The Things She Carried: An Open Letter to Tim O'Brien

This is about torturing prisoners.

Ten years ago last fall, I invited you to come speak to my freshman writing students at Harvard, and you did. I got a big room in what was then the Freshman Union, spread the word, and several of my colleagues brought their classes, too, so we had about a hundred people in there, expecting to hear you read from The Things They Carried.

But you weren't going to read, you explained right away; you were just going to talk. About war, about your experience, about the book and how "Tim O'Brien" the narrator is not actually you--i.e., about truth in fiction. One of my smartest students, a woman, asked you why, despite all the weight and the inventories of materiel and how tired the men are, dragging all this stuff and themselves around in the heat and humidity of Vietnam, the story "The Things They Carried" nevertheless seems to move so fast. "That's how it is," you said, "in war. You spend most of your time exhausted or bored, and that's when the bad stuff happens. You are soooo tired, and then somebody makes a move, and you bring your rifle muzzle up--you don't think--you just fire. I did it myself." Your head dropped just a little; you looked out from under your brows at all of us and confessed: "I was so tired, I did Evil."

Later, I asked you privately about "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," pointing out politely that depicting a cheerleader accessorizing her fuzzy pink sweater and white culottes with a necklace of human tongues was misogynistic, and asking you what was up with that, anyway? What were you saying about women? You laughed: "It's my most feminist story yet!"

Logically enough, the photos of American women GIs humiliating naked, helpless Iraqis remind me of your "feminist" remark. At the time, I had no clue what you meant. Now, I have a clue; I think you meant that women are equal to men, in evil as in good. I really didn't think it was possible. I don't think many (or any) feminists did, either.

But you knew better. And now we're seeing the proof. You didn't have to imagine this truth--you just tried to get me to imagine it. I couldn't, then, but I can now. And I really don't know what to do with this information.

Comments

[Denny]

This is a wonderful post. Tim O'Brien is one of the most intelligent, reflective minds to write about war. I spent a year in combat in Tim's war. It's an experience that needs to be written about, because people shouldn't have illusions about it. Yes, women are just as capable of greatness, glory, evil and atrocity as are men. They may not do so as often, but the human potential is there. My learning: women are not superior to men, or visa-versa. Men and women are human. What can you do with this information? All we can do is acknowledge reality when we see it, so we are never blind to it. Accepting reality is sometimes like loss, we have to mourn it: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. So we can begin in a new place and move on to something better.

[butuki]

I have to ask, as a man, why did you and all the other feminists, think in the first place that women are not capabale of the worst acts of humanity? Why did you place yourself above men? Why did you assume that women somehow naturally carry saint status, whereas men are somehow naturally tainted?

You've addressed something that has had me deeply angry toward feminist women for a long time. While in college I deliberately took many feminist classes in order to try to understand what I, as a man, had to learn in order to truly understand equality. Instead I recieved disdain and closed ears and minds, women who already knew all the answers, and a rage toward men that refused to recognize that I was standing right there trying to reach across the gap. To be rebuffed like that... well, it hasn't sat well.

Then I see a post like this. A woman who is willing to open her mind. To see herself as just as human as men. And willing to doubt all the dogma. To me this is like a bright light in a dark room. When men and women can talk like this and question the presumptions they carry, all things are possible.

[butuki]

Gosh, I'm really sorry about the multiple trackback posts to your site. I'm not sure what happened, since I only sent the trackback once. Please forgive the nuisance and remove what you feel ought to be! Thanks.

[Wendy]

Perhaps this is elitist of me, but I tend to see feminists and feminism as an evolutionary process. I don't think 'feminism' is an end-place. Therefore, I am very careful to not place all women who call themselves feminist in the same category--because that is not respectful of all the differences among women who call themselves feminist.

All of that to say, that as I read the post, a part of me went, Yeah, back in my early 20s, I would have had the same observation as this person, believing the scene described to be 'misogynistic.' I like to think that over time, I've honed my understandings of feminism, and misogyny, its roots, and how to recognize and fight against basic human injustice.

It has never surprised me, though, that women carry out such acts as the scenes of torture we've been privy to. I even balk at the surprise and outrage of the media at the thought of suicide bombers who are female. We are all capable of such things. No one can make a judgement--good or bad--on an entire group of people (well, they can, but there are always, always exceptions, some beautiful, some vile, and everything in-between). I personally like to explore those in-between places, both in my writing, and in the people I meet. I refuse to live in such a binary world.