William Dowell
                                                                                                                           Period 5
                                                                                                                            AP English Dr. Preston

                                       Isolation in the Things they Carried

" I write about these things, the remembering has turned into a kind of rehappening," says Tim O'Brien, author of The Things they Carried. Mr. O'Brien remembers painful, isolating experiences as well the camaraderie in collection of short stories about his time in the Vietnam War. O'Brien was Isolated in Vietnam, from his family and the way of life he used to know, but he also learned about the true nature of conflict from his experiences there.

Mr. O'Brien left his family behind to go to Vietnam. But before he went, he had to overcome a moral crisis of whether to desert to Canada or face the music and go. " All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth." O'Brien got his draft notice and ran away to the Michigan-Canada border, in a town called International Falls. There he helps a local fisherman. The fisherman understands what is going on, but instead of telling O'Brien what to do, he lets the young man figure it out on his own.  " The man that opened the door that day is the hero of my life.'' This whole situation culminates in a moment when O'Brien is on the lake that's on the Canadian border. He thinks of his decision and chooses not to desert. He chose this because he was convinced in his mind that even though he was scared and hated the war, being a coward was worse than going to the war. So in this sense the decision was made because he was isolated, because no one told him what he wanted to hear, and because of that he made a hard decision based on his own values, which is a positive. Soren Kirkegaard, a philosopher, essentially said that choices make us who we are, but sometimes we default, and make others make a decision for us. But in O'Briens case he was isolated, so he had to make the decision for himself.

O'Brien also saw horrible things in Vietnam, while he was Isolated from everything he ever knew. One night he saw his friend get blown up by a landmine. " All I could do was cry.'' This stark contrast from home can be parralled to a summer job he had before the war. He worked in a pig slaughterhouse, and said he, " hated it." But this can be parralled to Vietnam, just pigs at a slaughterhouse. But this feeling of hopelessness definitely contributes to a feeling of isolation, from family, from normalcy, from hope.

But overcoming those challenges of hopelessness and isolation can be rewarding. It's like a greek hero going into a challenge alone, like Oddeseyeus overcoming challenges and temptations alike. But anyways I think what O'Brien is saying about isolation is that it can act like a crucible. It can change you for the good or for the bad.