The Only Side

The Only Side

                One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. This baggage has been the topic of many literary works, for example: Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Thomas Harding’s “The Man He Killed.” In “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses the literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for the negative impact that war has on the war-fighters. He uses these metaphors as windows into the minds of the soldiers in his story. Similarly, Harding explores a soldier’s psyche in “The Man He Killed.” Harding uses this poem to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, and to let the world know how killing a man can have long lasting effects on that soldier’s mind. Both of these works address how mentally challenging it is to go to war and have to kill people in the name of your country. When these two works are read together, they create a chilling feeling for the reader who now has a slight understanding of the minds of the warriors, and an ever so slight understanding of the emotional baggage that our service members must carry with them.

                “The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land. The items they carry represent emotions that they also carry, and the emotions are always heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, which are symbolic of his desire for order as well as a general longing for an understanding of the mission in Vietnam, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this. Through these items, O’Brien opens up the characters in his story. The reader is now able to (begin to) understand what’s going on in the soldier’s minds.

                “The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war—that war is dirty and makes men do things that they wouldn’t do in any other circumstance. Hardy uses that realization to open up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psych. Take “I shot him dead because— / Because he was my foe.” (Hardy 9-10) for example. The dramatic pause, then the repetition of “because” is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say “Just so: my foe of course he was; / That's clear enough; although” (Hardy 11-12), in a further attempt to convince himself, albeit unsuccessfully. The speaker’s inability to convince himself that he did nothing wrong is evident by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say “Off-hand like—just as I— / Was out of work—Had sold his traps / —No other reason why” (Hardy 14-16) he basically means “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker has deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

               Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” (O’Brien) he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” (Hardy 7) meaning that there really isn’t anything quite like it—and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.  

               While the two authors may agree in message, their eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to understand just how destructive and overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. For example, in “The Things They Carried” O’Brien uses a wide array of literary devices. The most powerful device is easily the metaphors that he uses throughout the story. He also uses the repetition of the word carried to drive those metaphors home, as evident:

“Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr. Scholl's foot powder as a precaution against trench foot. Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for him was 2 necessity. Mitchell Sanders, the RT0, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father” (O’Brien)

The repetition throughout the story serves as the hammer that drives O’Brien’s point home. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” (Hardy 5) it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. This fact alone is very important, because the speaker does not care to understand exactly what the words mean, just as he never wanted to kill anybody. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

                “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.

 

Shakespeare: The Master of Dramatic Irony

The Master of Dramatic Irony

Irony is a very important element of literature. Proper use of irony allows for an audience to know things that the characters in work of literature to know things that the characters in the literature do not know. When used properly, this knowledge is used to create feelings of humor and suspense for an audience. The power of irony makes it a very common literary element, and many famous authors and playwrights have used it to dramatize their works. For example, in Oedipus Rex, Sophocles has Oedipus search for the killer of the king, only to find out that it was himself who did the killing. The audience of course had known the entire time—which of course made for many humorous situations. Shakespeare is considered to be one of the most renowned ironic playwrights of all time.

One of the best examples of dramatic irony is in his play The Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses irony extensively. The use of irony in this play is the source of a majority of the humor found within the play. More specifically dramatic irony is incredibly important in this play. Dramatic irony is created when the audience knows something that the characters don’t, and this play is filled with it. The dramatic irony is used to create a very engaging and funny experience for the audience. Without the extensive use of dramatic irony, The Twelfth Night would not have been nearly as funny and therefore there are many examples of irony found within the play.

The first and most important example of irony in The Twelfth Night is the most obvious: the dramatic irony that is created when Viola and Sebastian believe each other to be dead, when the audience of course knows that they’re both alive. This situation becomes even funnier, when Viola decides to take on the likeness of her twin brother—calling herself Cesario. This will prove to get the characters into many sticky situations in which they don’t understand what’s happening. One of the best examples of this is the first time that Sebastian meets Olivia. Olivia has fallen in love with Viola (who was pretending to be Sebastian). So in Olivia’s mind, Sebastian is the man he’s fallen in love with, when the audience knows that they’ve never actually met. This causes their first meeting to be not only very suspenseful, but also hilarious.  The dramatic irony doesn’t stop with just that one love triangle, however. Orsino, who is Viola’s boss, loves Olivia. So, Orsino sends Viola to attempt to earn Olivia’s favor for Orsino. He was less than pleased when he first saw Sebastian with Olivia. It’s the perfect example of dramatic irony, and modern writers should take note: Viola is passionate for a man who has no idea she is actually a woman. That very same man is in love with a woman who is in love with a man who is actually a woman!

Even the minor characters have their own bits of dramatic irony mixed into their side story to make it just that much more interesting. Poor Malvolio has the meanest of pranks played on him, and the prank is made even funnier due the presence of dramatic irony. The dramatic irony is created when Malvolio receives a note written in handwriting that looks like Olivia’s. The audience knows that the note was instead written by Olivia’s servant, but Malvolio believes it to be written by Olivia herself. The note gives Malvolio specific instructions to earn Olivia’s love, and is full of things that are out of character for Malvolio. He wears ridiculous clothes and acts like someone that he isn’t in the hopes that Olivia will fall in love with him. His actions instead have the opposite effect: she is bothered by his actions and has him treated like he’s insane instead. The entire time the audience knows what’s up, and every one of Malvolio’s miss steps is funnier than the last.

The use of all of this dramatic irony helps to create one of the major central themes of the play: the foolishness of mortals.  Dramatic irony is pivotal in the creation of this theme, because it allows an audience to experience what it’s like to be omnipotent. It forces people to realize what it’s like to be all-knowing, and through that, they can realize that outside of the theatre, they are not all knowing, and that they only know a small portion of every story that plays out in their lives. This theme is backed by happenings in the play. Every character makes decisions and judgments without all of the knowledge necessary to make said judgment. Malvolio is one example. Had he took the time to figure out who had written that letter, he would have acted a lot differently. Another example is when Olivia’s friends and family first meet Sebastian. They assume that he’s Cesario, even when he asserts that he is not. When combined with the dramatic irony that’s present, the audience is really able to realize exactly how foolish people can be.

Another central theme that is reinforced by the presence of dramatic irony is that ocular proof is not always enough. Shakespeare tests the old saying that you can believe what you see, by finding a situation in which what you see is false. The Viola / Sebastian situation is the perfect example of this. The characters in the play frequently trust their eyes, and are frequently proven to be foolish because of this. This repeated ‘what you see isn’t what you get’ asserts that what you see isn’t always the truth. The characters see Cesario, therefore Cesario is who it is, even though who they’re actually seeing is Sebastian himself. The dramatic irony allows the audience to recognize this fact, and presses the issue even harder. The audience can understand that just because something appears to be true, it may not be true.

The irony allows for yet another central theme to be possible. Shakespeare questions gender with his play as well. Because of Viola’s adventures as a man, many awkward situations are made. Olivia falls in love with a woman. Would she have been able to fall in love with the woman if she knew it was a woman she loved? Orsino falls in love with a woman who he thought was a man when he met him. These acts raise an important question: how important is gender? If a woman can love a woman just because she thinks he’s a man, what’s to stop her from loving a woman? This questions is enhanced near the end of the play. Orsino continues to call Viola by her boy name. Even in his very last line of the play, Orsino refers to Viola as Cesario. This raises the question of what Orsino finds so attractive about Viola. He may be attracted to her masculinity. Shakespeare never answers this question however, and leaves it up to the audience to decide.

The dramatic irony also helps to identify some of the many motifs present in the play. One of the most important motifs in the play is that of mistaken identity. Repeatedly Viola and Sebastian are mistaken for one another. The repeated cases of mistaken identity help to advance the storyline in a funny and suspenseful way, as the web that’s being woven continues to become more entangled and complicated. The further the story gets, the more the audience can’t wait for the finale: the time in which the twins will be reunited and everything will become resolved and the desire to see that moment of confusion for the characters builds a ton of suspense. Mistaken identity is closely linked to another major motif in the play: disguises. Many of the major characters in the play assume disguises during the play. Viola uses a disguise to convince everyone that she’s a man. Malvolio uses a disguise to try to earn Olivia’s love. Feste disguises himself as a priest to fool Malvolio. The fact that Feste uses a disguise even though Malvolio won’t be able to see him asserts how important clothing is—implying that in order to be a priest, Feste must first look like a priest. Not to mention, in order to become a man Viola only had to change her clothing.

It’s clearly evident that Shakespeare intended for dramatic irony to play a major part in The Twelfth Night. Without the presence of dramatic irony, the plot of this theme would have been many times less funny and suspenseful, and three of the major central themes would have been much harder to detect. The Twelfth Night uses so much dramatic irony, and Shakespeare proves himself to be the unrivaled master of dramatic irony in this play. Dramatic irony isn’t only found in this one of Shakespeare’s works though; there are many other examples of dramatic irony found in many of Shakespeare’s plays. Dramatic irony is very central in most of Shakespeare’s works.

In Romeo and Juliette dramatic irony plays a major part in making the play more tragic. The most obvious example is of course near the end. Juliette takes the poison to make herself appear dead. When Romeo finds her, he believes that she is dead even though the audience knows that she’s alive. The tragedy is that Romeo, convinced that he can’t live without her, decides to kill himself. Juliette then awakes to find her Romeo dead next to her, and realizing that what he had done, decides to kill herself as well. This scene is perhaps one of the most famous examples of dramatic irony throughout history, but this play does contain more dramatic irony than just that little bit. For example, Juliette’s father promises Juliette to marry Paris when the audience knows that Romeo has already married Juliette making the union of Juliette and Paris impossible. Another example is how throughout the entire play, both families swear up and down that they can never forgive, but the audience knows that they will because of the prologue. There’s also the simple aspect: the audience knows that both Romeo and Juliette will die (also because of the prologue) but none of the characters are privy to the information.

In Othello dramatic irony also plays a very important roll. First and foremost, the audience knows that Iago is the puppet master for the rest of the play when Othello believes him to be a good friend and advisor. The audience also knows that Othello was never cheated on, and they know that Othello trusts someone who isn’t trustworthy. More dramatic irony is also created when the characters step aside to think aloud: this act allows the audience to see into the minds of the characters, allowing them access to knowledge that none of the other characters have. The use of dramatic irony in Othello keeps the story compelling and the audience engaged.

Dramatic irony is a very important story-telling tool, and Shakespeare uses it to its fullest in many of his plays, most notably The Twelfth Night, but also in many of his other works, including Othello and Romeo and Juliette. He masterfully uses dramatic irony in his works to create emotion in his audience, which has a drastic affect on how his plays are taken as well as the messages that they send. His works are time tested examples of how to use dramatic irony to create humor, tragedy, and suspense, and how to keep an audience interested through an entire performance. Shakespeare is truly the master of dramatic irony.

 

War: Countless Downsides.

                One of the countless downsides of war is the emotional baggage thrust upon the soldiers involved in the war. “The Things They Carried” exemplifies the emotional luggage by using literal items that soldiers bring to war as metaphors for harsh emotions. “The Man He Killed” uses a monologue to give the reader a glimpse into the mind of a soldier, to let the world know how distraught he is over the killing of a man he may have been friends with otherwise.  It’s chilling to read “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” together because they give the reader a feeling of overwhelming pity for the soldiers who now must lug around more than their fair share of burden.

                “The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land, and the theme is that the emotional sides of the items they carry are much heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, which are symbolic of his desire for order, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this.

                “The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war—that war is dirty and makes men do things that they aren’t interested in doing, and through that confrontation it opens up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psyche of a soldier. Take “I shot him dead because—Because he was my foe.” for example. The dramatic pause, then the repetition of “because” is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say that of course the guy he shot was a foe, and the speaker expresses real doubt that this is the case by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say that “Off-hand like—just as I—Was out of work—Had sold his traps—No other reason why” he basically means “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker may very well have deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.

                Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” on page 1173 as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” meaning that there really isn’t anything quite like it—and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.  

                These eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to get the reader to understand just how destructive the overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. Some of the literary elements used in “The Things They Carried” are metaphors, flashbacks, repetition and imagery. These elements used together are very effective, especially since the narrator is third-person omnipotent. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.

                “The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.