In Timothy O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, a number of insightful themes are forwarded by the author. One theme in particular interests me the most; the subject area is how people handle their emotions through the avoidance or distortion of reality. Specifically, throughout the novel a number of characters respond to the emotionally charged realities they are confronted with in one of two major ways, distortion or escapism. This pattern, shown throughout the novel, surveys one manner in which humans approach the rough emotions they carry with them throughout their life. To support this thesis I will analyze a number of character's responses to emotional stressors and compare them against my claims of escape and distortion reactions.
I have identified two major ways the characters I analyze respond to their realities in this novel, distortion and escapism. When I identify something as distortion, I intend to imply that the characters take the edge off of the reality of their situations by making the events they encounter seem less real. Examples of such behavior would include finding humor in otherwise horrifying situations or even romanticizing the environment around them to make it seem something different than w
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Despite that she temporarily seems to get "straightened out" by her boyfriend and ends up wearing a nice blue dress and has groomed hair the next day, she is still distinctly different than before. What did she see out there? What does she feel? Why is she acting like this? These questions signify a failure of reading. On pages 9 and 10 the narrator describes how Lieutenant Cross would walk along his missions thinking about spending time with Martha. This act of escape is slightly more radical than Lieutenant Jimmy Cross's response, however. He escaped to the beach where she found the pebble and vividly thought about the waves crashing upon the beach of the Jersey shoreline. The joking about death is a failure of reading. Marry Anne comes over to Vietnam and is delivered to the medical outpost by way of supplies chopper. In particular, he imagines what the conversation with his father would have been like. This story is a good example of the distortion that often occurs when people are working through emotionally taxing situations. The narrator on page 172 tells us that "He could not talk about it and never would. It is important to note that Ted Lavender used tranquilizers in abnormally large amounts. Escapism is a rather basic way of handling intense emotions. If it is true that these soldiers experience (d) tremendous emotions then there is room to analyze how they go about carrying their tangible "emotional baggage. It is also noteworthy to mention that how I classify a character in terms of their response to emotional intensity-escape or distortion-is very much a debatable contention.
The final example I will analyze is in regards to the story of Norman Bowker.
Approximate Word count =
2256
Approximate Pages =
9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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