The Vietnam Experience is a concise encyclopedia of American literature, songs, and films pertaining to the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War has had a profound impact on all aspects of American cultural life. Both of the novels we are addressing herein, The Things They Carried and About Face, have an entry in this work. The authors of The Vietnam Experience contend that the impact and experiences of the Vietnam War are best understood by those not involved in it through the works of literature, film, or song pertaining to it. As they write, “The Vietnam War was one of the most painful and divisive events in American history. The conflict, which ultimately took the lives of 58,000 Americans and more than three million Vietnamese, became a subject of bitter and impassioned debate. The most dramatic—and frequently the most enduring—efforts to define and articulate America’s ill-fated involvement in Vietnam emerged from popular culture. American journalists, novelists, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and filmmakers-—any of them eyewitnesses—have created powerful heartfelt works documenting their thoughts and beliefs about the war” (The Vietnam 1). This analysis will attempt to show how a work of fiction, The Things They Carried, and a work of non-fiction, About Face are actually quite similar in their attempt to provide a greater understanding regarding this conflict which greatly impacted all aspects of American culture and society.
Jim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a fictional account detailing the War in Quang Ngai Province. In this novel, we see the point-of-view that talk of honor and glory is an illusion created by those who have never been in combat. As we see in this novel, the men and women who die and kill do so because they have little choice and because they would rather choose such a course of action than to admit their human vulnerability in front of others, “Men killed, and died, because...