Idea of Battle and War in the Two Stories

War at Home in Ellison, War Abroad in O'Brien

The inhumanity of war is a common theme in literature, as brilliantly illustrated in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," a tale that functions as a short story but is actually an excerpt from his great novel about the Vietnam War Going after Cacciato. In O'Brien's story, several soldiers fighting in Vietnam are defined by the objects they carry in their pockets, such as photographs of loved ones, as well as their military gear and outfits. Yet the battles of individuals oppressed by society, such as African-Americans, may be equally, if not more, soul destroying, when conducted on the home front of America, on daily basis. This fact is evidenced by the evisceration of the spirit of the young African-American men in an excerpt from Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man, entitled, "Battle Royal."

In "Battle Royal," the best and brightest young African-American men from the community where the unnamed narrator Ellison grew up and distinguished himself as a scholar in albeit a segregated system, are summoned to an exclusive White club. The ostensible excuse for the party is to celebrate their achievements. The real purpose of the meeting is to show the young men their inferior places in society. Eventually, the young men are encouraged, really forced to fight for dollar bills in what Ellison calls a "smoker," calling into resonance an illegal, backroom brawl rather than the celebratory scholarship dinner the young accomplished men expect to commend their achievements. (Ellison, 1954)

The young men engage in such a fistfight and wrestling brawl for the older white men's sport, at first reluctantly, then enthusiastically, despite the cruel purpose of being used as physical entertainment. They are bright minds, reduced to Black, strapping bodies in the eyes of over-privileged, overfed White men. The allure of money to these impoverished youths, longing to fulfill their dreams by going away to college, temporarily overtakes them, as well as fear of what will transpire if they do not comply. Their seduction on the heat of the battlefield into warring for dollars and obeying the orders of those higher than themselves on the social hierarchy is sexual as well. During the smoker, rather than an elegant young woman the men instead are confronted with a "magnificent blonde -- stark naked." This "kewpie doll" as Ellison calls her, exists not for the Black men's desire but to arouse them and remind them they cannot have such a woman. (Ellison, 1954)

O'Brien's soldiers are similarly inculcated in a worldview that is bloody and alien, the morality of way. But they are not stripped -- still they carry things, memories of who they were before the war, belying the author's statement that "the things the carried were largely determined by necessity." (O'Brien 1978) Most notably, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha. "They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack." Like the blonde of "Battle Royal," Martha is a dream, but a hopeful, futile yet still sustaining dream, unlike the soul-destroying doll-like blonde of Ellison's horrific vision.