choppy writing style in Spin also illustrated a lot about the war itself. It was interesting to see how O’Brien thinks about war when he looks back on it. I was surprised to see him describing happy moments as well because of his cynical view of war. Also, I read the other story before Spin and so those shorter stories contrasted with the depressing tone of the one about Kiowa. Even though he was physically detached from all of the commotion and violence of the war, he still remembered very specific moments that stood out, regardless of their broader significance. I think that when you look back on a difficult or complicated period of time in your life it can be really hard to see the bigger picture. This is shown through Spin because O’Brien is breaking down his experiences into little moments that are more digestible for him and the readers.
In the chapter “In The Field”, the men come across Kiowa’s knapsack while searching for him. Although they have yet to find Kiowa, the rucksack triggers the men: “The three did not speak for a time. The pack was heavy with mud and water, dead-looking. Inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated New Testament… [the rucksack] had the curious look of flesh” (159). Oddly, the description of the bag becomes very personified, as the narrator calls it “dead-looking” and seems like “flesh”. It is almost as the soldiers had found Kiowa himself, rather than just his bag. Their reaction becomes logical when looking back at the first chapter, where the narrator describes the things soldiers carry; the select few personal items were things the soldiers had deemed necessary, and for Kiowa those were his moccasins, and the New Testament his father had given him. Kiowa used these items for a connection back home, something soldiers rarely let go of– hence when he loses these beloved items, it scares his fellow soldiers, leading them to assume he is dead.
The short story "Spin," is a collection of anecdotes that are seemingly not connected to each other, although they all are the author's and his fellow soldiers' experiences at war. The story is very fragmented, conveying to the reader that all the anecdotes are written from memory; his thoughts and emotions fluctuate as he traverses down the memory lane. The frequent shift in O' Brien's view of the war from clear and stable to hazy also conveys what war truly is, it is not "well-ordered and rational like a game of checkers"; in a war situation, soldiers find themselves juggling between the acts of brutality and kindness simultaneously, steering through the valley of death, mourning and the celebration of being alive all at the same time.
In the short story "In the Field", the shit field is used to represent the reality of war that no soldier can escape. The shit field engulfs Kiowa, who was an honorable comrade and a friend to many of the other soldiers: “He remembered pulling hard, but how the field seemed to pull back like a tug-of-war he couldn’t win” (171).The young soldiers interaction with the field, reflects each one of the soldiers inability to escape the horrors of war. This game of “tug-of-war” is meant to reflect the soldiers attempt to connect with their emotions and their coping mechanisms. Although ultimately many of the soldiers choose the reality of the war over their coping mechanism, as seen through Lieutenant Cross in “The Things they Carried.” The young soldier mentioned in this short story carries around a picture of his girlfriend that is taken by the shit field: “So what about Billie… My girl. What about her? This picture, it was the only one I had. Right here, I lost it” (172). This picture is a physical object that allows the young soldier to connect back to his old life. The shit field taking his picture, resembles the inability to escape war and how the war tends to take all the things that are meaningful to the soldiers.
Clarence, this is a very interesting point, I had never thought about it to the extent that you did. I loved how you broke down the quote about “tug-of-war” in the book. That quote is a perfect example of what O’Brien has been trying to explain throughout the book. Every time people like Kiowa try to fight back War is just stronger. Additionally, the fact that young soldiers photo is capture by the war further illustrates the human “tug-of-war” that all the soldiers are living in. It is the only thing that brings him back home which is used to fight against the war. The war inevitably takes the soldiers war. You clearly explained this to the best ability. Great job!
Clarence, I completely agree with you. I feel that the sewage field is symbolic of the war, I doesn't mean anything to most of the soldiers and it is unclean. Just like Kiowa is completely folded in the sewage field, Bowker finds himself sinking deeper into the war and never being able to come out of it. The war consumes him completely. Because of its effects on him, he remains embedded in that part of his life, not resurfacing to the present. Ultimately, it takes his life, just like the sewage field took Kiowa's.
Clarence your analysis is very interesting as it brings up points I had not thought about while reading "In the Field." I agree with you that the "tug-of-war" the field seemed to be playing represented on a larger scale how soldiers in Vietnam became trapped there, and unable to return. I also like how you connect the picture being taken away from the soldier to how a war can strip soldiers of their human side and makes them unable to connect with their homeland and see war as the only life they belong in.
Something I found Interesting from "In the Field" was that we were hearing the story from someone other Rat. I also like how we see another idea of how war effects people with the previous story and now we see a different one with Azar. Azar shows a transformation seeing actual death changes his perspective on the death of others.
These realizations of the theme of perspective are definitely something that will be used with throughout the collection and is great that you picked up on this. If you were to have a body paragraph in an essay on this you could compare how Rat tells his fallen friends war story and how Jimmy Cross talks about Kiowa's life during the war. Of course the comparisons do not stop there, as another example could be how Mary Anne is portaited or even what was revealed to us in "Notes" about the author.
What I found very interesting was how Tim O’Brien indirectly compares “On The Rainy River” to “In The Field”. It is funny how something hundreds of pages a way can be so similar. I found it so similar because, O’Brien calls this field the the shit field basically something that cannot be escaped which is what the war was to O’Brien when he was drafted. Clearly he was opposed to the war but for some reason he still left for naum. O’Brien describes the field when he talks about the death of Kiowa: “He remembered pulling hard, but how the field seemed to pull back like a tug-of-war he couldn’t win” (171). The power of war is being shown here because even before people were in the war they could not escape (O’Brien opting to leave) and then we see it take over others inside the war when Kiowa dies.
One thing that stood out to me in “Spin”, was how it brings up the idea of storyteliing which seems to be significant through most of the short stories. To describe the war, O’Brien says, “On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance” (31). A little later, O’Brien says, “I sit at a typewriter and stare through my words and watch Kiowa sinking into the deep muck of a shit field, or Curt Lemon hanging in pieces from a tree” (31). O’Brien uses the ping pong reference and the ability to “put a fancy spin” on things to highlight the contrast between the types of war stories people want to hear, vs the reality of the situations. Because O’Brien says “You could put a spin on it” and “On occasions”, he implies that this “spin” is not natural. It is something that you have to knowingly do to change something and to take it from its natural state to make it “fancy” and appealing to others. The fact that he says “On occasions” highlights the very reality and brutality of the war because sometimes things are so outrageous that they cannot even be lightened up. He also emphasizes the natural brutality when he describes how he sees Kiowa and Curt Lemon while trying to write a story. Sometimes a story cannot be lightened up and it needs to be told in its truest form.
The symbolization of the objects found within Kiowa's rucksack after his death, created an atmosphere of the horrors of war which Tim O'Brien has been attempting to portray. When the soldier group was making their way through the mud they found a rucksack which they identified to be Kiowa's and "inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated New Testament…it had the curious look of flesh” (159). Kiowa's prized possessions being covered in that mud and filth shows the contrast between the country they love versus the place that they are stuck in to fight. The filth covering their prized objects signifies that Vietnam has covered all of them in the sense that every aspect of them will now be somewhat tainted by going through the war and being forced to endure Vietnam. The war has forced them to leave behind some of the things they love because of all that they had to go through in order to fight for their country and defend America's values. This may go even against their own beliefs, such as Kiowa's moccasins which signify his Native American heritage and the "distrust of white man" that he brought with him originally.
In “In the Field” by Tim O’Brien I thought that how Kiowa was described at the beginning was very interesting. The author thought that he was “a fine soldier and a fine human being, [and] a devout Baptist” (163). O’Brien easily condenses Kiowa’s life into these three simple descriptions because he feels that they were the most important things to Kiowa. What caught my attention was the order that they were listed in. First came “a fine soldier” because that was all he was in the war; a dispensable soldier. He couldn’t let his emotions get in the way because emptiness was valued. I think this is why “a fine human being” was secondary to soldier and why it was important to include it; if he was the perfect soldier he couldn’t let himself be too human and overthink the war. Additionally, “devout Baptist” was listed last because I could understand how witnessing his death could make someone question their faith, or even illustrate how O’Brien felt that Kiowas religion didn’t help him in the war. However, Lieutenant Cross “preferred to view his men not as units but as human beings” (164). He couldn’t let Kiowa sink into the field because he saw him as more than just a soldier.
Bella, I agree with everything you've said here because my response was based off of the way O’Brien describes Kiowa as well. I love the way you broke down each of the descriptions as well as analyze deeply about why Kiowa was described the way he was in the book. Now that I think about it, (referring back to my response) Kiowa could've been described as a "devout baptist" at the beginning of the book to simply introduce to the reader what kind of person Kiowa is and what he carried with him, and then mentioned again in "In the Field" after Kiowa's death to emphasize how, like you said, Kiowa's religion didn't help him in the war. It’s a saddening reality that no matter what these soldiers bring with them to the war to mentally prepare themselves for what’s to come, it can never prevent them from dying in the war, if they were destined to die.
In “In the Field”, what I found particularly interesting was O’Brien’s repetitive description of Kiowa as a “devout baptist” (156). It’s interesting that “devout baptist” shows up multiple times in the book whenever Kiowa is mentioned, as if there is no other way to describe or classify him than by mentioning his religious beliefs. Because these soldiers are all in the same situation, doing the same thing together, they’re judged based on “the things they carry”, which makes them somewhat unique from each other. With everyone having an equal status, it’s hard to determine how people are in their normal lives, but the things that they have with them give a glimpse of their life back home, as well as their characteristics as normal people rather than soldiers fighting in a war. Having carried the illustrated New Testament that was gifted to him by his father, Kiowa is repeatedly described as a “fine human being, a devout baptist” because that’s all the other soldiers know of him (156).
One thing that is particularly interesting about "In the Field" is the similarities it has with "How to Write a Real War Story". One such common trait is how both stories do not dwell on the death of soldier like it is a momentous event or that he died in the most honorable way, such like Kiowa: "Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous" (170). The blunt nature of the language used makes Kiowa's death only momentary lapse in what will be war of thousands more deaths. The words "dumb and dangerous" used to describe a reminder of mortality like this also add to the humiliation and truth that not all soldiers can die the way "a real solider would".
In the short story “Spin” I found O’Brien’s use of the game checkers in contrast to the war to be interesting. When talking about his memory of Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers, O’Brien describes the game: “The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies… There were rules” (32). The fact that there were no tunnels, mountains or jungles and just a plain grid to play on shows that there were no places to hide; you and your opponent were in plain sight. The fact that you knew where you stood and know the score shows that there’s no vagueness while playing the game. Furthermore the fact that there are rules shows that the game has regulations that help guide the game. In contrast, in war you and your enemy are constantly out of plain sight as to not be discovered which can heighten fear and, at times, soldiers may begin to question the purpose of fighting in the war because they are uncertain of what’s actually going on. More importantly, unlike the game, war does not have a set of rules that both sides must follow. War’s lack of rules is what causes it to be chaotic and detrimental for the soldiers as they are completely clueless as to what will happen to them next. Because of this, O’Brien describes the game of checkers as “restful”, “orderly”, and “reassuring” So, through the game of checkers, the soldiers are able to find their own sense of serenity in the chaos of war.
Throughout “In the Field” the motif of guilt stood out to me. After Kiowa death Lieutenant Jimmy Cross starts feeling really guilty about his death even though nothing he did would of stopped Kiowa from dieing at that moment. Through this experience he reveals how much he dislike taking the role of leadership, he reveal that, “He did not care one way or the other about war, and he had to desire to command.” (161) which ultimately make me wonder if this is what make him feel guilty about Kiowa death, perhaps if he would of been more committed to the role of leadership maybe this would’ve not happened. Furthermore, the other soldiers also felt guilt “Whenever a man died it was always the same, a desire to get it over with quickly” ultimately revealing that this feeling of guilt when one dies does not only apply to the leader of the team but also to the rest of the team (159). Additionally, this makes me wonder if the fact that they had a desire to get it over with quickly has anything to do with “machismo”. Feeling guilt can cause them to feel emotional eventually breaking down something that we’ve learn does not fit into male stereotype. I find it particularly interesting how even at war masculinity is important, even at war a men can’t break down. It make wonder if there is any appropriate time when a men can actually break down.
While reading "Spin" the thing that stood out the most to me was the way O'Brien wrote this passage. The fragmented structure of this chapter speaks to the way in which veterans voices are ignored after wars. O'Brien including this passage seeks to give voice to the people who have been ignored by society. The diversity of stories within the chatter show the reader that every soldier has their own story. Moreover I believe the purpose of the chapter was to show how by listening to the stories of veterans it can keep us from entering into pointless wars again like Vietnam. This is clearly seen when he writes,"Stories are for joint the past and the future." (36)
Harry I agree with you and not only does it look at other perspectives. Furthermore it differentiates the ordinary and stereotypical view of Vietnam, war, and the soldiers’ experiences. The novel doesn’t show many perspectives which is a clear critique in the novel. Also, throughout the book as I stated in my previous post many people have a classic stereotypical view that the soldiers have an easy win and a war in many wars and they come back home to their love ones to tell many great war stories. However, that was definitely not the case in the story there were many terrible terrains and conditions and in the Vietnam War in general many people died and the United States of America lost. This shows how America is not unbeatable and many people die during wars and it is not a good time for soldiers at all despite if they win or lose the war(s) it is a very traumatic event.
In many of the stories in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, many of his stories ended up to be glorious and relatively easy. However in the story In the Field events did not turn out very well and the road was very hard. “They moved slowly in the rain. Leaning forward, heads down, they used the butts of their weapons as probes, wading across the field to the river and then turning and wading back again. They were tired and miserable; all they wanted now was to get it finished. Kiowa was gone. He was under the mud and water, folded in with the war, and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to some place dry and war. It had been a hard night.” (155) He says it has been a hard night, showing that there were other nights similar to this or possible worse than it.
In Tim OBrien’s story ‘Spin’, what I found most interesting was the concept of youth and innocence in the war. In this chapter O’Brien explains how the average age of the platoon “was nineteen or twenty”(35). It’s interesting to see how one of the soldiers, Azar, blew up a puppy with a mine, and then seemed so nonchalant about it, defending himself by saying, “what’s everybody so upset about?... I mean, Christ, I’m just a boy” (35). Azar uses his age to deflect the consequences of his actions since he is just ‘a boy’, meaning he did not actually mean what he did. Later, in the chapter ‘In the Field’, we once again see Azar who is making jokes after the death of one of their own: “‘Eating shit– it’s your classic irony’...‘Fine… Now pipe down’”(158). Others do not find his jokes to be funny during this devastating time but he continues, since he believes he has no consequences. At the end of this chapter, Azar experiences a change as he feels guilty for what he said, he feels like “it was [his] fault” (168). He realizes that he is no longer ‘just a boy’ and that there are consequences to his actions. This depicts how war destroys youth and causes the young to mature quickly.
I love the way you focused on the theme of innocence and consequences in the setting of a war zone. I did not think about that meanwhile I connected the structure of the writing in "Spin" to the mental state of a soldier with little time to process the horrors of war. I particularly took note on how the war zone makes them conscious of their actions at such a young age and connecting this back to class on thursday to what Ilana Cohen said, going to war and possibly coming back home leads to this rapid age gap that the war forces on soldiers that makes them mature at such a young age. Being drafted in your teens leads to an impairment in age development in which you beautifully captured in your analysis in Azar's action at war and how he was not yet faced with this necessary maturity to survive.
Something I found very interesting "Spin" was the disconnect between the stories or memories 0'Brien mentions. In describing the war and the little things that happened between the horrors, these little short stories that almost have no connection are a direct connection to the trauma once returning to war. O'Brien states, "What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end" (36). The way this chapter is structure stylistically being all scattered and incomprehensible directly correlates to the way surviving soldiers return into normal society feeling shattered or "fragmented." In this chapter, O’Brien is telling stories that originate from his memory. These memories are filled with random acts of nightmares and sweetness and O’Brien's transitions from a balanced to a disillusioned evaluation of the war comments on how out of place one is after war with the struggle of remembering the good or the bad. This portrays his inability to cope the with fragments of memories he is forced to write down on paper by his daughter. In addition O'Brien says "Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story" (38). Although this chapter was like an unknown map we have to navigate through like they did, the stories they were unable to process haunts them like the disorganization of missing information in this chapter haunts the reader.
Daniel, I love how you focused on the structure of the story and the effect it had on it. The incomprehensibility of this chapter i feel shows the scatteredness of the soldiers once they go home, they have no idea how to react to what they just experienced. I completely agree to your idea that it leaves them ‘fragmented’. This concept is also witnessed in the other chapters where Norman feels a need to have the stories in his head put in order and told, which obrien fails to do the first time. I also like your insight on how it brings out the good and bad of war. It’s interesting that something as bad and devastating as war could have good memories too, and it’s definitely reflected in obrien’s difficulty in remaining on one storyline, as you said. And finally, your analysis comparing the chapter to a map is also really interesting. It’s almost as if the soldiers are lost in their own mind due to their inability to ground themselves on a story.
One thing I found particularly interesting from “In the Field” is how Tim O’Brien uses the shit field as a symbol to represent that the war is hopeless and dreadful. Throughout the story, Tim O’Brien does a very good job with incorporating senses to help the reader understand how smelly, uncomfortable, and disgusting the stink field is. At one point in the story, O’Brien describes a young soldier continuously digging into the ground “as if something might finally be salvaged from all the waste” (173). This soldier is literally digging into shit, hoping to find something, and then coming up with nothing in the end. This symbolically represents the fact that many soldiers at war go through the whole horrendous process trying to find a meaning for the whole thing, but eventually come up with nothing. And in the end, all they are left with is the filth and the effect the war has had on them, the same way this young soldiers ends up only to find his hands and body covered with feces.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you are saying Jason about how the shit field symbolizes the hopeful nature of the war. I also agree that the strong description of the scene helps the reader visualize it, which I think ties into O’Brien’s argument that the war is unimaginable unless you experience it yourself. However, I think that through his strong description he is at least attempting to overcome this barrier and allow the reader to have the most authentic sense of war that they can. While I think that the shit field could certainly exhibit the process of trying to find meaning when at war, I also think it could represent how much of a waste war is. O’Brien says, “The rain was war and you had to fight it” (156). Through saying that the “rain was war” he is implying that he doesn’t really understand what the war was about. When it was raining it was about rain and if they were somewhere else it would be about something else. The shit shows that they weren’t really out there fighting for something. They were just suffering in a shit field in a meaningless war.
DeleteJason, I agree with your point that O’Brien utilizes the shit field to represent soldiers’ inability to escape the stench and filth of war. Yet what I also find so interesting about the use of the shit field is that it not only speaks to the truth of war, but also to a larger truth of life. The sense of purposeless many American soldiers felt during the Vietnam War is one that many people also experience every day in normal society, though it is on a much greater magnitude. In his poem Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen recalls that “Men marched asleep” in World War I. When soldiers return from war--as we saw before with Norman Bowker--they struggle to remain present in daily life. But soldiers also struggle to be present on the battlefield--as we see through Jimmy Cross’s interactions with a young soldier, who seems to be no more than a reflection of the feelings of inadequacy and guilt inside him. In this way, soldiers can spend their entire lives “marching asleep.” The difference is that during war, soldiers actually see what they are marching through--the shit field of life--and that tangible confrontation with mortality and purposelessness is one most will never have to experience.
DeleteJason, I really liked your interpretation of the shit field as a metaphor for the dreadfulness of war. However, I think that to elaborate, the shit field reveals not just the ugly part of war but how the soldiers are ultimately viewed by society. When Jimmy Cross looks out on the field he notices a boy but cannot recognize him because he is covered with the mud: " The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier, which was exactly how Jimmy Cross had been trained to teat them, as interchangeable units of command" (156). The loss of identity is not just seen by Jimmy Cross--who at least tries to avoid it by treating his men like human beings-- but fueled by society. The environment back home when concerning the war I imagine can be very detached. Unless your son is fighting or someone you know is fighting, you are not thinking of a specific soldier on the battlefield and the language of war is not about the specifics but rather who wins what. Even the deaths are generalized and people stop paying attention to the death counts in the newspapers.
DeleteJason, I really love your analysis. I completely agree that the persistence with which the soldiers searched for Kiowa's body reflects their own cluelessness about war and the haze with which they experience it, grappling for some sign of life in a sea of murky waters and, in this case, literal shit. I felt that the young soldier whose name Lieutenant Jimmy Cross cannot remember embodied this idea most, in his hopeless efforts to find the photograph of his girlfriend, Billie, whose name we do learn, yet his we do not in order to reflect the little importance with which his life is regarded by the cruelness of war: "This picture, it was the only one I had. Right here, I lost it...I had it all wrapped up, I had it in plastic, so it'll be okay if I can...I know for sure it's right here somewhere" (165). Despite the unlikeliness of finding his girlfriend's picture, as well as the unlikeliness of her sending him another one, the young soldier--who is only referred to as a boy, in order to bring attention to the absurdity in throwing someone who has lived for so little time into a full-fledged war--looks on with gloomy dedication. He has nothing left, essentially, except for Billie's picture, a tiny reminder of life outside the metaphorical shit field.
DeleteJason, I really liked your comparison between the shit field and the war. Unlike the WW2, there is no direct enemy, or exposed evil they are fighting. Most of the soldiers were drafted- and seem to be unsure what they are fighting for. There is no glory, no victory, no good vs evil. There is just this war, and the entire thing is pure shit. The soldier's attempt to find meaning in this war in order to justify the deaths of their comrads. They aim to covince themselves that their death was not in vain. But in reality, these men died because of the red scare- a fear that the american government fed on and the public produced. They did not die defending their country, they died playing out our fears- and in no way its their fault. I hope that one day our country will learn to stay out of foreign wars such as vietnam and Iraq by first judging themselves and thought process.
DeleteIn the short story “Spin,” I found the comparison of war to childhood games interesting. O'Brien says, “on occasion the war was like a Ping-Pong ball” and relates the playing field of war to that of a checkers game: “There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score…. There were rules” (31). By relating the war to a game, O’Brien is commenting on the instability of war. War isn’t easy, clean cut, or orderly; war is strenuous, messy, and spontaneous. Soldiers at war seek a sense of stability and the contrast between the simple rules of a checkers game and the lack of rules of war, highlights this desire. Additionally, being drafted to the war meant that soldiers were forced to grow up before they necessarily wanted to. When Azar kills Ted Lavender’s puppy, he says, “What’s everybody so upset about? I meant, Christ, I’m just a boy” (35). There is a large part of these soldiers that wanted to be “just [boys]” and paralleling the war with childish games is a way for them to escape their reality.
ReplyDeleteEmma, your focus between the war and games really fascinated me. In my response to "Spin" I discussed how O'Brien creates his stories using undertones of distrust throughout. I agree with your commentary on O'Brien's view on the war about instability. I believe that O'Brien uses this instability in order to segue into what life inside and outside of the war is like; he uses the fantasy versus reality concept in order to identify this. In order for the soldiers to identify their situation, they use the ideology behind a game; however, games and their rules occasionally change, which is another way O'Brien allows readers to question reliability of the single and collection of stories.
DeleteEmma, the quote about the checkers game also really stood out to me as I was reading the short story. I think that the quote, There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score…. There were rules” (31), really serves to criticize the Vietnam War. The organizations and "rules" in a game of checkers starkly contrast the unpredictability and chaos of warfare. I think that this unpredictability can be especially applied to the guerrilla warfare, conducted by the Viet Cong during the war and that this has the potential to make a soldier wish the fighting was more systematic and regulated by rules or guidelines. In a game of checkers each player also has the power to decide each move for himself, whereas in war soldiers, and especially low ranking soldiers as seen "In The Field" follow orders blindly even if they believe the orders are controversial.
DeleteI think it's really interesting that you saw this parallel as well, as I was almost surprised and shocked that someone could really compare war to just a game, but in reality it really is like a checkers game. You have two sides, and you don't really know what the other side is going to do, but they are going to somehow have to make a decision based on what your move is so it takes a lot of thinking, poise, and attention to really succeed in war. But I do think what's even more interesting is this concept of almost blindly attacking your opponent, because in many ways, you don't really know what you're opponent is planning, so you have to anticipate and really analyze every step. I think O'brien includes this here to bring the readers who may not be as familiar to war, to help them understand a little bit how war works, but of course with less rules.
DeleteEmma, your reference to ping pong and checkers as childhood games is super interesting, as that is not how I had viewed them. The reference to Azar being, “just a boy” (35), reminds me of the reference to youthfulness in “Sweatheart of the Song Tra Bong”. Perhaps the constant reference to youthfulness and this sense of innocence or maybe even cluelessness, associated with young age is not so much to provide a way for the soldiers to escape their reality, but to cope with it or to justify it. O Brien says, “Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories” (33). Maybe by saying that they are young and aren’t necessarily fully aware of what they are doing, they are helping themselves understand why they are in the situation that they are in. However, as O’Brien is still telling these stories at an older age and sort of reliving them, gives him a sense of guilt, because he is no longer young and dumb and living that life, yet through his storytelling, it is, “replaying itself over and over” (31).
DeleteEmma, I love your focus on O’Brien’s comparison between war and games, and how games are a way to allow them to escape their reality. However, a whole other way to view this is that he is contrasting how the games are so predictable and the war isn’t. For example, with ping-pong, you can always see the other person’s paddle, where the ball is going, and the “score”. Also, with checkers, you can always see all your enemy’s pieces. By this, I think O’Brien is trying to say that although that war can be seen as a strategic game, you never know what will happen next, or your opponent's next move. Another thing to note is that with these two games, the soldiers are the ones playing, however, in the war, the soldiers are just the pieces in the game (and that is why they can never understand what is going on). Lastly, with the “score”, O’Brien shows that in these games, there is always a winner. On the other hand, at war there are people dying constantly on both sides of the battle, so in the end there really is no winner.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story “Spin,” I was particularly intrigued by O’Brien’s use of traffic as a metaphor for the creative process. O’Brien describes his experience writing as one based upon the nature of memory to join past and present experiences: “The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is a pick a street and go for the ride” (35). In this way, O’Brien presents writing almost as a lifestyle in the way that writers allow themselves to be vesicles for stories--sometimes, for stories that are not even their own--and must navigate through the traffic of imperfect and painful memories to hone in on the larger emotional truth or societal value in the stories they can tell. Moreover, O’Brien’s technical, almost surgical tone in “Spin”--exemplified by language like “rotary”--highlights the difference between the voices of O’Brien the writer and the characters that O’Brien creates. By presenting these different perspectives of one continual war story, O’Brien speaks to the fluidity of truth and the varying forms in which it can exist.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story "In the Field", I found that the motif of guilt and blame came up a lot. When the lieutenant Jimmy Cross is coming up with the letter he might send to Kiowa's father he admits to himself that it is his fault that Kiowa is dead and that in the letter he needs to assert who or what is responsible for Kiowa's death: "He would place the blame where it belonged. Tactically, he'd say, it was indefensible ground from the start... Carefully, not covering up his own guilt, he would tell how the mortar rounds made craters in the slush... My own fault, he would say"(162). Though it is significant in itself that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is unable to directly admit the true occurrence and responsibility of Kiowa's death, the true significance lies in the fact that it plays to the larger idea that the war in itself is enough of a chaotic mess that its simple occurrence is blame enough; that everything in between is just a result of its presence. This idea is elaborated at the end of the story when Jimmy Cross list off all the possible sources of blame for when a man dies: " You could blame the war. You could blame the the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it... In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever" (169-170). The process of distancing and refraining yourself from placing direct blame and instead choosing to broaden the spectrum takes only takes Jimmy Cross further away from the truth. Honesty, is an important value to have when you're in a war-- especially in a war in which you are drafted and may not agree with the cause. Tim O'Brien believed that he was a coward for not running away and instead fighting in a war he didn't agree with, thus the best way to hold on to that integrity is to not cut corners and to face the specific truth before you move to the broader more obvious and less painful truth.
ReplyDeleteIn both stories "Spin" and "In the Field," O'Brien uses the motif of childhood to harbor empathy in the reader by bringing in the perspectives of soldiers who are nothing more than boys thrown into a fight. In order to survive the war, many of the soldiers in this collection compare their actions to ordinary games: "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" (32). These parallels between war and their old lives which were void of responsibility creates a more endurable reality. By alluding to childhood games at war, the young men humanize themselves. O'Brien aids them in portraying this image through his writing, as he was in the same position. Later, in "In the Field," Azar tries with the best of his ability to lighten the mood by making jokes that reveal the irony in their situation, like "Eating shit" and "Wasted in waste" (158) in regard to the shit field that consumed Kiowa. While the impact of Azar's comments only further disheartened his companions, his intentions were nothing more than a young boy's, only trying to make himself and the people around him feel better about a situation too heavy for his little shoulders to bear.
ReplyDeleteClara, I agree with everything you have written here. It is clear that you not only have a deep understanding of these young soldiers, but that you also grasp the effect that war has on them. It is almost as if O'Brien includes these child-like games in order to emphasize the soldiers' forced adulthood. Through the course of the stories, we see young boys being forced out of their childlike ways, and into, as O'Brien writes, "identical copies of the same soldier" (163). I also think it is valuable that you took the time to recognize Azar's provocative words not as those of a horrible human being, but rather as those of a confused and potentially frightened young boy. It is clear, from the stories, that war can twist and manipulate people, ultimately hardening them and making them less prone to sensitivity and empathy. Perhaps this is the reason why soldiers can never truly overcome the war--and hence why O'Brien has this infatuation with war storytelling. This is also, most likely, the culprit for the PTSD that plagues most soldiers after returning from war.
DeleteThe story "Spin," I found, worked as a ideological basis for the story "In the Field" -- "Spin" provided the concept of forced adulthood that "In the Field" exemplified. At the very end of "Spin," O'Brien writes, "[s]tories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are" (38). Here, O'Brien highlights the effects of the Vietnam draft: it took young men who were just beginning university and placed them in an unfamiliar land with orders to kill people who had done them no harm. The phrase "you can't remember," showcases how unfathomable it all is - so much so that it is difficult to recount how small boys could have become murderers. "In the Field" furthers this sentiment by exemplifying it in a young soldier: O'Brien writes, "[he was] not a man, really--a boy...In his hooded poncho, everything caked with mud, the boy's face was impossible to make out. The filth seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of the same soldier" (163). By referring to the soldier as a "boy," O'Brien stresses his youth, and by discussing his "identical copies" theory, O'Brien illuminates how, through war, the boys are forced to grow up and become hard, emotionless men. Ultimately, these two stories demonstrate the toll that the Vietnam War, and perhaps any other war, can take on vulnerable boys.
ReplyDeleteIn the story "In The Field," I found the idea of blame interesting. After they find Kiowa's body, Jimmy Cross stays in the field, thinking about his role in the events of the previous night, "When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war...You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations" (170). In most of the stories up until this point, characters exhibit only guilt when a someone dies. Here, however, Cross introduces the potential for external blame, revealing a completely different facet of the war, one that allows for extreme bitterness. Earlier stories touch upon this idea, such as "On the Rainy River," when O'Brien looks back and and curses the obligation his home seems to put on him to go to war; "Speaking of Courage" demonstrates the same point with Norman Bowker when he says "[This town] did not know shit about shit" (137), connecting to Cross's idea of blaming people "who were too lazy to read a newspaper."
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of blame being an idea, especially because the stories have been about war the idea of blame is very important. I also like how you explained different ways of blame, "You could blame the idiots who made the war" and "you could blame the war" that was very clear and helpful.
DeleteIn the story "Spin" one thing I found particularly interesting was how O'Brien continually allows the reader to question the reliability of the story throughout. In the beginning of "Spin" O'Brien reintroduces the theme of the whole collection by discussing how "the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance" (31). Here, O'Brien once again emphasizes how not only he as an author is questioned but also the stories of the soldiers is questioned--displacing the stories into reality. I think O'Brien does this in order to shed light on how war affects soldiers; that people take away from the hardship and replace it with gratitude. This is likely how O'Brien identifies with his hardships and attempts to uncover those that soldiers face and cover up.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I also feel like the title “Spin” is significant to "storytelling" itself because when a story is retold sometimes people put their own "spin" on it. The action of spinning is to go around and around to get dizzy in an endless cycle and that is sort of similar to what the war does. The war's dizziness is not temporary though, because it rattles the brains of soldiers manipulating their memories, beliefs, confusing reality with imagination leaving them with only stories.The narrator describes stories as infinite: “stories are for joining the past and the future...when memory is erased, there is nothing to remember except the story” (38) Each of the stories the carry are deeper than memory because it's easier to suppress or ignore a memory or forget one compared to a story.The war stories that are told are forever and they teach more of a lesson than a memory could.
DeleteIn the short story, “Spin,” an aspect of the writing that I found interesting was how people who are apart of the war remember certain memories from their previous lives. This has been a reoccurring idea throughout the stories that occur during war, of what people should remember and what people should leave behind them. Furthermore, O’Brien decides to reveal that “What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and end” (34). With this, he adds on, a memory that Norman Bowker has brought along with him, “If I could have one wish, anything, I’d wish for my dad to write me a letter and say it’s okay If I don’t win any medals (34).” After being exposed to Norman Bowker’s thoughts from inside his own mind, readers now know that soldiers are carrying pressure with them from their previous lives, to war. Soldiers remember the things that their family members would mention in the slightest sense, that maybe they would never remember, however when they got to war, that little thing would serve as their most important obligation. In reality a medal is meaningless, the aspect that really matters in pleasing a parent or a loved one is doing the best that a soldier can possibly do, and serving in the war itself. However, to the father of Norman Bowker, the medal that essentially will sit in a house all day and serve no purpose, will be the only source to understanding all of his sons accomplishments. O’Brien mentions this to highlight the added pressure and mindset that soldiers arrive at war with, in order to show that they can not fully live up to their own wants and desires, because when entering the war they must be brave, tough, and focus primarily on the lives, needs, and wants of the people of their nation.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story “Spin,” I thought it was interesting how O'brien connected two extremes like childhood, which had a positive connotation and war, and brought the two together to show the differences. O'Brien says, "the war was like a Ping-Pong ball” and relates the playing field of war to that of a checkers game: There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. (34)It's odd that O'brien connects war to a game, but he does so to make a point of how these soldiers almost have to treat it like a game. War is not like a game, war is extremely messy and a difficult subject matter. Soldiers at war need certain guidance and the contrast between the simple rules of a checkers game and the lack of rules of war, furthermore shows that. Also, being drafted to the war meant that soldiers were forced to grow up before they necessarily wanted to. And they had to take on certain responsibilities very early on they may not have been expecting or were mature enough to really grasp.
ReplyDeleteFelix, I think your analysis is very interesting and I would like to add a bit. Relating back to the presentation we saw in class, we saw how society is very surprised just by hearing astonishing facts about war. Therefore, I was also thinking how for society, war might just be meaningless game. And I think that is because society doesn't have any personal experience with the war, therefore they easily judge war as a game. I also thought it was interesting how you related it back to the fact that war doesn't have any rules, the way a game does. I was thinking that maybe this is connected to human nature and maybe human nature has no rules. Because if the rule of human nature was kindness, war wouldn't exist. Just an interesting thought.
DeleteFelix, this riveting response has literally opened my eyes to a new perspective on war stories. Initially, I did not see the connection you tried to make, that somehow childhood and war were connected. With the checkers metaphor, I think O'Brien wanted to show the inevitable immaturity of these soldiers, who were extremely young men keep in mind. This transitions perfectly into what you said about the war being a game started before the game of growing up had even finished. I thought back to our class discussions about PTSD and I could reasonably assume that young soldiers are more prone to more severe cases of PTSD due to their lack of wisdom and development. Connecting this to my own response, I feel like the risk of being traumatized by the aftermath of war can easily be combatted through lots of writing about the experiences themselves. I hope we continue our discussion tomorrow in class.
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ReplyDeleteIn the short story "Spin," I found it interesting how Jimmy Cross claims that Kiowa's death was unfair because he was too good to die. This is proven when in the book it states, "Kiowa had been a fine soldier and... a good man to be lost under the slime of a shit field"(103). In general, soldiers participate in war mostly to give back and protect our citizens. Therefore, they choose to risk their lives for our safety. But when Jimmy Cross says that he didn't deserve to die, I interpreted that in a way that Kiowa was probably never ready to sacrifice his life for others, while he should've been because he's a soldier. However if he had the mentality in which he was ready to sacrifice his life for others, then the war shows the dramatic change it causes to the mind. Which is that: war is so strong that it can lead one from a mentality of fighting for others safety into believing a survival of the fittest mentality, in which soldiers rethink about sacrificing their lives for others.
ReplyDeleteParminder, there are aspects of your response that I agree and disagree with. Although it may be true that some soldiers participate in war to protect their country, I do not believe this applies here, as it is the Vietnam War, and the majority of these soldiers have been drafted against their will. Contrary to your claim, Tim O'Brien himself says that he did not want to participate in the war, almost escaping to Canada to avoid it; yet O'Brien ends up "sliding gracefully from Vietnam to graduate school, from Quang Ngai to Harvard" (151). Similarly to Kiowa, O'Brien was drafted and is in Vietnam forcefully, not voluntarily. Yet O'Brien gets off easily, which I believe is more thanks to luck, than to his mindset-- as that is how unpredictable war is.
DeleteI understand your point Parminder and I agree that some soldiers do volunteer for war, but I don’t think that Cross thinks that Kiowa was not ready to protect and serve. Considering this is the Vietnam War, many soldiers had been drafted and forced to go to war despite their motives on the war. When Cross says that Kiowa was a “fine solder and… a good man to be lost under the slime of a shit field,” I think it was more that he could have had a completely different life if it weren’t for the war (103). I think that it revolves more around the idea of guilt, and Lieutenant Cross feeling that the only reason why Kiowa died was because of him. This is why he begins to write a letter to his father in his head, in a way to understand the whole situation and deal with the guilt he feels.
DeleteParminder, I agree with Lilith, although in some cases soldiers participate in war to give back and protect our citizens, I don’t think that applies in this situation considering that the majority of these soldiers have been drafted against their will. Also while reading “In The Field” I interpreted Kiowa more of a brave, outgoing person. Unlike the other soldier Kiowa always maintained with a positive attitude, “The rain the cold and the steady, the water rising to their knees, but how Kiowa had just laughed it off and said they should concentrate on better things.” (163) Although we don’t know how Kiowa felt when he was told he had to fight in this war, he definitely learned to deal with the possibility that with a blink of an eye his life could end, which is why he often wanted to concentrate on better things.
DeleteIn the war story "In the Field", Tim Obrien highlights the idea of blame. Following Kiowa's death, every character carries a sense of responsibility: " When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy cross understood this. You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the war. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, the climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read the newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame god. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote" (page 170). This quote speaks volumes. In essence, governments wage wars- yet the burden and responsibility of the war falls on the soldiers. Soldiers, whom experience things that no man can carry. Their trauma leads to acts of violence, and poor decisions during the war. The blame of the war falls on the governments, but also the people who neglect to educate themselves nor participate in government. I wrote out the entire quote because the progression of the blame was fascinating.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story "In the Field", the motif of blame and guilt was repeated and symbolized through Kiowa's death. Being stuck in and engulfed into the mud is parallel to how the soldier's internal struggle of being trapped by the war. Cross blames himself for Kiowa's death and the young soldier does as well and the rest of the soldiers search someone to blame. Putting one person at fault is easier to cope with the death and it helps excuse the actual culprit: the war itself. Norman Booker explains how it's nobody's fault but everybody's (176) which shows that it's harder to accept that tragedy occurs indirectly. Cross later acknowledges that pinning it on someone or something doesn't change what happened or bring Kiowa back, “in the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever”( 177).The war and everyone involved in it is technically responsible and the same time aren't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis on how most of the short story was spent on the soldiers' reflecting on Kiowa's death and attempting to place blame onto someone. Their internal struggles of being trapped in the war may be their reasons for lashing out on one another, and resulting in them blaming one another for the death of their comrade. The war itself, being the actual reason for Kiowa's death, is unable to be placed because they are so engulfed in it that their perspectives do not shift away from being within the war zone. I believe that Tim O'Brien also wanted there to be an aspect of the war being an output for the blame and anger that they exert towards one another. Whenever they are unreasonably angry at one another and do something irrational, those actions are blamed on the war, with them saying that it is Vietnam leading them to such things. Cross acknowledging that blame doesn't bring someone back is an example of him accepting that the war is the one thing that is changing everyone and forcing them to act against their usual selves.
DeleteThe short story "Spin" discusses how in some cases war was not always grim and that O'Brien recalls several instances that he would even describe as sweet. O'Brien talks about himself as he writes the book and argues that writing about certain memories especially ones that are difficult to process aids in the coping of them. O'Brien describes an old man that guided his platoon through a mine field on the Batangan Peninsula and how upon leaving several soldiers gave him their C rations and even started to tear up. This experience and several others that O'Brien discusses in "Spin" starkly contrast the experience in the short story "In The Field." O'Brien portrays the unforgiving terrain of Vietnam as the soldiers seek their comrade in a field of shit. The story also discusses how morally conflicting the death of a fellow platoon member could be. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross struggles to come to terms with the fact that he had his men set up camp in a virtually defenseless shit field even though he ultimately knew better. Again O'Brien criticizes the system of commands that is enforced in the military, one that causes soldiers to do things even if they can assess better options. Likewise, another young soldier whose name Jimmy Cross can not remember feels that he is the reason for Kiowa's death and struggles to come to terms with this. The two short stories contrast each other, but in "Spin" O'Brien acknowledges both the good and bad experiences that he had during the Vietnam War.
ReplyDeleteUnlike "In the Field", the piece "Spin" is less of a story and more of a self-reflection by Tim O'Brien. Rather than the chapter being one full story, the author chooses to write several shorter stories to paint a bigger picture about war stories and what they mean coming from a veteran. To do such, he writes it in vignette form, creating a choppy, yet vibrant effect to the work. He also personalizes the ending, which I thought was the strongest part of the story. He says that even though the war happened half a lifetime ago, "remembering [it] makes it now" (36). This reminds the reader of the story-telling tone of the book while also highlighting the book's moral of the importance of telling stories. He continues: " Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for eternity..."This is almost poetic in a sense and the echo of the words stories shows how much meaning can be in a story
ReplyDeleteRene, you have a very interesting perspective on the short story “Spin,” it is interesting to take into account every little detail that the author chooses to incorporate into his overall story. To further your point, as to why Tim O’Brien choose to include the point, “Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story,” (36) I believe he does it in order to emphasize how large of a meaning stories can have. Through these stories that Tim O’Brien writes, readers are not only given knowledge of the story, but each story is followed by a lesson that should stay with readers, beyond just reading the book. To view a clear example in the this story, Norman Bowker reveals that he wishes that his father forget about the fact that he must come home with medal, by including this small idea, readers are left with a larger massage and hope that by mixing the past with the present maybe the human mind can change their view on what is worth valuing. The larger meaning here would be that one day Norman’s dad would be able to see him for the handwork, bravery, and effort he has put into fighting a war, rather that the medal, that he feels shows all his dedication that he has applied during the war. If stories have a meaning and a lasting impact there is a reason for them to be heard, and I think that Tim O’Brien really wanted people to know what goes on, on the side that we never get to see a perspective from, in this case the soldiers perspective.
DeleteGreat analysis! I found that Tim O’Brien’s choppy writing style in Spin also illustrated a lot about the war itself. It was interesting to see how O’Brien thinks about war when he looks back on it. I was surprised to see him describing happy moments as well because of his cynical view of war. Also, I read the other story before Spin and so those shorter stories contrasted with the depressing tone of the one about Kiowa. Even though he was physically detached from all of the commotion and violence of the war, he still remembered very specific moments that stood out, regardless of their broader significance. I think that when you look back on a difficult or complicated period of time in your life it can be really hard to see the bigger picture. This is shown through Spin because O’Brien is breaking down his experiences into little moments that are more digestible for him and the readers.
DeleteIn the chapter “In The Field”, the men come across Kiowa’s knapsack while searching for him. Although they have yet to find Kiowa, the rucksack triggers the men: “The three did not speak for a time. The pack was heavy with mud and water, dead-looking. Inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated New Testament… [the rucksack] had the curious look of flesh” (159). Oddly, the description of the bag becomes very personified, as the narrator calls it “dead-looking” and seems like “flesh”. It is almost as the soldiers had found Kiowa himself, rather than just his bag. Their reaction becomes logical when looking back at the first chapter, where the narrator describes the things soldiers carry; the select few personal items were things the soldiers had deemed necessary, and for Kiowa those were his moccasins, and the New Testament his father had given him. Kiowa used these items for a connection back home, something soldiers rarely let go of– hence when he loses these beloved items, it scares his fellow soldiers, leading them to assume he is dead.
ReplyDeleteThe short story "Spin," is a collection of anecdotes that are seemingly not connected to each other, although they all are the author's and his fellow soldiers' experiences at war. The story is very fragmented, conveying to the reader that all the anecdotes are written from memory; his thoughts and emotions fluctuate as he traverses down the memory lane. The frequent shift in O' Brien's view of the war from clear and stable to hazy also conveys what war truly is, it is not "well-ordered and rational like a game of checkers"; in a war situation, soldiers find themselves juggling between the acts of brutality and kindness simultaneously, steering through the valley of death, mourning and the celebration of being alive all at the same time.
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ReplyDeleteIn the short story "In the Field", the shit field is used to represent the reality of war that no soldier can escape. The shit field engulfs Kiowa, who was an honorable comrade and a friend to many of the other soldiers: “He remembered pulling hard, but how the field seemed to pull back like a tug-of-war he couldn’t win” (171).The young soldiers interaction with the field, reflects each one of the soldiers inability to escape the horrors of war. This game of “tug-of-war” is meant to reflect the soldiers attempt to connect with their emotions and their coping mechanisms. Although ultimately many of the soldiers choose the reality of the war over their coping mechanism, as seen through Lieutenant Cross in “The Things they Carried.” The young soldier mentioned in this short story carries around a picture of his girlfriend that is taken by the shit field: “So what about Billie… My girl. What about her? This picture, it was the only one I had. Right here, I lost it” (172). This picture is a physical object that allows the young soldier to connect back to his old life. The shit field taking his picture, resembles the inability to escape war and how the war tends to take all the things that are meaningful to the soldiers.
ReplyDeleteClarence, this is a very interesting point, I had never thought about it to the extent that you did. I loved how you broke down the quote about “tug-of-war” in the book. That quote is a perfect example of what O’Brien has been trying to explain throughout the book. Every time people like Kiowa try to fight back War is just stronger. Additionally, the fact that young soldiers photo is capture by the war further illustrates the human “tug-of-war” that all the soldiers are living in. It is the only thing that brings him back home which is used to fight against the war. The war inevitably takes the soldiers war. You clearly explained this to the best ability. Great job!
DeleteClarence, I completely agree with you. I feel that the sewage field is symbolic of the war, I doesn't mean anything to most of the soldiers and it is unclean. Just like Kiowa is completely folded in the sewage field, Bowker finds himself sinking deeper into the war and never being able to come out of it. The war consumes him completely. Because of its effects on him, he remains embedded in that part of his life, not resurfacing to the present. Ultimately, it takes his life, just like the sewage field took Kiowa's.
DeleteClarence your analysis is very interesting as it brings up points I had not thought about while reading "In the Field." I agree with you that the "tug-of-war" the field seemed to be playing represented on a larger scale how soldiers in Vietnam became trapped there, and unable to return. I also like how you connect the picture being taken away from the soldier to how a war can strip soldiers of their human side and makes them unable to connect with their homeland and see war as the only life they belong in.
DeleteSomething I found Interesting from "In the Field" was that we were hearing the story from someone other Rat. I also like how we see another idea of how war effects people with the previous story and now we see a different one with Azar. Azar shows a transformation seeing actual death changes his perspective on the death of others.
ReplyDeleteThese realizations of the theme of perspective are definitely something that will be used with throughout the collection and is great that you picked up on this. If you were to have a body paragraph in an essay on this you could compare how Rat tells his fallen friends war story and how Jimmy Cross talks about Kiowa's life during the war. Of course the comparisons do not stop there, as another example could be how Mary Anne is portaited or even what was revealed to us in "Notes" about the author.
DeleteWhat I found very interesting was how Tim O’Brien indirectly compares “On The Rainy River” to “In The Field”. It is funny how something hundreds of pages a way can be so similar. I found it so similar because, O’Brien calls this field the the shit field basically something that cannot be escaped which is what the war was to O’Brien when he was drafted. Clearly he was opposed to the war but for some reason he still left for naum. O’Brien describes the field when he talks about the death of Kiowa: “He remembered pulling hard, but how the field seemed to pull back like a tug-of-war he couldn’t win” (171). The power of war is being shown here because even before people were in the war they could not escape (O’Brien opting to leave) and then we see it take over others inside the war when Kiowa dies.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stood out to me in “Spin”, was how it brings up the idea of storyteliing which seems to be significant through most of the short stories. To describe the war, O’Brien says, “On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance” (31). A little later, O’Brien says, “I sit at a typewriter and stare through my words and watch Kiowa sinking into the deep muck of a shit field, or Curt Lemon hanging in pieces from a tree” (31). O’Brien uses the ping pong reference and the ability to “put a fancy spin” on things to highlight the contrast between the types of war stories people want to hear, vs the reality of the situations. Because O’Brien says “You could put a spin on it” and “On occasions”, he implies that this “spin” is not natural. It is something that you have to knowingly do to change something and to take it from its natural state to make it “fancy” and appealing to others. The fact that he says “On occasions” highlights the very reality and brutality of the war because sometimes things are so outrageous that they cannot even be lightened up. He also emphasizes the natural brutality when he describes how he sees Kiowa and Curt Lemon while trying to write a story. Sometimes a story cannot be lightened up and it needs to be told in its truest form.
ReplyDeleteThe symbolization of the objects found within Kiowa's rucksack after his death, created an atmosphere of the horrors of war which Tim O'Brien has been attempting to portray. When the soldier group was making their way through the mud they found a rucksack which they identified to be Kiowa's and "inside were a pair of moccasins and an illustrated New Testament…it had the curious look of flesh” (159). Kiowa's prized possessions being covered in that mud and filth shows the contrast between the country they love versus the place that they are stuck in to fight. The filth covering their prized objects signifies that Vietnam has covered all of them in the sense that every aspect of them will now be somewhat tainted by going through the war and being forced to endure Vietnam. The war has forced them to leave behind some of the things they love because of all that they had to go through in order to fight for their country and defend America's values. This may go even against their own beliefs, such as Kiowa's moccasins which signify his Native American heritage and the "distrust of white man" that he brought with him originally.
ReplyDeleteIn “In the Field” by Tim O’Brien I thought that how Kiowa was described at the beginning was very interesting. The author thought that he was “a fine soldier and a fine human being, [and] a devout Baptist” (163). O’Brien easily condenses Kiowa’s life into these three simple descriptions because he feels that they were the most important things to Kiowa. What caught my attention was the order that they were listed in. First came “a fine soldier” because that was all he was in the war; a dispensable soldier. He couldn’t let his emotions get in the way because emptiness was valued. I think this is why “a fine human being” was secondary to soldier and why it was important to include it; if he was the perfect soldier he couldn’t let himself be too human and overthink the war. Additionally, “devout Baptist” was listed last because I could understand how witnessing his death could make someone question their faith, or even illustrate how O’Brien felt that Kiowas religion didn’t help him in the war. However, Lieutenant Cross “preferred to view his men not as units but as human beings” (164). He couldn’t let Kiowa sink into the field because he saw him as more than just a soldier.
ReplyDeleteBella, I agree with everything you've said here because my response was based off of the way O’Brien describes Kiowa as well. I love the way you broke down each of the descriptions as well as analyze deeply about why Kiowa was described the way he was in the book. Now that I think about it, (referring back to my response) Kiowa could've been described as a "devout baptist" at the beginning of the book to simply introduce to the reader what kind of person Kiowa is and what he carried with him, and then mentioned again in "In the Field" after Kiowa's death to emphasize how, like you said, Kiowa's religion didn't help him in the war. It’s a saddening reality that no matter what these soldiers bring with them to the war to mentally prepare themselves for what’s to come, it can never prevent them from dying in the war, if they were destined to die.
DeleteIn “In the Field”, what I found particularly interesting was O’Brien’s repetitive description of Kiowa as a “devout baptist” (156). It’s interesting that “devout baptist” shows up multiple times in the book whenever Kiowa is mentioned, as if there is no other way to describe or classify him than by mentioning his religious beliefs. Because these soldiers are all in the same situation, doing the same thing together, they’re judged based on “the things they carry”, which makes them somewhat unique from each other. With everyone having an equal status, it’s hard to determine how people are in their normal lives, but the things that they have with them give a glimpse of their life back home, as well as their characteristics as normal people rather than soldiers fighting in a war. Having carried the illustrated New Testament that was gifted to him by his father, Kiowa is repeatedly described as a “fine human being, a devout baptist” because that’s all the other soldiers know of him (156).
ReplyDeleteOne thing that is particularly interesting about "In the Field" is the similarities it has with "How to Write a Real War Story". One such common trait is how both stories do not dwell on the death of soldier like it is a momentous event or that he died in the most honorable way, such like Kiowa: "Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous" (170). The blunt nature of the language used makes Kiowa's death only momentary lapse in what will be war of thousands more deaths. The words "dumb and dangerous" used to describe a reminder of mortality like this also add to the humiliation and truth that not all soldiers can die the way "a real solider would".
ReplyDeleteIn the short story “Spin” I found O’Brien’s use of the game checkers in contrast to the war to be interesting. When talking about his memory of Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers, O’Brien describes the game: “The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies… There were rules” (32). The fact that there were no tunnels, mountains or jungles and just a plain grid to play on shows that there were no places to hide; you and your opponent were in plain sight. The fact that you knew where you stood and know the score shows that there’s no vagueness while playing the game. Furthermore the fact that there are rules shows that the game has regulations that help guide the game. In contrast, in war you and your enemy are constantly out of plain sight as to not be discovered which can heighten fear and, at times, soldiers may begin to question the purpose of fighting in the war because they are uncertain of what’s actually going on. More importantly, unlike the game, war does not have a set of rules that both sides must follow. War’s lack of rules is what causes it to be chaotic and detrimental for the soldiers as they are completely clueless as to what will happen to them next. Because of this, O’Brien describes the game of checkers as “restful”, “orderly”, and “reassuring” So, through the game of checkers, the soldiers are able to find their own sense of serenity in the chaos of war.
ReplyDeleteThroughout “In the Field” the motif of guilt stood out to me. After Kiowa death Lieutenant Jimmy Cross starts feeling really guilty about his death even though nothing he did would of stopped Kiowa from dieing at that moment. Through this experience he reveals how much he dislike taking the role of leadership, he reveal that, “He did not care one way or the other about war, and he had to desire to command.” (161) which ultimately make me wonder if this is what make him feel guilty about Kiowa death, perhaps if he would of been more committed to the role of leadership maybe this would’ve not happened. Furthermore, the other soldiers also felt guilt “Whenever a man died it was always the same, a desire to get it over with quickly” ultimately revealing that this feeling of guilt when one dies does not only apply to the leader of the team but also to the rest of the team (159). Additionally, this makes me wonder if the fact that they had a desire to get it over with quickly has anything to do with “machismo”. Feeling guilt can cause them to feel emotional eventually breaking down something that we’ve learn does not fit into male stereotype. I find it particularly interesting how even at war masculinity is important, even at war a men can’t break down. It make wonder if there is any appropriate time when a men can actually break down.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading "Spin" the thing that stood out the most to me was the way O'Brien wrote this passage. The fragmented structure of this chapter speaks to the way in which veterans voices are ignored after wars. O'Brien including this passage seeks to give voice to the people who have been ignored by society. The diversity of stories within the chatter show the reader that every soldier has their own story. Moreover I believe the purpose of the chapter was to show how by listening to the stories of veterans it can keep us from entering into pointless wars again like Vietnam. This is clearly seen when he writes,"Stories are for joint the past and the future." (36)
ReplyDeleteHarry I agree with you and not only does it look at other perspectives. Furthermore it differentiates the ordinary and stereotypical view of Vietnam, war, and the soldiers’ experiences. The novel doesn’t show many perspectives which is a clear critique in the novel. Also, throughout the book as I stated in my previous post many people have a classic stereotypical view that the soldiers have an easy win and a war in many wars and they come back home to their love ones to tell many great war stories. However, that was definitely not the case in the story there were many terrible terrains and conditions and in the Vietnam War in general many people died and the United States of America lost. This shows how America is not unbeatable and many people die during wars and it is not a good time for soldiers at all despite if they win or lose the war(s) it is a very traumatic event.
DeleteIn many of the stories in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, many of his stories ended up to be glorious and relatively easy. However in the story In the Field events did not turn out very well and the road was very hard. “They moved slowly in the rain. Leaning forward, heads down, they used the butts of their weapons as probes, wading across the field to the river and then turning and wading back again. They were tired and miserable; all they wanted now was to get it finished. Kiowa was gone. He was under the mud and water, folded in with the war, and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to some place dry and war. It had been a hard night.” (155) He says it has been a hard night, showing that there were other nights similar to this or possible worse than it.
ReplyDeleteIn Tim OBrien’s story ‘Spin’, what I found most interesting was the concept of youth and innocence in the war. In this chapter O’Brien explains how the average age of the platoon “was nineteen or twenty”(35). It’s interesting to see how one of the soldiers, Azar, blew up a puppy with a mine, and then seemed so nonchalant about it, defending himself by saying, “what’s everybody so upset about?... I mean, Christ, I’m just a boy” (35). Azar uses his age to deflect the consequences of his actions since he is just ‘a boy’, meaning he did not actually mean what he did. Later, in the chapter ‘In the Field’, we once again see Azar who is making jokes after the death of one of their own: “‘Eating shit– it’s your classic irony’...‘Fine… Now pipe down’”(158). Others do not find his jokes to be funny during this devastating time but he continues, since he believes he has no consequences. At the end of this chapter, Azar experiences a change as he feels guilty for what he said, he feels like “it was [his] fault” (168). He realizes that he is no longer ‘just a boy’ and that there are consequences to his actions. This depicts how war destroys youth and causes the young to mature quickly.
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DeleteI love the way you focused on the theme of innocence and consequences in the setting of a war zone. I did not think about that meanwhile I connected the structure of the writing in "Spin" to the mental state of a soldier with little time to process the horrors of war. I particularly took note on how the war zone makes them conscious of their actions at such a young age and connecting this back to class on thursday to what Ilana Cohen said, going to war and possibly coming back home leads to this rapid age gap that the war forces on soldiers that makes them mature at such a young age. Being drafted in your teens leads to an impairment in age development in which you beautifully captured in your analysis in Azar's action at war and how he was not yet faced with this necessary maturity to survive.
DeleteSomething I found very interesting "Spin" was the disconnect between the stories or memories 0'Brien mentions. In describing the war and the little things that happened between the horrors, these little short stories that almost have no connection are a direct connection to the trauma once returning to war. O'Brien states, "What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end" (36). The way this chapter is structure stylistically being all scattered and incomprehensible directly correlates to the way surviving soldiers return into normal society feeling shattered or "fragmented." In this chapter, O’Brien is telling stories that originate from his memory. These memories are filled with random acts of nightmares and sweetness and O’Brien's transitions from a balanced to a disillusioned evaluation of the war comments on how out of place one is after war with the struggle of remembering the good or the bad. This portrays his inability to cope the with fragments of memories he is forced to write down on paper by his daughter. In addition O'Brien says "Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story" (38). Although this chapter was like an unknown map we have to navigate through like they did, the stories they were unable to process haunts them like the disorganization of missing information in this chapter haunts the reader.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I love how you focused on the structure of the story and the effect it had on it. The incomprehensibility of this chapter i feel shows the scatteredness of the soldiers once they go home, they have no idea how to react to what they just experienced. I completely agree to your idea that it leaves them ‘fragmented’. This concept is also witnessed in the other chapters where Norman feels a need to have the stories in his head put in order and told, which obrien fails to do the first time. I also like your insight on how it brings out the good and bad of war. It’s interesting that something as bad and devastating as war could have good memories too, and it’s definitely reflected in obrien’s difficulty in remaining on one storyline, as you said. And finally, your analysis comparing the chapter to a map is also really interesting. It’s almost as if the soldiers are lost in their own mind due to their inability to ground themselves on a story.
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