‘The Things They Carried’ - VCE Resources · CULTURAL CONTEXT - USA O Culturally America was...
Transcript of ‘The Things They Carried’ - VCE Resources · CULTURAL CONTEXT - USA O Culturally America was...
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‘The Things They Carried’
by Tim O’Brien
Background information
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O North Vietnam (communists) against South Vietnam
(supported by USA )
O USA involvement motivated by fear of communism
taking over the world
O Early 1960’S Americans began a large scale military
“defence” of South Vietnam
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O Viet Cong:
- highly elusive and misunderstood
- fighting in familiar landscape for a cause they
believed in
- Engaged in relentless harassment – ambushes,
booby traps, sniping, concealment in the jungle,
tunnelling
- proved impossible to defeat
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O US troops:
- Did not know who they were fighting
- Landscape was unfamiliar and foreign
- US (country and individuals) involvement uncertain;
conscription (ballot)
- Employed tanks, aerial bombing, napalm bombs
(jelly-like gasoline), large troop movements,
chemical warfare
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O Late 1960’s:
- Peace movement in US growing
- US embassy in Saigon attacked
- War started to be seen as unwinnable
- In response to overwhelming pressure and an inability to strike decisively against the Viet Cong, President Nixon decided to pull out of Vietnam
- January 27, 1973: The Paris Peace Accords are signed by the U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong.
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O Impact:
- America deeply troubled by Vietnam experience
- 58,000 lives lost; 303,635 wounded
- Defeat of world’s mightiest military force by a ‘tin pot
collection of peasants’
- Massive social upheaval – veterans NOT welcomed
home; difficulties adjusting
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CULTURAL CONTEXT - VIETNAM
O Enormous cultural gap between the Americans and
Vietnamese – had implications
O American’s did not really see the Vietnamese as
fellow human beings – described as “gooks, dinks
and slopes” – many innocent people died as a
result
O “Sixties” – taking off with challenges of authority,
free love and drug experimentation
O Drugs heightened the sense for many soldiers that
this war was strange and unreal
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CULTURAL CONTEXT - USA
O Culturally America was completely uninterested in
the Vietnam defeat – until filmic attempts to come
to terms with it hit screens: Heart of Darkness,
Apocalypse Now
O These gave way to the likes of Platoon, Full Metal
Jacket – films giving the distinct impression that
America actually won. Others?
O For a new generation of movie goers – these
accounts became the truth
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CONSIDER….
The Vietnam War is always interesting
because the truth about it seems almost
impossible to tell.
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THEMES: Burdens
O Characters carry things literally and figuratively
O Heavy physical loads
O Heavy emotional loads – grief, terror, love, longing
O Carry the weight of reputation – the burden of fear
O Post war – psychological burdens; survivor guilt,
post traumatic stress disorder
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THEMES: Shame as motivation
O Fear of being shamed before one’s peers is a
powerful and motivating factor in war
O Shame (being thought of as a coward) prompted
reluctant men to go to Vietnam
O Shame affects soldiers relationships with each
other
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Themes
O Storytelling:
- a coping mechanism as well as a strategy for
communication
O Morality:
- The jungle blurs boundaries between right and
wrong
O Loneliness and isolation:
- Repeated emphasis on the impact of solitude