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Violence And Destruction In O Brien's The Things They Carried

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Violence and destruction can never be quelled as it is inextricably linked to human nature. We as human beings wage war, and send the young, able bodied males to fight our battles while bureaucrats and wealthy individuals continue with their typical lives unaware of others’ misfortune and sacrifice; protected by laws and riches. Those who have the most life to live are sent to the front lines, in a way O’brien knew he would perish in the heat of a war he had no part in starting.A future Ivey league student being scooped up in the draft made next to no sense,young adults like him were the future of America, therefore; shipping him off to war would be sending the country's future into chaos and certain death. A government that could so easily strip him of his life and bright future had to be unjust. This fate that O’brien and countless others face was ultimately inescapable and had to be accepted .
War changes people and forces them to mature through different means, regardless of which side of it they stand on. The most daunting mean by which war changes people is death. This misfortune is highlighted in chapter one after the death of Ted Lavender. Lavender’s death forces Jimmy Cross to leave his childlike self behind and become a new man, not only does he realize that death is …show more content…
It does not instruct nor encourage virtue. To his understanding “if at the end of a war story you feel uplifted… then you have been made victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever.” Those who experience war and live to tell the tale will never tell a story containing even a shred of happiness. War and its definite ability to corrupt the human spirit continue to taint the lives of its victims long after the war is over. When the memory of these horrible events fades away, the story remains for an eternity; stories filled with “absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and

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