Make one connection between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey. The connection can be about character, plot, theme, style--anything. Please explain for us the connection you see and why. Refer directly to the text(s) if possible.
One connection between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that Jimmy Cross and Odysseus have to lead their men in battle. Jimmy Cross leads his men to the village they have to burn. Odysseus has to bring his men home to Ithaca. They both fail at bringing all their men home. All of Odysseus's men died, and he came home alone. Jimmy Cross was blinded by his love for Martha, and wasn't able to lead his men with great leadership resulting in Lavender, one of his men, dying. Also, Odysseus is too distracted with his pride in himself and his love for women to lead his men resulting in all of his men dying. As you can see, there are many similarities between the Odyssey and The Things They Carried.
One connection between the The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that in both books the soldiers have tokens from home or certain memories they like to keep with them when the war is rough. Odysseus and Jimmy Cross both have women at home whom they love. But their situations were vastly different. Odysseus left his wife Penelope at home and while he missed her he gave into the temptations of other women along the way. But Jimmy Cross is in love with a girl named Martha who goes to college and is young, Martha sends him letters signed with love Martha but they don't mean it. Jimmy is completely infatuated with her and he cannot stop thinking about her during the war which leads to the death of one of his men. Martha doesn't love him back and he is always fantasizing about coming home to her. Odysseus is much older and he misses Penelope but it was a very different time so Penelope couldn't just send a letter or picture, things could only be sent by word of mouth. So in conclusion the two stories are pretty similar with minor differences in the details.
The Things They Carried relates to the Odyssey on an emotional level rather than a physical one. For instance, Odysseus is described as stark naked in certain scenes, whereas the men in The Things They Carried are weighed down by gear, rations, and embarrassment. Emotions like embarrassment are what the two share. Odysseus feels shame when he cannot stop his men being killed by Scylla and Charybdis. The soldiers feel similar shame when they are pleased that it was not them who has to explore the tunnel or get shot. For example, Ted Lavender's death does not instill grief in the heart of Kiowa the same way Lieutenant Cross does. Kiowa feels unhuman and even though he knows that Ted's death was unchristian, he feels no pain. The emotional burdens of war and having to be uncivilized to survive tax the men's "morals", a reoccurring theme, and Odysseus is tested in the same way when he has to make important decisions. (Like staying with Circe for a year.)
The fact that both of these stories start in Medias Res, deep in a world where nothing can be expected, strikes me as a similarity. Odysseus and his men are on their way back after 10 years of fighting, while Cross and his platoon are submerged in the dense jungles of Vietnam, where who knows how long they've been in. Martha is very like Penelope, the lover who is worlds away from her counterpart. However, while Cross worries all the time about Martha's faithfulness and the true scope of her feelings, Odysseus does not seem to follow this pattern, and I would think that Penelope should worry more about Odysseus' faithfulness than Odysseus of Penelope's. And just like Cross, Odysseus must endure the pain of having comrades die, all of them. Cross in this story develops from a love-struck boy who yearns only for home into an adult, cognizant of the hardships of war and the sacrifices needed to keep his own mind from escaping from him. I would say that Odysseus also becomes more mature, spurred on by thoughts of Telemachus, home, and the death of Elpenor, whom I might compare to Ted Lavender in The Things They Carried.
I think The Things They Carried and The Odyssey have similar main characters. Jimmy Cross is similar to Odysseus, because all he wants is to return home and go back to see his college crush. Odysseus just wants to come back from war to see his wife and family. But after a while, Jimmy Cross realizes that his mission is getting much longer and more difficult, just like how Odysseus encounters many problems even after the war is over. When Lavender dies, Jimmy loses all faith in his love because of the guilt he feels about the death, and tries to erase her from his mind and focus a lot more on the mission in front of him. When all of Odysseus' men die, he's also filled with great guilt and he too loses a little faith in his wife and lives with Calypso for a while. But unlike Jimmy, he keeps his wife and his son in his mind, instead of giving up on them completely. What I'm trying to say is, during their journeys, both of these men kept their loved ones in mind. But after a horrible incident, their loved ones become even more pushed into the back of their minds instead of at the forefront of all of their thoughts.
The Things They Carried and The Odyssey have similar plots. In this way I mean that both main characters are distracted by women. They then realized that they had bigger things to attend to than their female distractions. In The Things They Carried Jimmy Cross is obsessed with Martha, a friend from his home who he is in love with. Odysseus has multiple affairs with women in the Odyssey but the one that sticks out to me is Circe. Odysseus was "in bed" with Circe for over a year. That's one year that he could have spent trying to get home. But instead his lustful nature got the best of him and he stayed with Circe. Jimmy cross spent the early part of his tenure at lieutenant in Vietnam as a love struck commander who's thoughts were often on Martha. Both men also also had a realization and escaped their women's "holds". Odysseus decided to leave Circe and continue on his journey home. After Ted Lavender's death, Jimmy realizes that he needs to take his job more seriously. He burns the pictures of Martha and begins to focus on trying to be a better leader. Both men figured out what was really important before it was too late.
In The Things They Carried and the Odyssey, the leaders are very different. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is often crying after his men are killed, but he does not appear to take responsibility for their deaths. It seems more like Odysseus is being more selfish and is somewhat putting the death of his crew on them for not following his orders. It is very cut and dry, especially when compared to how Jimmy Cross takes responsibility for Ted Lavenders’ death, which was being shot, on his way back to the camp. There was no way for him to prevent that death yet he still takes responsibility for it. Jimmy Cross is more responsible concerning the fate of his men than Odysseus. Jimmy Cross cries for the deaths of men, blames himself for their deaths while Odysseus cries about his own problems, and ignores the deaths of his men. Cross realizes at the end of the story how he is too loose with his men and makes the effort to change that. Odysseus tells his men and order and in his mind, that is the end of his job. Odysseus even takes his men knowingly into danger when he goes in the giant’s home. Overall, Jimmy Cross is a lot more responsible than Odysseus.
Jimmy Cross and Odysseus are very similar characters in a similar story. Both of the men are in war and tryinng to cope with the things that they have been through and are expiriencing. The main similarity is that both Jimmy and Odysseus are in love with a woman. Jimmy belives she does not love him back and Odysseus belives that penelope may not love him anymore. They are both responsible for peoples death and are hurt by the war.However in my opinion the style of writting is very different.
One similarity between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is the role of honor, or kleos, and how it influenced the men in the story. The soldiers in Vietnam would kill, or be killed, in order to avoid embarrassment. In the Odyssey, kleos also played an important role for Telemachus, as he struggles to take his father's mantle and become a mature leader. In the same way, the men in Vietnam would go to extreme lengths to uphold their honor. They even made fun of the dead. They would also mock the men who would injure themselves just to escape the war (although they also desired to do the same). The importance of honor in both stories exhibits how, even after centuries, honor is still highly valued. The men in the Odyssey and the men in The Things They Carried were all very prideful, leading to many rash decisions and mistakes that caused severe consequences.
There is several connections between "The Things They Carried" and The Odyssey. One specifically is how men get addicted to things when they are at war. Tim O'Brian writes that after Lavender dies, they somke his dope. A lot of men during war or battle would do drugs or get addicted to bad things for your health. This was a way to cope with the pain and harsh reality of war. This connects to The Oddysey because Oddyseus' men get addicticed to the Lotus flower on the island. These both connections show how war can make a man get addicted to bad things, or just get you addictied where you can not stop. Also in this example, it shows that any war is going to change a man, even if you can not see it. War is a very hard thing for a man's mind to go through.
A similarity between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried is the use of drugs. In the Odyssey the men eat the lotus flowers, which helped the men sleep peacefully and not think of the dangerous mission that was ahead of them. This is the same for one of the characters in The Tings They Carried. In this story Ted Lavender carries and takes many tranquilizers, which help keep him calm throughout the war. After the death of Lavender Sander says there is a moral to his sad death and that moral is to stay away from drugs. This is comparable to the Odyssey. In The Odyssey Odysseus and his soldiers were tempted by the lotus flowers. By eating the lotus flowers it delayed their trip. If they would of stayed away from the lotus flowers they could have been home an entire year earlier. If Ted Lavender did not drug himself with sedatives he could have been more alert and maybe could of survived longer.
In both The Things They Carried and the Odyssey, the soldiers found ways to numb their pain and sorrow. In The Things They Carried, many of the characters used drugs or alcohol in order to temporarily forget about the horror that they were going through. Since what the soldiers were going through was so terrifying, drugs and alcohol were the only way for them to cope and to emotionally survive the war. In the Odyssey, the lotus flower was similarly used by Odysseus's men. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men are stuck on an island. They use the lotus flower as a means of escape from their loneliness, and from the longing that they all felt for home and for their families. The soldiers in both stories cope from pain the same way, becoming blind to what's going on around them. I think that this is an important connection between the two stories because it shows that throughout time soldiers have needed ways to survive emotionally through war. Obviously, there weren't as many drugs and alcohol in Ancient Greece as their are currently, but that doesn't mean that the Greeks didn't try to find other ways to cope.
One similarity between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that both Odysseus and Lieutenant Crosses’ men travel through lands foreign and unknown to them. In Ithaca, where Odysseus is from, xenia is a custom observed by everyone. In Phaeacia, however, Odysseus is quickly told by princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacian’s distrust of strangers. She predicts the strangers will mock him as “some alien from abroad” if he travels into town beside her (6.306). Odysseus travels through places where he is utterly out of place. Tim O’Brien describes the soldiers in Vietnam as carrying “the land itself-Vietnam, the place, the soil-a powdery orange red dust . . . They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere . . . the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay” (14). Just as Phaecia is to Odysseus, to the soldiers Vietnam is “mysterious and unknown” (15). When they are finally brought home, the soldiers are ecstatic to return to the familiarity of America, to “the farms and great sleeping cities and cemeteries and highways and the golden arches of McDonald’s” (22). Both Odysseus’ and Lieutenant Crosses’ men show contempt toward the people through who’s land they are traveling. Odysseus recounts to Alcinous, how, fresh from the battle of Troy, he and his men had reached the island of the Cicones and “sacked the city, killed the men” (9. 46-47). After Ted Lavender dies, Lieutenant Crosse leads his men into the village of Than Khe where “They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well” (15).
The similarity between "The Things They Carried" and The Odyssey that stood out to me was that both main characters, Odysseus and Jimmy Cross, carried "baggage/items" that stereotyped them. For instance, Jimmy Cross carries letters that weigh 4 oz. So for Jimmy Cross, he carries actual baggage/items. As told later in the text, more things are added that a soldier must carry around. However for Odysseus, he carries baggage in the sense of the things he has done in the past. This weight is what holds him down, and makes him who he is as presented in the story. Even though this baggage that Odysseus has may have a negative connotation for the bad things he did in his past, it can also have a positive connotation. We see this in the way he is praised as a great war hero, King of Ithaca, and being able to survive a 25 year journey home.
There are many similarites between " The Things They Carried" and " The Odyssey" such as, the main characters and what they through, and distractions and addictions the men in the text face. Jimmy Cross is a Lieutenant who was out fighting and Odysseus was a man in war also. They both traveled to different places throughout their life journeys, and they also were staled by a few things. Not only was Jimmy Cross staled in " The Things They Carried" but, so were his men. Many either had addictions to coop with what they were going through or just addictions that they had. Many were addicted to alchol or drugs. This men were addicted to this things because they were going through a hard time. In "The Odyssey", Odysseus and some of him were staled because of the Lotus Flowers. If this flowers were to be eaten by somebody, they affected the person as if they had taken a drug. So Odysseus and his men were on an island and they ate this flowers and were drugged up. The men liked the flowers so much that they could keep on eating them. The Lotus Flowers worked both as an addiction and a distraction because, the first flower they ate made them addicted to it and so they kept on eating them which distracted them from their journey. This is a similarity that " The Things They Carried", and "The Odyssey". In both text, where are journeys that are being taken and throughout them, there are addictions and distractions.
One similarity between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried are that the mental dispositions of the soldiers are affected by the things going on around them. Odysseus is described as a very wise man, but he often makes mistakes in combat by either getting too cocky or sacrificing his men for no reason. It wasn't sane of him to call out the giant and taunt him for any reason. The soldiers in The Things They Carried do weird things to cope with thier stress. They might do something obsessive or use drugs or alcohol. But some of the soldiers might not have been totally stable to begin with. They did enlist in the Army for a reason. They could also, like Odysseus, have been drafted into the war. In which case, the war might have unsettled them even more than the people who signed up.
There are many similarities between "The Odyssey" and "The Things They Carry". One line I particularly liked in "The Things They Carry" was when the author says "They carried all they could bear and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." Obviously this is how the soldiers in the Vietnam War felt shown in this short story, but I think Odysseus also felt like this in a way. I assume that Odysseus had to bear the fact that his wife and the son he barely knew were alone and that he may never return. He probably misses his family dearly, even if it doesn't seem like it. Certain things are just people's way of coping. The story talks about one soldier carrying condoms and we know Odysseus had affairs with many beautiful witches and nymphs, but this is just their way of avoiding thinking about their family and friends and all the damage and devastation they have caused. Which brings me to the second part of the phrase. "including the silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." This line was particularly powerful, because what we carry with us can effect so many other people. In the short story it is talking about the fact that these men carry guns, but in the Odyssey I think it could also refer to Odysseus' choices. Odysseus chooses to go to Calypso's and because of this many of his men fall into her trap and suffer. We also have to remember that Odysseus fought in a war as well and he is very damaged when he returns home to Penelope and Telemachus. I think there are many other similarities as well, but I thought this one line showed the most.
One connection I saw between The Odyssey and The Things they Carried was the relationship between Lieutenant Cross and his soldiers and Odysseus and his soldiers. Lieutenant Cross really cared about his men and took full responsibility for them for example when Lavender was killed, Lt. Cross said he would confront the problem and take full responsibility. Odysseus did not directly state that it was his fault for all of his men's deaths but he knew it was his fault. Also, Lt. Cross remembered his love one throughout his journey as did Odysseus. Lt. Cross kept pictures and letters from Martha and kept her in his mind at all times. Odysseus remembered Penelope, though he was not as quite faithful as he should of been towards her.
Between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried, I saw a couple of different connections. For example, the fact that the soldiers in both books all have different ways of dealing with the situation they are in. I also see a similarity in the way that Odysseus and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross both carry some sort of baggage with them on their journey. For the both, they had to carry the weight of being in charge of all of their soldiers and also the thoughts of people back home. Both men were in a war and were constantly getting distracted with the thought of going back home. Both Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Odysseus carried the weight that their men couldn't and I think that the leadership between them is what makes them so similar. I also think that both men kind of kept their feelings and thoughts to themselves because they felt like it was their responsibility to stay on task. They also both felt responsible for things they couldn't control because they felt like their want to go home was hindering them from being the best leader they could be for their men. These are just a few similarities that I saw between these men, but there are also a lot more.
One similarity I see between the Things They Carried and The Odyssey is the maturation of Jimmy Cross and Telemachus. Jimmy Cross is in charge of a group of men while Telemachus is somewhat in charge of Odysseus' kingdom. At the beginning of their stories, both are timid and are holding back. They both lack the poise to be a true leader initially. Part of Jimmy Cross is still with his love, Martha, and parts of Telemachus are still with his father, Odysseus. The two of them eventually realize that they have an important role. People need their leadership. Jimmy Cross' men need his, and Penelope needs Telemachus'. Once they take control as a leader, they think less of their counterpart upon which they were previously dwelling on. They become stronger mentally and physically. While I have not read past the reading that we were given for The Things They Carried, I would like to think that Cross goes on to play a big role and lead his men to victory (or back home safely) like Telemachus does. Before they both assumed their role as leader, they both had to set aside what was holding them back, and I think this is a strong similarity between the Things They Carried and the Odyssey.
One connection I saw between the Things They Carried and The Odyssey was that both Odysseus and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is that they are trying to survive to make it home. Both try to endure all the obstacles that are thrown at them and basically try to survive. I mean Jimmy Cross wants to get home to see Martha, while Odysseus wants to go home and take the kingdom back and see his son that he hasn't seen for a long time. Also, both their leadership styles seem similar. I mean Jimmy Cross was so obsessed about Martha, that he felt the blame for one of his men dying, and Odysseus only really wanted to get home. They both only leaded their crews so that they could survive.
The one connection I would make between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried would be war. In TTTC the main characters are in the vietnam war and they are struggling to survive. And a very similar story meaning the Odyssey is about Odysseus and his warriors struggling to get home from the Trojan War. In both stories they carry heavy weaponry, in the Odyssey they carry swords and shields and in TTTC they carry pocket knifes, M16's, grease guns, a captured ouzie, smith and wesson handguns, smoke grenade, tear gas, & metal helmets. And lastly during both of these stories all of the characters were at risk of dying almost all of the time, such as what happned to Ted Lavender, "20 pounds of ammunition plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest. He was dead weight."
One connection between The Things They carried and the Odyssey is that both Odysseus and Jimmy Cross led men into battle and both of them had to deal with the deaths of their men and had to learn how to move on. They both held their selves accountable when one of their men died. I think that Odysseus is more responsible than Jimmy Cross when someone in his group dies because Odysseus is actually responsible because of all of the things he did to slow down his return and all of the gods he angered. Jimmy feels responsible for something he could have not stopped, and there are no gods he has angered to make such a misfortune fall unto him one of his people still dies.
One connection between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that Jimmy Cross and Odysseus have to lead their men in battle. Jimmy Cross leads his men to the village they have to burn. Odysseus has to bring his men home to Ithaca. They both fail at bringing all their men home. All of Odysseus's men died, and he came home alone. Jimmy Cross was blinded by his love for Martha, and wasn't able to lead his men with great leadership resulting in Lavender, one of his men, dying. Also, Odysseus is too distracted with his pride in himself and his love for women to lead his men resulting in all of his men dying. As you can see, there are many similarities between the Odyssey and The Things They Carried.
ReplyDeleteOne connection between the The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that in both books the soldiers have tokens from home or certain memories they like to keep with them when the war is rough. Odysseus and Jimmy Cross both have women at home whom they love. But their situations were vastly different. Odysseus left his wife Penelope at home and while he missed her he gave into the temptations of other women along the way. But Jimmy Cross is in love with a girl named Martha who goes to college and is young, Martha sends him letters signed with love Martha but they don't mean it. Jimmy is completely infatuated with her and he cannot stop thinking about her during the war which leads to the death of one of his men. Martha doesn't love him back and he is always fantasizing about coming home to her. Odysseus is much older and he misses Penelope but it was a very different time so Penelope couldn't just send a letter or picture, things could only be sent by word of mouth. So in conclusion the two stories are pretty similar with minor differences in the details.
ReplyDeleteThe Things They Carried relates to the Odyssey on an emotional level rather than a physical one. For instance, Odysseus is described as stark naked in certain scenes, whereas the men in The Things They Carried are weighed down by gear, rations, and embarrassment. Emotions like embarrassment are what the two share. Odysseus feels shame when he cannot stop his men being killed by Scylla and Charybdis. The soldiers feel similar shame when they are pleased that it was not them who has to explore the tunnel or get shot. For example, Ted Lavender's death does not instill grief in the heart of Kiowa the same way Lieutenant Cross does. Kiowa feels unhuman and even though he knows that Ted's death was unchristian, he feels no pain. The emotional burdens of war and having to be uncivilized to survive tax the men's "morals", a reoccurring theme, and Odysseus is tested in the same way when he has to make important decisions. (Like staying with Circe for a year.)
ReplyDeleteThe fact that both of these stories start in Medias Res, deep in a world where nothing can be expected, strikes me as a similarity. Odysseus and his men are on their way back after 10 years of fighting, while Cross and his platoon are submerged in the dense jungles of Vietnam, where who knows how long they've been in. Martha is very like Penelope, the lover who is worlds away from her counterpart. However, while Cross worries all the time about Martha's faithfulness and the true scope of her feelings, Odysseus does not seem to follow this pattern, and I would think that Penelope should worry more about Odysseus' faithfulness than Odysseus of Penelope's. And just like Cross, Odysseus must endure the pain of having comrades die, all of them. Cross in this story develops from a love-struck boy who yearns only for home into an adult, cognizant of the hardships of war and the sacrifices needed to keep his own mind from escaping from him. I would say that Odysseus also becomes more mature, spurred on by thoughts of Telemachus, home, and the death of Elpenor, whom I might compare to Ted Lavender in The Things They Carried.
ReplyDeleteI think The Things They Carried and The Odyssey have similar main characters. Jimmy Cross is similar to Odysseus, because all he wants is to return home and go back to see his college crush. Odysseus just wants to come back from war to see his wife and family. But after a while, Jimmy Cross realizes that his mission is getting much longer and more difficult, just like how Odysseus encounters many problems even after the war is over. When Lavender dies, Jimmy loses all faith in his love because of the guilt he feels about the death, and tries to erase her from his mind and focus a lot more on the mission in front of him. When all of Odysseus' men die, he's also filled with great guilt and he too loses a little faith in his wife and lives with Calypso for a while. But unlike Jimmy, he keeps his wife and his son in his mind, instead of giving up on them completely. What I'm trying to say is, during their journeys, both of these men kept their loved ones in mind. But after a horrible incident, their loved ones become even more pushed into the back of their minds instead of at the forefront of all of their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe Things They Carried and The Odyssey have similar plots. In this way I mean that both main characters are distracted by women. They then realized that they had bigger things to attend to than their female distractions. In The Things They Carried Jimmy Cross is obsessed with Martha, a friend from his home who he is in love with. Odysseus has multiple affairs with women in the Odyssey but the one that sticks out to me is Circe. Odysseus was "in bed" with Circe for over a year. That's one year that he could have spent trying to get home. But instead his lustful nature got the best of him and he stayed with Circe. Jimmy cross spent the early part of his tenure at lieutenant in Vietnam as a love struck commander who's thoughts were often on Martha. Both men also also had a realization and escaped their women's "holds". Odysseus decided to leave Circe and continue on his journey home. After Ted Lavender's death, Jimmy realizes that he needs to take his job more seriously. He burns the pictures of Martha and begins to focus on trying to be a better leader. Both men figured out what was really important before it was too late.
ReplyDeleteIn The Things They Carried and the Odyssey, the leaders are very different. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is often crying after his men are killed, but he does not appear to take responsibility for their deaths. It seems more like Odysseus is being more selfish and is somewhat putting the death of his crew on them for not following his orders. It is very cut and dry, especially when compared to how Jimmy Cross takes responsibility for Ted Lavenders’ death, which was being shot, on his way back to the camp. There was no way for him to prevent that death yet he still takes responsibility for it. Jimmy Cross is more responsible concerning the fate of his men than Odysseus. Jimmy Cross cries for the deaths of men, blames himself for their deaths while Odysseus cries about his own problems, and ignores the deaths of his men. Cross realizes at the end of the story how he is too loose with his men and makes the effort to change that. Odysseus tells his men and order and in his mind, that is the end of his job. Odysseus even takes his men knowingly into danger when he goes in the giant’s home. Overall, Jimmy Cross is a lot more responsible than Odysseus.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Cross and Odysseus are very similar characters in a similar story. Both of the men are in war and tryinng to cope with the things that they have been through and are expiriencing. The main similarity is that both Jimmy and Odysseus are in love with a woman. Jimmy belives she does not love him back and Odysseus belives that penelope may not love him anymore. They are both responsible for peoples death and are hurt by the war.However in my opinion the style of writting is very different.
ReplyDeleteOne similarity between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is the role of honor, or kleos, and how it influenced the men in the story. The soldiers in Vietnam would kill, or be killed, in order to avoid embarrassment. In the Odyssey, kleos also played an important role for Telemachus, as he struggles to take his father's mantle and become a mature leader. In the same way, the men in Vietnam would go to extreme lengths to uphold their honor. They even made fun of the dead. They would also mock the men who would injure themselves just to escape the war (although they also desired to do the same). The importance of honor in both stories exhibits how, even after centuries, honor is still highly valued. The men in the Odyssey and the men in The Things They Carried were all very prideful, leading to many rash decisions and mistakes that caused severe consequences.
ReplyDeleteThere is several connections between "The Things They Carried" and The Odyssey. One specifically is how men get addicted to things when they are at war. Tim O'Brian writes that after Lavender dies, they somke his dope. A lot of men during war or battle would do drugs or get addicted to bad things for your health. This was a way to cope with the pain and harsh reality of war. This connects to The Oddysey because Oddyseus' men get addicticed to the Lotus flower on the island. These both connections show how war can make a man get addicted to bad things, or just get you addictied where you can not stop. Also in this example, it shows that any war is going to change a man, even if you can not see it. War is a very hard thing for a man's mind to go through.
ReplyDeleteA similarity between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried is the use of drugs. In the Odyssey the men eat the lotus flowers, which helped the men sleep peacefully and not think of the dangerous mission that was ahead of them. This is the same for one of the characters in The Tings They Carried. In this story Ted Lavender carries and takes many tranquilizers, which help keep him calm throughout the war. After the death of Lavender Sander says there is a moral to his sad death and that moral is to stay away from drugs. This is comparable to the Odyssey. In The Odyssey Odysseus and his soldiers were tempted by the lotus flowers. By eating the lotus flowers it delayed their trip. If they would of stayed away from the lotus flowers they could have been home an entire year earlier. If Ted Lavender did not drug himself with sedatives he could have been more alert and maybe could of survived longer.
ReplyDeleteIn both The Things They Carried and the Odyssey, the soldiers found ways to numb their pain and sorrow. In The Things They Carried, many of the characters used drugs or alcohol in order to temporarily forget about the horror that they were going through. Since what the soldiers were going through was so terrifying, drugs and alcohol were the only way for them to cope and to emotionally survive the war. In the Odyssey, the lotus flower was similarly used by Odysseus's men. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men are stuck on an island. They use the lotus flower as a means of escape from their loneliness, and from the longing that they all felt for home and for their families. The soldiers in both stories cope from pain the same way, becoming blind to what's going on around them. I think that this is an important connection between the two stories because it shows that throughout time soldiers have needed ways to survive emotionally through war. Obviously, there weren't as many drugs and alcohol in Ancient Greece as their are currently, but that doesn't mean that the Greeks didn't try to find other ways to cope.
ReplyDeleteOne similarity between The Things They Carried and the Odyssey is that both Odysseus and Lieutenant Crosses’ men travel through lands foreign and unknown to them. In Ithaca, where Odysseus is from, xenia is a custom observed by everyone. In Phaeacia, however, Odysseus is quickly told by princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacian’s distrust of strangers. She predicts the strangers will mock him as “some alien from abroad” if he travels into town beside her (6.306). Odysseus travels through places where he is utterly out of place. Tim O’Brien describes the soldiers in Vietnam as carrying “the land itself-Vietnam, the place, the soil-a powdery orange red dust . . . They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere . . . the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay” (14). Just as Phaecia is to Odysseus, to the soldiers Vietnam is “mysterious and unknown” (15). When they are finally brought home, the soldiers are ecstatic to return to the familiarity of America, to “the farms and great sleeping cities and cemeteries and highways and the golden arches of McDonald’s” (22). Both Odysseus’ and Lieutenant Crosses’ men show contempt toward the people through who’s land they are traveling. Odysseus recounts to Alcinous, how, fresh from the battle of Troy, he and his men had reached the island of the Cicones and “sacked the city, killed the men” (9. 46-47). After Ted Lavender dies, Lieutenant Crosse leads his men into the village of Than Khe where “They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well” (15).
ReplyDeleteThe similarity between "The Things They Carried" and The Odyssey that stood out to me was that both main characters, Odysseus and Jimmy Cross, carried "baggage/items" that stereotyped them. For instance, Jimmy Cross carries letters that weigh 4 oz. So for Jimmy Cross, he carries actual baggage/items. As told later in the text, more things are added that a soldier must carry around. However for Odysseus, he carries baggage in the sense of the things he has done in the past. This weight is what holds him down, and makes him who he is as presented in the story. Even though this baggage that Odysseus has may have a negative connotation for the bad things he did in his past, it can also have a positive connotation. We see this in the way he is praised as a great war hero, King of Ithaca, and being able to survive a 25 year journey home.
ReplyDeleteThere are many similarites between " The Things They Carried" and " The Odyssey" such as, the main characters and what they through, and distractions and addictions the men in the text face. Jimmy Cross is a Lieutenant who was out fighting and Odysseus was a man in war also. They both traveled to different places throughout their life journeys, and they also were staled by a few things. Not only was Jimmy Cross staled in " The Things They Carried" but, so were his men. Many either had addictions to coop with what they were going through or just addictions that they had. Many were addicted to alchol or drugs. This men were addicted to this things because they were going through a hard time. In "The Odyssey", Odysseus and some of him were staled because of the Lotus Flowers. If this flowers were to be eaten by somebody, they affected the person as if they had taken a drug. So Odysseus and his men were on an island and they ate this flowers and were drugged up. The men liked the flowers so much that they could keep on eating them. The Lotus Flowers worked both as an addiction and a distraction because, the first flower they ate made them addicted to it and so they kept on eating them which distracted them from their journey. This is a similarity that " The Things They Carried", and "The Odyssey". In both text, where are journeys that are being taken and throughout them, there are addictions and distractions.
ReplyDeleteOne similarity between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried are that the mental dispositions of the soldiers are affected by the things going on around them. Odysseus is described as a very wise man, but he often makes mistakes in combat by either getting too cocky or sacrificing his men for no reason. It wasn't sane of him to call out the giant and taunt him for any reason. The soldiers in The Things They Carried do weird things to cope with thier stress. They might do something obsessive or use drugs or alcohol. But some of the soldiers might not have been totally stable to begin with. They did enlist in the Army for a reason. They could also, like Odysseus, have been drafted into the war. In which case, the war might have unsettled them even more than the people who signed up.
ReplyDeleteThere are many similarities between "The Odyssey" and "The Things They Carry". One line I particularly liked in "The Things They Carry" was when the author says "They carried all they could bear and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." Obviously this is how the soldiers in the Vietnam War felt shown in this short story, but I think Odysseus also felt like this in a way. I assume that Odysseus had to bear the fact that his wife and the son he barely knew were alone and that he may never return. He probably misses his family dearly, even if it doesn't seem like it. Certain things are just people's way of coping. The story talks about one soldier carrying condoms and we know Odysseus had affairs with many beautiful witches and nymphs, but this is just their way of avoiding thinking about their family and friends and all the damage and devastation they have caused. Which brings me to the second part of the phrase. "including the silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." This line was particularly powerful, because what we carry with us can effect so many other people. In the short story it is talking about the fact that these men carry guns, but in the Odyssey I think it could also refer to Odysseus' choices. Odysseus chooses to go to Calypso's and because of this many of his men fall into her trap and suffer. We also have to remember that Odysseus fought in a war as well and he is very damaged when he returns home to Penelope and Telemachus. I think there are many other similarities as well, but I thought this one line showed the most.
ReplyDeleteOne connection I saw between The Odyssey and The Things they Carried was the relationship between Lieutenant Cross and his soldiers and Odysseus and his soldiers. Lieutenant Cross really cared about his men and took full responsibility for them for example when Lavender was killed, Lt. Cross said he would confront the problem and take full responsibility. Odysseus did not directly state that it was his fault for all of his men's deaths but he knew it was his fault. Also, Lt. Cross remembered his love one throughout his journey as did Odysseus. Lt. Cross kept pictures and letters from Martha and kept her in his mind at all times. Odysseus remembered Penelope, though he was not as quite faithful as he should of been towards her.
ReplyDeleteBetween The Odyssey and The Things They Carried, I saw a couple of different connections. For example, the fact that the soldiers in both books all have different ways of dealing with the situation they are in. I also see a similarity in the way that Odysseus and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross both carry some sort of baggage with them on their journey. For the both, they had to carry the weight of being in charge of all of their soldiers and also the thoughts of people back home. Both men were in a war and were constantly getting distracted with the thought of going back home. Both Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Odysseus carried the weight that their men couldn't and I think that the leadership between them is what makes them so similar. I also think that both men kind of kept their feelings and thoughts to themselves because they felt like it was their responsibility to stay on task. They also both felt responsible for things they couldn't control because they felt like their want to go home was hindering them from being the best leader they could be for their men. These are just a few similarities that I saw between these men, but there are also a lot more.
ReplyDeleteOne similarity I see between the Things They Carried and The Odyssey is the maturation of Jimmy Cross and Telemachus. Jimmy Cross is in charge of a group of men while Telemachus is somewhat in charge of Odysseus' kingdom. At the beginning of their stories, both are timid and are holding back. They both lack the poise to be a true leader initially. Part of Jimmy Cross is still with his love, Martha, and parts of Telemachus are still with his father, Odysseus. The two of them eventually realize that they have an important role. People need their leadership. Jimmy Cross' men need his, and Penelope needs Telemachus'. Once they take control as a leader, they think less of their counterpart upon which they were previously dwelling on. They become stronger mentally and physically. While I have not read past the reading that we were given for The Things They Carried, I would like to think that Cross goes on to play a big role and lead his men to victory (or back home safely) like Telemachus does. Before they both assumed their role as leader, they both had to set aside what was holding them back, and I think this is a strong similarity between the Things They Carried and the Odyssey.
ReplyDeleteOne connection I saw between the Things They Carried and The Odyssey was that both Odysseus and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is that they are trying to survive to make it home. Both try to endure all the obstacles that are thrown at them and basically try to survive. I mean Jimmy Cross wants to get home to see Martha, while Odysseus wants to go home and take the kingdom back and see his son that he hasn't seen for a long time. Also, both their leadership styles seem similar. I mean Jimmy Cross was so obsessed about Martha, that he felt the blame for one of his men dying, and Odysseus only really wanted to get home. They both only leaded their crews so that they could survive.
ReplyDeleteThe one connection I would make between The Odyssey and The Things They Carried would be war. In TTTC the main characters are in the vietnam war and they are struggling to survive. And a very similar story meaning the Odyssey is about Odysseus and his warriors struggling to get home from the Trojan War. In both stories they carry heavy weaponry, in the Odyssey they carry swords and shields and in TTTC they carry pocket knifes, M16's, grease guns, a captured ouzie, smith and wesson handguns, smoke grenade, tear gas, & metal helmets. And lastly during both of these stories all of the characters were at risk of dying almost all of the time, such as what happned to Ted Lavender, "20 pounds of ammunition plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest. He was dead weight."
ReplyDeleteOne connection between The Things They carried and the Odyssey is that both Odysseus and Jimmy Cross led men into battle and both of them had to deal with the deaths of their men and had to learn how to move on. They both held their selves accountable when one of their men died. I think that Odysseus is more responsible than Jimmy Cross when someone in his group dies because Odysseus is actually responsible because of all of the things he did to slow down his return and all of the gods he angered. Jimmy feels responsible for something he could have not stopped, and there are no gods he has angered to make such a misfortune fall unto him one of his people still dies.
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