O’Brien employs different strategies for dealing with the very difficult subject. Discuss O’Brien’s technique from at least three different vignettes. As always pair text with commentary.  

             One instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is when Curt Lemon is killed.  The soldiers each have a different way of dealing with death but for Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon was his best friend.  In dealing with the death of his best friend he massacred a baby buffalo.  “…Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear.  He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back.  He shot it twice in t he flanks.  It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away.”  This was Curt Lemon’s way of dealing with death.  “Curt Lemon was dead.  Rat Kiley had los this best friend in the world.”  Being his best friend, Rat had been especially hurt and affected by the death.  Rat Kiley cried for his friend’s death, he was very hurt.  O’Brien says as a response to Rat’s actions, “We had witnessed something essential, something brand-new and profound, a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it.”

               Another instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is when Ted Lavender died.  Lieutenant Jimmy Cross took his death especially hard because he felt it was somehow his fault.  He felt that his love for Martha got in the way of him doing his job as a lieutenant.  “…First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s Letters.  Then he burned the two photographs.”  This was Jimmy’s way of dealing with Ted Lavender’s death.  He thought by burning the things that dealt with Martha that he would somehow forget about her and focus on the war.  However Martha was still with the Lieutenant.  “Lavender was dead.  You couldn’t burn the blame.  Besides, the letters were in his head.  And even now, without photographs, Lieutenant Cross could see Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow T-shirt.”

                A third instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is the way O’Brien deals with it.  His way of dealing with Curt Lemon’s death is by telling a story about him.  Even though O’Brien wasn’t very close with Curt Lemon he still finds it necessary to talk about him.  He says, “When Curt Lemon was killed, I found it hard to mourn.  I knew him only slightly, and what I did know was not impressive…”  O’Brien goes on to tell the story of Curt and the dentist.  Memories are how O’Brien deals with Curt’s death.  He didn’t mourn it he just accepted it.

Comrades: Yet another word we use without understanding the etymological significance. Tim has comrades; Henry has comrades. Check out this definition and etymology at Dictionary.com and compare that with Henry’s relationship to his comrades in the first fifteen chapters and O’Brien’s interrelationship of characters (especially in “Friends and Enemies”). Pay particular attention to the way the characters are revealed.

A Comrade is a person who shares one’s interests or activities.  A comrade is a friend or companion and a comrade is often a fellow member of a group, especially a fellow member of the Communist Party.  In the two chapters “Friends” and “Enemies”, Jensen and Strunk start off as enemies but then change into friends.  I don’t know if I would consider them best-est friends because of their previous fight but I do consider them comrades.  They both have the same interests and activities and they are both members in the US army.  However they don’t keep their pact.  When Strunk got his leg blown off, Jensen didn’t keep his pact to kill him.  Both men did not want to stick to the pact.  I don’t think either could face the killing of Strunk.

Both novels attack the idea of traditional heroism. “On the Rainy River” and chapters 5-8 of RBC explore the idea of the traditional hero. How do our main characters stack up against the traditional norms? What is your definition of courage and heroism? What other experiences or literary works have worked to build this definition for you? How do O’Brien and Crane achieve their goals? What literary spin are they putting on the ball of words to get us to swing? Be sure use quotes from the text and commentary to support your ideas.

In the chapter “On the Rainy River” in the book The Things They Carried the main character stacks up against traditional norms.  He does this by telling us a story that is very personal to him and how he had the chance to run away from the war and do what he wants.  However, he does not.  He says, “I understood that I would not do what I should do…I couldn’t risk the embarrassment…I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to.”  My definition of courage is facing a challenge or a decision and going through with it.  My definition of heroism is a person who is courageous and does brave things for others.  O’Brien can be seen as a courageous person or not a courageous person.  He is courageous in the fact that he fought for his country and faced his fears in battle but he is not courageous because he wasn’t able to do what he really wanted and that was to not fight in the war.  He wasn’t able to face his embarrassment and therefore he made the choice of going to war.  O’Brien is heroic though.  He fought in the war and conquered his fears.  The literary spin he is putting on the ball of words to get us to swing is he is making his story very dramatic.  He gets the reader caught in his stories and he takes control and makes the reader basically believe anything he says.