Thursday, May 23, 2013

AP Language: Final Response to The Things They Carried

AP Language: Final Response to The Things They Carried: Even though The Things They Carried  is set during the Vietnam War, in what ways is it relevant today, with regard to war and politics as we...

This book is relevant to today in more ways than one. First off in politics we tend to ignore the actual glaring problem and just deal with the easy stuff and what would benefit a select few people rather than the whole. You can see this in all the health care plans and what not. In the book you see it in the whole point of going to Vietnam. Even the soldiers fighting over there don't know why they or fighting or for what. In addition they were largely ignored when they were able to return home. Just as our society today tends to ignore the needs of the poverty. We believe that they need to deal with it themselves and that they will be "all right." The soldiers in Vietnam were changed and had to face many fears. Just as many children change and face their fears today. However they don't have to do it through a war, but the underlying meaning of change is still there. You become a different person through going to college, changing home environments, or a war.

2 comments:

  1. This book is revelant to today for many different reasons. We are often selfish because we avoid trouble by only helping a couple of people instead of helping many people that actually need help. No one really knew why were fighting in Vietnam in the first place, especially the soldiers. Many of the soldiers were more poor because all of the rich soldiers could pay their way out of fighting in the war. Today we also focus on the easier parts of society and ignore the harder issues, one of which being homeless people.

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  2. Though the book took place years ago, today's society connects with the novel. In the aspect of war, it seems today that the citizens of the United States know very little of the happenings over in the Middle East. While most understand the basics, such as we are at war and should in fact not be, no one truly grasps what it is like to be over in the field unless they themselves are over battling. This is like the characters of TTTC because Tim, Kurt, Mitchell, and the others didn't fully comprehend why there were in Vietnam. They only knew they were to fight a war they knew nothing about. Similar to that, politics seem to only brush the top of issues during elections. No one delves into the thick center of problems. Candidates stay vague enough to where they cannot get in trouble, which leaves the public uninformed. The book was connected to this idea in the way that it contradicted most war books. Most novels dealing with war will, like politicians, stay on the surface of the battle. Instead, TTTC challenged this idea and jumped into the inner problems of war such as guilt, uncertainty, and change.

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