Within 48 Hours...

...is not late right? Right?

I blame the illness! Amid a throng of other excuses...

So, right, The Things They Carried

To be honest, I'm having a hard time looking at this with a Postmodern eye. But, I'll have a go at it. I think, like Maus, it deals mainly with the idea of representation, or rather the lack thereof.

War, it presents, is so full of emotion that sharing the emotion completely is entirely impossible. No one would be able to understand the torment that these men had to go through. However, it seems, that trying to share these stories is the POINT of telling war stories (of which this novel is a collection of).

So, aware of this point, why would O'Brien publish this novel? Why do we keep trying to tell stories that can't be told? Why try to relive emotions that cause pain and that no one can identify with? I mean, we can try to understand, and sometimes we succeed to tiny degrees, but more often than not, we miss the point, as is seen with the case of the woman who felt sorry for the baby animal that Rat Kiley tortured and killed in his emotional anguish. I admit that, while I am able to empathize and completely understand the idea of the story, I too found myself feeling aghast and sorry for the animal. So, obviously, the raw feelings can't be transferred from person to person. Even Rat Kiley's emotions must have been diluted through O'Brian's perspective. So, again, what's the point?

I don't know. Perhaps we feel relief at attempting to explain our emotions, by imagining or pretending that others can understand our stories. Is it nessecary? Is there a better way? I suppose we'll discover O'Brian's opinion as we go along...