Summary
The chapter entitled “The Ghost Soldiers” from the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is about revenge. This is clearly the motive behind the entire chapter. First the author tells us what caused him to want revenge. He talks about the incident of being shot and not being tended to until he was almost dead. The new medic messed up and that is who he wanted to gain revenge against. The setting of this story takes place in Vietnam at a resupply post for the US Army. The character, Tim, was sent there after being shot twice and pulled by the army from the war front. Throughout the chapters the characters are pretty much all the same, with the exception of one new face. He is the medic responsible for the near death of Tim and his name is Bobby Jorgenson.
The chapter plays out with telling the reader how everything unfolded. We read the story from Tim’s point of view and he talks about how he was shot, the first time and the second time. He talks about how the new medic almost didn’t save his life. Tim also tells us, how he doesn’t really like being on the safe base and how he has been called names because of his wound to his buttocks. The chapter tells about his plans to strike back and gain his revenge and he does so very tactfully one night while the medic is on night guard duty. He plays tricks on him in the night, feeling sad that he is doing it but satisfied and after the night is all over with, Bobby and Tim make a truce; the score is finally settled.
Analysis
A certain chapter inside the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien opens up a discussion about human morals and ethics; the author is conveying how hard it is to forgive and forget. When the main character in the book, Tim, is shot in the line of duty, he expects his medic to be there to help him. He cries out for a medic yet almost dies because of the medic’s inability to conquer his fears. We can see that clearly human morals are the topic of this chapter because the author conveys it to us through his language and word choice. Tim wants to forgive the medic, but he can’t because he hates him and that is where the exploring of the human heart begins. We see from these passages the battle that is fought inside the character’s head. First we see the hate forming with this passage, “But it made me hate Bobby Jorgenson the way some guys hated the VC, gut hate, the kind of hate that stays with you even in your dreams” (O’Brien, 182) Obviously, going against human moral to hate so much, but it was only present for a while because over time O’Brien started to struggle over these feelings as we can see here, “Granted, I didn’t hate him anymore, and I’d lost some of the outrage and passion, but the need for revenge kept eating at me” (O’Brien, 192) The hate is gone, but the revenge is still there or the need for it. You can see just from these two passages how emotions switch and how this story is really about morals.
The link for this week’s blog post is: http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/revenge.htm
This link takes a look at revenge and lets you learn a little more about it.
The visual for this week is a YouTube video posted from the user “Myearbot” it is a video about Vietnam Vets. Enjoy.
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