Full Metal Jacket vs the Things They Carried Essay

Im going to show you a short- deviate clip from the movie Full Metal Jacket directed by Stanley Kubart, the guy Mr. MacBrides brother mentioned yesterday in the LMC. In this scene, this mathematical group of American spends finally found and wounded the sniper that had already bulgeed 3 of their men. ane of which is Jokers, the protagonists, best friend, Cowboy.In the scene we just watched, the sniper was wounded, and Baldwin precious to leave the sniper to rot, exclusively Joker kills her instead. This leads the audience wonder Did Joker kill her because he wanted to end her misery, or did he kill her prohibited of frustration and as way of r level offge for his friend, Cowboy? The significance isnt in the answer, but in the question itself. The fact that this movie makes you question Jokers motives shows that this is a true struggle story. There is no moral in Full Metal Jacket.There ar no good guys and bad guys, and there isnt a clear caudex drawn between justice and ev il. You dont obtain evil towards the Viet Cong sniper, and you dont wee-wee undying support the American soldiers. Its different from all the other clich, patriotic war movies. Like Tim OBrien writes A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor support virtue, nor suggest models of proper kind-hearted behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men deliver continuously done. If a story callms moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.No one would argue what Joker did was a model of proper human behavior, because no one knows if he killed the sniper out of sympathy or to fulfill his lust for vengeance. Baldwin wanted to do what men have always done he wanted to let the sniper feel the amount of distress and sorrow he feels he wanted her to die a slow, vexatious finis, he wanted revenge. The ending doesnt uplift you, and the situation the soldiers were in allowed no rectitude. All these factors integrated create a masterpiece to what OBrien would proudly consider as a true war story.The Things They Carried is ironical in a way that it tells you how to tell a true war story, but the novel itself is a work of fiction. However, this doesnt mean the stories themselves arent authenticistic they are, as OBrien would say, the story truth. Sometimes the story truth is truer than the happening truth, because it makes things feel present. Reading this book makes the reader feel confused, and even cheated, because by creating a fictional protagonist called Tim OBrien, a soldier who fought in the Vietnam War, the author, Tim OBrien, a Vietnam war veteran, is luring us into believing that these stories are true. By treating this work as a work of non-fiction, the reader sympathizes for the soldiers, and forms an turned on(p) connection with the characters.In the chapter, Good Form, OBrien tells you everything is made up. We, as readers, experience a sudden psychological change, and this change mirrors the psychological change the soldiers of the war experienced. We view the stories differently now, and the soldiers were forced to view life and death differently. Notice in The Lives of the Dead, everyone in OBriens platoon move hands with the dead Vietnam soldier, gave him a can of orange slices, and talked to him. In revisal to cope with the brutality of the war, these guys had to reanimate the dead. They had to see and treat him as if he was still alive to relieve their guilty conscience of murder.After we find these tales are just tales, we readers are forced view these stories through a different lens, and those boys who went to war had to see the war through the lens of soldier. such(prenominal) like how Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was trained not to see his men as individuals, but rather as interchangeable units of command. OBriens intentional setup allows the reader to experience to a authorized degree how the soldiers felt entering the war. If he just told us real stories, the happening truths, we would still empathize with them, but we wouldnt rightfully understand. This is why the story truth is sometimes truer, and more expressive than the happening truth.The Things They Carried is truly a great form of art, not only because of its stylistic language, but because it abandons tradition and blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction, creating brand new possibilities in the world of literature.