In Tim O’Brien’s The Things
They Carried, self-inflicted violence is a phenomenon that occurs most
notably in two stories within the volume: firstly in “Enemies”, our initial glimpse
into the relationship between Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk, and secondly in “The
Dentist”, wherein the reader receives some insight into the psyche of the late
Curt Lemon. Perhaps the most interesting divide between the instances of
self-harm as shown in these stories is the motivation behind each of them. In
this analysis, the different circumstances which drove Jensen and Lemon to
cause themselves bodily harm while in Vietnam will be compared and contrasted.
In “Enemies”, Dave Jensen breaks the nose of Lee Strunk
while entangled in a vicious fist-fight over a jack-knife which Jensen
suspected (rightly) had been stolen. What followed can be described as an
obsessive fear of revenge that eventually drives Jensen to slam his gun into
his face, breaking his own nose and displaying it to Strunk before asking if “everything
was square between them” (O’Brien 64). Later, Strunk proclaims that Jensen is “crazy”,
giving no indication that he had ever intended to carry out the retribution
which Jensen had fixated on with such emotional instability. Thus, the reader
is implicitly asked a question pertaining to the fairness, balance and justice
of wartime dynamics: what was it about Jensen’s situation which led him to
believe that an “eye for an eye” approach to injury would ultimately save him
from the graver fate he believed Strunk had in store for him?
Curt Lemon, too, is motivated by fear to turn to self-harm.
However, in “The Dentist”, he is terrified of embarrassment as opposed to
physical attack from another, albeit these worries both originating within the
self rather than the plausible words or actions of others. Fainting at the mere
prospect of a dental examination is a source of unbelievable shame for Lemon,
and causes him to withdraw into himself despite receiving no harsh words from
the other soldiers. It is in forcing the dentist to pull a “perfectly good” tooth
that allows the young man to regain his bravado: if he was able to get through
an examination and painful procedure
only to end up “all smiles” (O’Brien 88), no one would have grounds upon which
to accuse him of cowardice. In this way, as with Dave Jensen, Curt Lemon
restores balance in his wartime existence in order to continue living with as
much of a sense of peace possible.
The soldiers described as O'Brians companions in the short stories of his novel "The Things They Carried" all the soldiers have their own private and different experiences. But one thing that they all share is fear. In the story Enemies, Dave Jenson beats up Lee Strunk over a missing pen knife. Lee Strunk returns days later and does nothing reciprical. Jenson grows weary and slowly becomes terrified that Strunk will retaliate. "It got to the point finally where he lost control. Something must've snapped." (pg. 60). This is the same wordage used in ptsd discussion or people going crazy under stress. The situation of being surrounded by death and the possibility of it drove Jenson mad.
ReplyDeleteIn the story, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, the soldiers are told a story by Rat Kiley about a woman who followed her boyfriend to Vietnam. This girl, Mary Anne, was the embodiment of an innocent American citizen, removed from the war. When dropped into Vietnam, the girl grows fascinated with the culture and disappears only to be found a savage with a necklace of tongues. "There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it" (pg. 105). This story, while merely a story, is an example of a soldiers view of Vietnam. In his personal experience, the conflict the men were surrounded by was one which commonly led men to go crazy. This effects are not short turn. Some soldiers returned home with PTSD. O'Brian focuses on this in some of his other stories too.