Quentin

An interesting aspect of the second portion of the novel, Quentin’s memory, is finding out that Quentin is going to commit suicide. Faulkner provides us with many clues in Quentin’s section that foreshadow Quentin’s suicide. His weird obsession with time is one thing. He’s always thinking about the ticking noise. He is obviously agitated; he breaks his watch with his fist and then goes to the watch store but doesn’t get it fixed. I think that he had the whole event planned out in his head—a specific time for when he was going to drown himself. While he is at the watch store, he sees all of the clocks and asks the man if one of the times was correct and when the man begins to tell him the time, Quentin stops him. I think that he is having an internal struggle—he wants to end his life but at the same time is a little scared and doesn’t want to face the fact that it’s getting closer and closer to the end. Another clue is the two letters that he writes—one to his father and one to his roommate Shreve. While Quentin is in town, he meets a man named Deacon and gives him the letter for Shreve and tells him that he has something for him but he can’t go and get it until the next day. At the beginning of the section Quentin puts out two dress suits and then packs up his stuff into a trunk and puts the key into the letter and seals it. One other major clue is when he buys the two weights and says that they were small enough to look like he was carrying a pair of shoes—meaning they wouldn’t bring unnecessary attention to him. He has a lot of dark memories on his mind. For example, the incest situation is brought up. There is the part about Dalton Ames and Quentin saying that it wasn’t Ames, it was him (Quentin). Quentin is obviously dealing with a lot.

The obvious question now, at the point of the book where I’m at, is why does Quentin want to commit suicide? Right now the first thing that comes to mind is the incest situation involving Caddy, which still remains to be a little unclear as to what really happened. The name Dalton Ames is continuously being brought up as well as dialogues from Caddy’s wedding. One possible explanation might be that he can’t face the fact that he might have done something really bad with Caddy. In some of the scenes regarding Caddy’s wedding, Quentin is shown trying to discourage her from marrying Herbert. There could be an underlying reason as to why Quentin didn’t want her to marry Herbert, besides the incest. Maybe he knew something bad about Herbert. This novel is kind of like a mystery novel, in that we are left with so many loose ends and it is our job to try and connect the clues and figure out what happens. (508)

The Things They Carried

I found “The Things They Carried” to be very similar to a novel that we read sophomore year, All Quiet on the Western Front. One of the main themes in that novel was that the men in the war slowly became detached from the world they existed in, prior to going to battle, including losing their families. The soldiers were no long normal teenage boys, but men who had gone through one of the most dehumanizing events in life—war. The men turn into savage animals. As seen in “The Things They Carried,” the men cut off the thumb of a dead VC boy and then proceed to kick his head. The war has changed their perspectives of what is right and what is wrong—it is all a blur to them.

Jimmy Cross, the main character in “The Things They Carried,” blames himself for the death of one of his men, Ted Lavender, because he believed that he was not paying 110% to the safety of his soldier. Rather, Martha, a woman who he barely knew was occupying all of his thoughts. I think he thought he loved Martha so much because she was his last connection to the “normal” world. Unlike the other men, who had completely detached themselves from the civilian life, he was trying to keep himself from turning into a savage by tightening his bond with Martha.

Once Ted Lavender dies, Jimmy Cross finally realizes that there was no future between Martha and him. Martha is incapable of realizing the reality of what war and what he is experiencing. War has become his whole life, and anyone who has not lived through it cannot appreciate what he feels. Martha is a creature trapped in her own world, blind to the atrocities occurring in Vietnam. Lavender dying is the turning point for Jimmy. He finally lets go of the one thing that was holding him back—Martha. I do not think, however, that it was Jimmy’s fault that Lavender died. Jimmy puts extra blame on himself, because he thinks that if he was not so preoccupied with Martha, he might have been able to save Ted.

Dehumanization is a major aspect of war and has a very powerful impact on the psychological state of anyone returning from a war. Vietnam was particularly difficult for returning American soldiers because it was a very unpopular war and many civilians showed contempt or even down right hatred to the veterans. It is difficult enough for soldiers returning from war to reenter mainstream society, but after putting their lives on the line in war and they are treated terribly it becomes even more unbearable. Many soldiers were never able to make the transition from wartime back to normal civilian life. They either dropped out of society or left America and never returned. I think that all these ideas can be seen in “The Things They Carried” through the various characters. (491)