Week 8 Open Topic

I believe an important key element and theme in The Things They Carried is in "Speaking of Courage", here Norman Bowker returns home and discovers that the world has moved on and this "perfect" little town is dead, the people, the shops and his own father. This story in particular runs parallel to The Red Convertible and Soldier's Home in the aspect that it plays off the constant emphasis of isolation in place and self. Bowker returns home and drives the same 7 mile drive around the lake all afternoon, no one asks him about war, people are going on with their lives in peace without question to outside the nice houses and fences and lives on the "lake side" of the street. They are unaffected because the are ignorant to it, the don't ask because it doesn't pertain to them, they don't want to face the reality, or they simply just do not care. This idea of isolation is emphasized with the way his father "Fights his own war" and watches baseball, Sally and her new last name, new life and forgotten past, the man who can't start his boat. It is blatantly obvious when he even honks at other people and they don't look up to notice him. He is aware that he is alone and will never be able to honestly tell his story, even if he "tells" it to another, the response would be dull and flat, the point would not be made, he would still be left feeling isolated because the story will never really be told. An important image I picked out and noted would be the boys that were walking with knapsacks, canteens and toy rifles. He passes these boys in an almost memory kind of way. As though he is driving through his past and is invisible to the world around him. "He watched the boys recede in his rear view mirror" (140). He is looking back, implying looking to his past and watching these little boys playing war fade away. He is watching himself fade, his presence fade, his childhood and most importantly his innocence fade.