So far, I've noticed that O'Brien loves his literary devices. I'm still not very far into the book, but I've found a great extended metaphor he uses to compare the military men to actors.
"It wasn't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn't just dying, because in a curious way it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself," [page 19].
O'Brien's metaphor elaborates on how commonly accepted death has become in the military. One day a soldier can be saving a fellow soldier, and the next day, that hero is dead. Since it happens in the blink of an eye, how can they even prepare for death? I've come to the conclusion that being a soldier prepares one not only for battle, but also for death. Depressing, huh?
I'd also like to connect this to a post Alix Richardson recently wrote. She said that from previous knowledge, the war was extremely unpopular on the US homefront. While America was not fully behind entrance into the Vietnam war, they still supported the men who were deployed. O'Brien writes, "...they would never be at a loss for things to carry" [page 15], referring not only to the heavy burdens they were carrying, but also the lists of food, weaponry, and other supplies he wrote about just sentences before. America, while not open to the war, was still cognizant of their boys fighting their lives away.
"It wasn't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn't just dying, because in a curious way it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself," [page 19].
O'Brien's metaphor elaborates on how commonly accepted death has become in the military. One day a soldier can be saving a fellow soldier, and the next day, that hero is dead. Since it happens in the blink of an eye, how can they even prepare for death? I've come to the conclusion that being a soldier prepares one not only for battle, but also for death. Depressing, huh?
I'd also like to connect this to a post Alix Richardson recently wrote. She said that from previous knowledge, the war was extremely unpopular on the US homefront. While America was not fully behind entrance into the Vietnam war, they still supported the men who were deployed. O'Brien writes, "...they would never be at a loss for things to carry" [page 15], referring not only to the heavy burdens they were carrying, but also the lists of food, weaponry, and other supplies he wrote about just sentences before. America, while not open to the war, was still cognizant of their boys fighting their lives away.
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