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Moral Ambiguity In The Things they Carried

O'Brien characterizes his characters in a morally ambiguous way in order to establish that the stresses of war cause the rules of morality to be redefined.

The Water Buffalo

The Water Buffalo

After Curt Lemon is killed in a booby trap, Rat Kiley proceeds to torture a baby water buffalo out of rage . Normally this act of torture would be perceived as morally wrong however under the circumstances nobody tries to stop Kiley. War is distant from the rest of the world, however the morals of war are not only distant but also erratically different.

Quote#1

Quote #1

"The whole platoon stood watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Later in the week he would write to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. [Rat] shot off the [water buffalo's] tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs." (72).

Quote #2

"The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby buffalo. For a time no one spoke. We had witnessed something essential, something brand new and profound, a piece of the world so startling there was just no name for it." (76).

Draft: On The Rainy River

When Obrien's daft number is called, he must chose to support a war that he doesn't believe in or flee to Canada, both of which are morally wrong. This decision of which neither conclusion is good demonstrates that that the line between morally right and wrong is blurred when faced with less than ideal circumstances such as war.

Quote #1

"I would go to war-I would kill and maybe die- because I was embarrassed no to." (57).

"I would go to the war

Quote #2

"It was a moral split. I couldn't make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile. "(42).

Mary Anne

WHen Mary Anne is first intorduced to the story she is characterized as a innocent girl who reminds the men in the platoon of the women back home. However, the longer Mary Anne associates herself with the war the mor we can see her morality begin to shift. This shift in Mary Anne's persona is demonstative of the moral conditioning that mnay of the soldiers go through as an adjustment to war.

Quote #1

"Sometimes I want to eat this place. The whole country- the dirt, the death- I just want to swallow it and have it there inside me." (106).

Quote #1

Quote #2

"For Mary Anne Bell, it seemed, Vietnam had the effect of a powerful drug: that mix of unamed terror and unamed pleasure that comes as the needle slips in and you know you're risking something" (109).

The Man I Killed

Man I Killed

When Kiowa and O'brien witness the death of a young man, O'brien is clearly phased by the death however Kiowa is barly affected and treats the man as a de- humanized product of war demonstrating how the characters have become slowly conistioned to killing and no longer share the same morals of their pre-war selves.

Quote #1

"Tim, it's a war. The guy wasn't heidi-he had a weapon, right? It's a tough thing, for sure, but you got to cut out that staring" (120).

Quote #1

Quote #2

"'I'll tell you the straight truth' he said. 'The guy was dead the second he stepped on the trail. Understand me? We all had him zeroed. A good kill-weapon, ammunition, everything.'" (123)

Quote #2

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