There are some instances, very few, that are strikingly similar to The Things They Carried. There was one specific line within the text that really brought me back to the book that talking about when Kiowa died. When Tim O’Brien talked about this memory of his, he really relates to his reader the pictures that were still so clear even after so many years. The way he talked about the “shit” and all of his surroundings and how they smelled like “shit”. The word “shit” really stuck out in my memory from then on out.
Then when Bobbie Ann Mason used the very same word within his text, it was like the word was highlighted in the text. “‘The smell of fish sauce,’ he said, ‘And human shit in the rice patties. And all those people pedaling their bicycles’”(54). This normally would not have even been recognized when I was reading, but only because I read Tim O’Brien’s did this piece of text stick out to me.
The fact that Tim O’Brien did not really like to talk about Vietnam, especially to his daughter, and that Emmett from this story most definitely does not like to talk about his experiences at war also match the two together. The two characters’ personalities are not exactly parallel, however I did seem to connect them with my reading and memories of past readings.
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That's funny you mention that because it is a connection that I alos made. While reading O'Brien's story it was hard not to get "the shit" stuck in your mind because that was his most vivid memory and the thing he related everything to practically when he got home. Now I find myself sometimes relating things in my life to the "shit" that O'Brien had to go through or even Mason's. This sentiment was probably felt by a numerous amount of soldiers from Vietnam but it's ironic to be reading two books in this class and have both authors refer to their experiences as being in the "shit" and relating it to the outer world in which they now live.
I think that's really interesting and I definitely didn't notice it until I read your blog post! I went back and reread that part. Do you think there are any other particular parallels between In Country and The Things They Carried? And do you think that there is a common theme that can be found in all of the Vietnam literature we've read so far?
I also noticed the connection between these two stories. That just goes to show how powerful that story that Tim O'Brien told was. All of these soldiers always seem to remember a certain smell that they associate Vietnam with. Sometimes that smell is what they remember most about the war.
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