Prompt 2: Sentence Analysis
Sentence Analysis: They carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive. (pg 7)
The first thing I noticed about this sentence was the separation between “means of killing” and “staying alive”- that is, is killing implied not to be necessary to survival in war? At first, I thought this was just a natural and possibly unintentional insertion of the author’s political beliefs. Tim O’Brien has spoken occasionally on his view of the high death toll of the Vietnam war specifically, in which he served a tour. It seems more than feasible that he might find the violence of war unecessary, even when thinking only in terms of self-preservation.
But re-reading this sentence with the context of the entire story in mind makes me wonder if O’Brien intends for us to read this line as though the soldiers themselves are the ones making this distinction. Everything each soldier carries, tangible or not, is representative of their own values. For instnace, Ted Lavender carries the cure for anxiety, pot and tranquilizers. Would that be everyone’s definition of anxiety relief? Probably not. But the soldiers define and place meaning upon what they carry at their discretion. Possibly to them, tools for survival and tools for killing are two separate categories.
The choice to describe these tools as “appropriate-seeming” also stood out to me though. Those words, to me, feel included to lift some of the responsibility for these actions’ off the soldiers themselves; It sounds like the soldiers are doing the best with what they have, and they don’t get to dictate whether they have to kill just like they don’t get to decide whether they stay alive. If this sentence is to be read from the soldiers’ POV, as suggested earlier, it would make sense that they would want to lift some of the emotional burden from their shoulders and perhaps distance themselves from their more regrettable actions.
Ultimately I think this reading of the sentence is pretty consistent with how these soldiers profess themselves to feel in the story. The deaths can be horrific and needless, but blaming oneself helps no one. There are nothing but victims in war.
The first thing I noticed about this sentence was the separation between “means of killing” and “staying alive”- that is, is killing implied not to be necessary to survival in war? At first, I thought this was just a natural and possibly unintentional insertion of the author’s political beliefs. Tim O’Brien has spoken occasionally on his view of the high death toll of the Vietnam war specifically, in which he served a tour. It seems more than feasible that he might find the violence of war unecessary, even when thinking only in terms of self-preservation.
But re-reading this sentence with the context of the entire story in mind makes me wonder if O’Brien intends for us to read this line as though the soldiers themselves are the ones making this distinction. Everything each soldier carries, tangible or not, is representative of their own values. For instnace, Ted Lavender carries the cure for anxiety, pot and tranquilizers. Would that be everyone’s definition of anxiety relief? Probably not. But the soldiers define and place meaning upon what they carry at their discretion. Possibly to them, tools for survival and tools for killing are two separate categories.
The choice to describe these tools as “appropriate-seeming” also stood out to me though. Those words, to me, feel included to lift some of the responsibility for these actions’ off the soldiers themselves; It sounds like the soldiers are doing the best with what they have, and they don’t get to dictate whether they have to kill just like they don’t get to decide whether they stay alive. If this sentence is to be read from the soldiers’ POV, as suggested earlier, it would make sense that they would want to lift some of the emotional burden from their shoulders and perhaps distance themselves from their more regrettable actions.
Ultimately I think this reading of the sentence is pretty consistent with how these soldiers profess themselves to feel in the story. The deaths can be horrific and needless, but blaming oneself helps no one. There are nothing but victims in war.
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