My draft for my final take home test: dwellings and disconnected thoughts that will hopefully get my mind going in the right direction.
Explain the Eros/Thanatos, as Hedges describes it in Chapter 7 of his book, as it relates to Kiowa.
The idea of Eros/Thanatos is the idea that dual forces of love and annihilation control every human action in a tug-of-war. Eros is an "impulse within us that propels us to become close to one other, preserve and conserve" (Hedges 158). Thanatos is an "impulse that works towards annihilation of all living things, including ourselves" (Hedges 158). Through the character of Kiowa in The Things They Carried, the Eros/Thanatos is explained in the context of the Vietnam War.
Kiowa is the embodiment of the Eros impulse. Kiowa is inclined to have his fellow soldiers talk out their problems, and inclined to voice his own problems to others. This propensity encourages the other men to become close to him "in communal struggle, the shared sense of meaning and purpose" (Hedges 158). When Ted Lavender dies, Kiowa won't stop mentioning the abruptness of his demise; he keeps repeating, "Boom-down. Like cement," (O'Brien 7) until Bowker is convinced (partly by his annoyance and partly by his recognition of the need to discuss) to ask, "What the hell. You want to talk, TALK. Tell it to me" (O'Brien 18). Kiowa is constantly a catalyst for his unit's sanity; he gives them an outlet to share their feelings and love with the hate and confusion around them.
When O'Brien sees his first dead body of the war, "an old man sprawled beside a pig pen" (O'Brien 225), the other men encourage him to shake his hand and participate in a toast with the corpse. Kiowa is the first to help him rationalize and to speak personally about his experience. He says, "You did a good thing today. That shaking hands crap, it isn't decent. The guys'll hassle you for a while--but just keep saying no. Should've done it myself. Takes guts, I know that" (O'Brien 227). Even though O'Brien explains that he just couldn't bring himself to touch a corpse, and Kiowa misidentified it as courage, the object is that he's trying to help O'Brien come to terms with something horrible and unearthly. He's making sure O'Brien lets out his feelings. He then listens to O'Brien's story about Linda. Kiowa, while encouraging this dialogue, has employed the Eros impulse. His friendliness and willingness to talk is a form of love. As Hedges establishes, "love keeps you grounded," and "an isolated individual is never adequately human" (Hedges 161).
Kiowa typifies the aspect of Eros too that in War and in Love, "we're able to choose fealty and self-sacrifice over security" (Hedges 158). Though unintentional, Kiowa sacrifices his life in War for Love. When "the young soldier" was laying with Kiowa in the shit-field, he pulled out a flashlight, a loss of security, to show him a picture of his girlfriend back home. Then the field was shelled. If Kiowa had not been such a receptive and loving friend, he likely would not have been speaking so happily in the field with this young man, and he would not have been killed if not for his loving compassion for his comrades. Any measure of love is a form of sacrifice; Kiowa encourages others to give up this personal security, and gives up his own personal security to provide and inspire this love.
Even in death, Kiowa embodies the instinct of Eros. His body, his death, causes Alpha Company to unite in Love for him. Kiowa's demise causes Lieutenant Cross to rationalize his pain by mentally writing Kiowa's father a consolation letter, causes O'Brien to open up his feelings about Linda, and causes Azar to apologize and to realize other's pain about the war. Azar says, " Listen, those dumb jokes--I didn't mean anything" (O'Brien 175). He's brought closer to the company, to preserve and conserve the memory and Love of Kiowa. Azar's Love and pain over Kiowa is all of ours. " 'I felt sort of guilty almost, like if I'd kept my mouth shut none of it would've ever happened. Like it was my fault.' Norman Bowker looked across the wet field. 'Nobody's fault,' he said. 'Everybody's" (O'Brien 176).
Kiowa also explains the Thanatos impulse, in his death, and in the basic distance of communication. Kiowa's death eventually pushes Norman Bowker to the disillusionment and "towards annihilation of all living things, including ourselves" (Hedges 158); "he wrote me...'Where's Kiowa? Where's the shit?' Eight months later he hanged himself" (O'Brien 160). Bowker blames himself for Kiowa's death, and with no one to talk to and no way to truly express his feelings, he becomes isolated. His father values only his medals as a symbol of his service, and doesn't care much to talk about pain; his best friend drowned before the war; his old girlfriend is married and happy; and he can't work up the story out loud even to the person behind the intercom who asks him to explain his feelings. Heges explained Norman's situation perfectly. "The shame and alienation of combat soldiers, coupled with the indifference to the truth of war by those who were not there, reduces many societies to silence. It just seems better to forget" (Hedges 176). Norman is reduced to a Thantos annihilation impulse not only by his own inability to communicate, but by the people he loves around him and society around him, which would rather not hear about the shit field, although he has many samples to give out. Ionically, in Bowker's death, he teaches O'Brien how to better articulate pain through his writing, and allows O'Brien to learn the lessons of Eros.
Kiowa is also unable to connect to O'Brien about the man he kills. O'Brien feels like he's killed himself in this Vietnamese man, but Kiowa, even in his compassion, can't understand the true feelings O'Brien has--this is the basic problem in speech and communication, the purest of thought can never exactly touch the truth. This leads to the isolation and pain of Thanatos; "although love may not always triumph, it keeps us human" (Hedges 168).
-people tell him things
-henry dobbins "clergy" pg 119-123
-"linda"
-vietnamese soldier "the man i killed" 124-130
-"speaking of courage"; kiowa's effect on peeps; was killed by helping/listening
(sanders-angry about kiowa's death; norman bowker killed himself; obrien started writing stories cuz of him; cross blames himself for kiowa's death; pg 137- 154
-“O’Brien” learns the importance of communicating, leading eventually to his becoming a writer pg225-
-takes his daughter to kiowa's death site pg181-188
-whose fault is kiowa's death?pg 162-178
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