“It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor.
Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards”: “The Things They Carried” by
Tim O’Brien
“‘It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said
clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be.’” “The Lottery”
Both
quotes relate to a larger picture that people are not themselves. The Vietnam
War dehumanized its soldiers forcing them to bare the weight of death on their soldiers.
In “The Lottery” the town was dehumanized as well, almost coerced to take part
in a cruel punishment. In some way’s the quotes both signify how the characters
were brain washed. The soldiers in Vietnam were degraded and broken to a point
where they couldn’t feel fear because it was shameful. They were brainwashed,
dehumanized, reduced to something small in a vast world. The town folk in “The
Lottery” whilst against the whole act of randomly getting drawn a poor number
still went along with stoning somebody. People had changed, they aren’t the way
they used to be. That’s because of society.
The Vietnam
War was very controversial from the start. Many people believed that we were
entering a war that wasn’t ours to fight for. This backlash put even more
strain on the soldiers as they we’re forced to go to war, but they also weren’t
completely considered heroes. They weren’t able to escape the hold society had
on the soldiers. The same thing happened in “The Lottery” the towns people
could not escape societies old ways. In both stories the opinions of others is
what would break them. In “The Lottery” they couldn’t go against there towns
opinions the lottery was tradition and it was your job to take part in it. In “The
Things They Carried” the soldiers we’re to frightened of being labeled as weak
or scared to show the true things they struggled with and in the end shar the
weight of all they had to carry. The one question that stands is, we’re all the
problems accredited to society?
