Working Within Genre & O'Brien

“Genre provides an important frame of reference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts” (Chandler). Essentially, Chandler is saying that categorizing works gives the viewers or readers a way to identify and interpret what they see. “From the point of view of the producers of texts within a genre, an advantage of genres is that they can rely on readers already having knowledge and expectations about works within a genre” (Chandler). Here Chandler is describing how producers can depend on viewers and readers to already have certain expectations of a particular work due to putting the work into a genre. From Chandler’s reading, it is clear that viewers and readers find it important to put works into genres. People know what they expect to see and they will realize when other elements and styles are implemented into their expectations, which is what happened to me when I read the selections from The Things They Carried by O’Brien. “Genre constrains the possible ways on which a text is interpreted, guiding readers of a text towards a preferred reading (which is normally in accordance with the dominant ideology) - though this is not to suggest that readers are prevented from ‘reading against the grain” (Chandler). I feel that this quote describes my experience with the text entirely. Due to the fact that I had certain ideas about what war stories should be like, I tried to fit The Things They Carried into my expectations. Just because the story did not meet my expectations did not mean that I discarded it completely and could not read it. In fact, I was able to see a new side to war stories although it was a side that I did not expect.
The first and most obvious way that The Things They Carried works against the expectations of war stories was the absence of abundant violence and constant action. When I think of war stories, whether it is a book or movie, it seems that there is fighting, bombs, guns, blood, gore, and battles going on at all times. O’Brien’s story seems to be instead very mellow. Instead of being full of action, it’s full of descriptions and details. The characters were not always in a fight for their lives like a reader would expect in a war story. “Each morning we’d form up in a long column, the old poppa-san out in front, and for the whole day we’d troop along after him, tracing his footsteps, playing an exact and ruthless game of follow the leader” (O’Brien). In “Spin”, characters would not be fighting, shooting and blowing things up all of the time; they would spend days just following the man who could keep them away from bombs. O’Brien describes how the men would play checkers in the night and wait for something to happen in the day. “Even in the deep bush, where you could die any number of ways, the war was nakedly and aggressively boring” (O’Brien). Boring? I do NOT expect war stories to be boring.
Another way that The Things They Carried goes against what readers expect from war stories is the way O’Brien treats death. In other war stories, people get the idea that it is a soldier’s duty to kill the opposing force. Typically war stories let the reader understand that the character feels like killing is part of fighting for his country, like he is justified and empowered by the duty. In “The Man I Killed”, instead of this sense of duty, justification, and power, I instead was faced with feelings of grief, sorrow, remorse, and shock. Even with the repetitive and lengthy description of the dead young man, it is still not the typical gory death where the body blew up and scattered across 18 different areas. After O’Brien describes the man who was killed, the main characters can’t even speak. He continues to stare at the body, not move along and continue his duty like the reader would be used to. In “Good Form” O’Brien brings the feeling of guilt into the readers mind, stating them plainly. “I’m left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief” (O’Brien).
War stories frequently have a “hero “or main character that pushes on through the rough times. This leader type usually has a family or significant other at home that the producer makes the reader fully aware of. The reader is supposed to feel connected to this character, to feel his pain of being separated from who he loves and to feel his strength as he continues his journey as his duty. The Things They Carried went against this idea completely. In “The Man I killed”, O’Brien describes the life of the dead young man who was the enemy. It describes how the young boy wanted to be a math teacher and how he fell in love with a classmate and how he knew the war would kill him. This is the type of background story you would want to hear about the heroic main character. Also, the main character does not portray the quality of having undying strength to continue on and fight. The main character sat and stared at the body for who knows how long, consumed by himself and his feelings. I was not able to feel the courage and duty of the main character, instead I felt sad from his guilt. In a war movie I would expect to feel sorry for the main character and to have a connection with this person, not with a character on the opposing force.