O’Brien starts the story with a vignette with a surprisingly
positive tone. It seemed as though this was the story we were going to get as
we read the book. However, as we read on, we know that this is far from true. We
are quickly acquainted with a new more evil side to him. I think this is the
point where we really see the war getting to O’Brien in a way we had never seen
before. He was so dead set on getting revenge on Bobby Jorgenson that he has a
hard time keeping himself in grips with reality. As the chapter goes on, we see
him compare himself and Jorgenson — saying that he understands what Jorgenson
is going through — but can’t bring himself to stop himself from wanting
revenge.
The most notable part of the story for me was,
“I was down there with him, inside
him. I was part of the night. I was the land itself—everything, everywhere—the
fireflies and paddies, the moon, the midnight rustlings, the cool
phosphorescent shimmer of evil—I was atrocity—I was jungle fire, jungle drums—I
was the blind stare in the eyes of all those poor, dead, dumbfuck ex-pals of
mine—all the pale young corpses, Lee Strunk and Kiowa and Curt Lemon—I was the
beast on their lips—I was Nam—the horror, the war.” (199)
O’Brien sees himself as the war. He is so wrapped up in it
that the horror of the war is becoming him horror. It was if the war finally
won and took over. It fell in line so well with what the rest of the book was
trying to represent, only a small part of the war is the fighting itself. The
other major part is the way it affects all that were involved. He saw himself
as the cruelty the war actually was. He is not though; he showed his true
colors by saying, “Enough.” (201)
I like how you brought up that Tim changed our perception of him once again on page 201. In calling off Azar, even though he didn't listen and Tim didn't force him to stop, we see that Tim still has compassion for Bobby, even though Tim almost died because of Bobby. We see that even though he does want to mess with his mind a little, and even thought it pretty cruel, he still has a sense of where to stop, and where what he perceives as justice turns into pure torment.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in class when we were discussing this story, part of what was so awful about Tim tormenting Jorgenson in that way was because he himself was intimately familiar with that very same terrifying situation. As he's pulling this cruel prank, he feels like he's one with Jorgenson, experiencing the same terror, like the beginning of the quote you used: "I was down there with him, inside him." In this way, he has the capability for utter sympathy with Jorgenson, and yet, he doesn't stop right away.
ReplyDeleteSo i'm a bit late to this, but I just wanted to say that I think this is a very interesting chapter. You're definitely that this story is very different from other stories in this book. It had a very narrative feel, and experienced each event as Tim did without some sort of other knowledge. I think that aspect is one reason this story is so captivating. As you read you feel just as Tim eventually does that what he is doing is wrong. But just as Tim continued with the park we read on. We don't chose to throw the book down and tell Mr. Mitchell that we couldn't finish because it's wrong. No we , just like Tim, are captivating by the terror in this story. How the human need for revenge can be taken to this extreme, and take something as awful as war and use it to get revenge. Even though this story is much less gruesome and horrifying than other stories from this book, it seems much more awful. I blame this on the fact that we live the events much more, and we feel the adrenaline that Tim feels even though we know it's wrong.
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