The Things They Carried Socratic Seminar questions:
Answer each question before the seminar begins in a short paragraph. For each question, use
examples from either the book and/or other readings you have completed, or the real world.
1. How do you de ne truth?
To me, I feel like truth is very perspective. The reason I feel this is because truth can vary from
people to people, depending on what they believe. An example of this could be religion. What one
person believes or follows in their religion to be true, another person could not if they don’t believe
in that same religion. Another example could be class. Someone who is super wealthy could have a
truth on money than someone who is less fortunes. There’s example shows that truth varies from
person to person, and is not universal.
2. How do you see truth and perspective interacting as ideas?
They way they interact with each other can be seen through di erent peoples beliefs. this can
be shown through race. With something like racism, which is the truth, di erent peoples
perspectives, may not be able to see it because of privilege like white people not being able to
understand racism but Black people being able to because of how they get a ected. Many
times people who can’t face something like racism, which is a truth, they often not believe that
it’s real, leading it back to the perspective of not having to deal with it, which allows them to
question it often times, perspective can alter some people from knowing the truth, because of
their circumstances they have or, the privilege of not having to deal with it.
3. How do you de ne courage?
In my eyes, I de ne courage as testing new limits. The reason why is it what did you have courage
to do something that’s uncomfortable. When you do that, it puts you out of your comfort level and
makes you do things that you wouldn’t do because of fear or because you’re not used to it. An
example of courage would be when Jimmy threw away the pictures he had of Martha. He shows
courage because he loved her so much but he knew that it would better himself and help him better
lead his group if he let her go. That act that he just did shows him pushing his old limits and trying
new ones by leaving her in the past and getting courage.
4. Why do you think people have a di cult time changing their perspectives or adopting new
perspectives?
People have a di cult time changing their perspective because most people are uncomfortable with
being uncomfortable. When you don’t have to think about things that won’t a ect your whole life,
it’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of people who do get a ected because you don’t have that
personal experience of it. Example of this would be people who are wealthy that won’t understand
the struggle of people who are less fortunate. The reason why they can’t understand or won’t adopt
a new perspective. It’s because that they are able to live comfortably without worrying about money
so putting them selves into another perspective can be seen as a necessary for them.
5. How do our memories impact our lives today? What points does the book make about veteran’s
lives after the war?
The way our memories impact our lives today is that they set as a structure for how we will be able
to live based on the experiences that we’ve had. The reason for this is that certain events or things
that had happened in the past can change how you view yourself, other people, or the world around
you Just because of the things that you have went through. In the book, the points that the book
makes about veterans after the war is that many of them face a traumatic event that forever shapes
them as the people they are now. An example of this was when Tim was talking about how he
wanted to get revenge against Bobby, and he was talking about how the war had made him go from
a moral forgiving person to a revengeful moralist person.
6. What can we learn by understanding that it is possible for one’s physical weights to be di erent
from one’s emotional/spiritual weights?
Are the things that we can learn by understanding the di erence is to be able to prioritize both the
physical and emotional weights, because they both can weigh a person down extremely. Often,
people mostly prioritize, their physical ways, like their health and things over their spiritual, or
emotional weight because it was not openly recognized as a weight in the rst place. But spiritual
and emotional waves can bring a person down just as much as physical with or even more because
of how much mental capacity and mental tiredness it can do to a person which could worst in their
life even more. And example of this would be when Rat Kiley had a horrible time, adjusting his days
from sleeping during the day to patrolling in the night. In the end, it cost him to shoot himself in the
leg, which shows how his mental weight had overridden him and caused him to cause physical
harm on himself
7. How do stories become truth?
The way stories can become truth is through the message that they convey. When a story has an
overall message, it gives a truth in the end from what it is trying to say. And example of this would
be cautionary tales mini cautionary tales may have a ctional story to come with them, but in the
end, they convey a message, which is a truth to the people who read it, and example of this would
be the tortoise and the hare. The truth, but it conveys is that slow and steady, wins the race.
8. Describe your most important take-away from this unit.
The most important Takeaway I got from this unit is how multi layer truth can be from di erent
perspectives. Shown from the story, though there are so many soldiers in the same war, and in the
same area, they all show di erent stories and di erent truths as individuals, even though they do
share one same truth that is being in the war.
9.One of the purposes of reading literature in school is to give students a “set of lenses through
which to view the world.” How did our truth and perspective unit help you reach a deeper
understanding of yourself and our world?
This unit helped me expand. My knowledge is a di erent perspectives, like perspectives of veterans
because I have obviously not served in the military so I don’t fully understand what it goes on but
the book did teach me their perspective. It also let me learn about how important it is to get di erent
perspectives and respect other peoples perspectives.