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C3C K. Brett Mulligan
Dr. Gresham
English 211, T2
11 Dec 2006
The Unwitting Courage of Antigone and Lieutenant Cross’s Men
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien portrays a
battlefield where courage is a myth. In the jungles of Vietnam,
he states, the abstractions cease and there is only the
immediate – the smell of blood and feces, the sounds of bullets
whizzing past, and horrific images like the sight of a baby
water buffalo with its legs broken and its nose blown off.
However, the soldiers who traverse this unreal, dehumanizing war
zone contradict what even they have come to believe and actual
unwittingly demonstrate courage in the midst of their hellish
environment.
Antigone, likewise does not embark on her quest to honor
her dead brother out of a sense of honor or selflessness, but
rather accidentally appears courageous in pursuing a selfish
aim. She wishes to put her brother to rest, because it will help
her be at ease. Still, hers turns into a story of courage simply
because of its appearance.
The courage demonstrated by these characters comes about
partially as a result of their preconceived notions about
courage itself. They think of courage as a selfless act, but in
actuality it becomes the byproduct of their self interest. When
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Norman Bowker, for instance, attempts to save Kiowa, it is from
a desire to help himself carry on. He cannot bear the thought of
going forward with a man missing from the team – his best man, a
man whom he has grown to know over the past weeks and months
closer than a brother. Antigone, similarly, defends Polynices’s
right to burial because she cannot mentally deal with his death
any better way. Their actions come across as heroic and
courageous, because society attaches value to them beyond self
interest. The economic principle of widespread self interest
leading toward the social interest also becomes relevant in
exactly such circumstances (Bade and Parkin 5). In going after
something in which they faced adversity, both parties
exemplified courage. To face our fears, though we may be bested
by them, is courageous in itself.
In the case of Norman Bowker, courage by his definition was
entirely unreachable. If it took ten minutes for the group to
extract Kiowa’s body from the sewage the day after the incident,
Norman Bowker stood no chance of pulling Kiowa out by himself
the night before. While recounting the story, Norman basically
tells himself that he did not have “enough” courage that night,
because he gave in to the stench. The question is: Would it have
been more courageous to just sit there pulling on a boot that
wouldn’t budge while the enemy takes clear shots? Such action
would be pure stupidity. He had no chance of saving Kiowa, so he
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made the self interested decision, the decision which Kiowa
would have wanted him to make, and the decision which saved him
fellow soldiers from having to risk their necks to save his body
as well. Sometimes the rational decision and the nobler or more
courageous decision become one and the same.
The definition of courage, mental or moral strength to
venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty,
most definitely includes the actions of every man in Lieutenant
Cross’s platoon (“Courage”). Simply by showing up for duty in
Vietnam each of these soldiers demonstrated courage. The war
pressing in around them, Cross’s men stay together, they all
fight the fears that make them human. Regardless of the fact
that Ted Lavender enjoys his own version of “Dutch courage,”
through the use of tranquilizers, he is still combating the
effects of fear. The fact that these men are actually fighting
their fears, not giving in, and finding a way to continue their
struggle and survive proves that they have some measure of
courage. However, they do not feel courageous, but most heroes
probably would not feel courageous either. Once someone is
labeled a hero, certain expectations and responsibilities fall
upon him or her to uphold all that is good and right and true.
Heroes are held to a higher standard by society. The men of
O’Brien’s platoon struggled with the “myth of courage” and
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“defining what it is [versus] how it is felt, is an essential
question in [the book],” (Matney).
The counter argument - one which O’Brien himself would
likely adopt - takes into account the alternatives and how they
appear even more unbearable. For instance, O’Brien could not
bear to face his parents or anyone else close to him and tell
them he did not possess the conviction or desire to go to
Vietnam. For that matter, while sitting on the lake, he cannot
bring himself to tell imaginary figures that he does not want to
go to war. “This [realization about his parents and Abraham
Lincoln] emphasizes the social connections involved in the
decision,” and shows how much he is not an “…individual isolated
with his free choice,” (Liparulo 84). His parents and numerous
others will be affected by his decision. His reasons for not
going would not have convinced them anyway, and he was scared of
being thought a coward. This fear of being called a coward
becomes ironic, because he thinks rejecting his draft notice
would be the courageous thing to do.
The motivation caused by fear continues into Vietnam as
O’Brien joins his unit and heads off into the bush to confront
the enemy, both in the flesh and in the mind. His wartime
brothers fear the bullets of the enemy, they fear getting
injured, dying, and even becoming prisoners. However, they fear
even more that their closest friends, the soldiers with whom
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they serve, will reveal them as fakes. They want to hide their
fear of death and the horrific effects of war. Societal views,
especially the American expectation for men to be macho and
fearless, partially affect their behavior. O’Brien himself
experiences this phenomenon as he wrestles with the notion of
escaping to Canada. Just as the mere thought of the
embarrassment he would face, stifles his resolution to escape
the draft, “[e]xternal notions of courage force the soldiers in
[The Things They Carried] to act differently from how they feel
inside,” (Matney). Essentially, they act courageously on the
outside, because they cannot let anyone discover the reality of
their inward cowardice, which again drives the development of
their courage.
Following the trend of his first decisions about the war,
he continues to appear courageous. As the actions which mask his
cowardice become more and more habitual for O’Brien, it appears
more and more from the outside that he has become a full-fledged
hero, a champion of courage. Yet, on the inside, he is still
just as afraid as when he started. However, that which
determines who and what we essentially are cannot be derived
from feelings. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do,”
therefore, O’Brien and his fellow soldiers simultaneously become
courageous simply by avoiding the appearance of cowardice.
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Antigone exhibits courage similarly to O’Brien and his
fellow troops. She chooses the lesser of two evils, the easier
of two choices, but the result appears courageous to those
looking at the situation from the outside. While it may appear
that she can choose between letting the birds eat Polynices and
giving him a proper burial, the only choice she believes she
has, is to rescue her brother’s body from the elements and carry
out a proper burial. She would not have been able to live with
herself if she had just let him lie in the dust. While she
elects to go her own way and seek her own self-interest she is
perhaps promoting the good of society as a whole. Her defiance
of the king and its subsequent fallout undoubtedly prevented
Creon and future rulers from being impulsive and acting rashly
as new situations arose.
Although, both Antigone and Cross’s platoon show courage,
Antigone shows it through her defiance of the state. Cross’s
platoon, simply by virtue of serving in the Army, bows to the
will of the state, yet manages to show courage just the same.
Although they face danger from different areas, the difference
in their decisions shows how courage can reveal itself in
different forms. The alternatives to their respective decisions
reveal truth about the nature of courage as well. For example,
if Antigone had submitted to Creon’s wish, she would have been
forced to face the prospect of living with the regret of having
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done nothing about her brother’s unburied body. To live with
that realization would take courage in itself. Likewise, the men
of O’Brien’s platoon would have needed to muster a measure of
courage to face the wrath of their government had they decided
to stand up to the draft.
Both parties face adversity and, regardless of their
decision, must exhibit courage in order to continue. The
emergence of courage, therefore, comes not so much in which
decision they do make, but in the action of making a decision
and standing firmly behind it as its consequences threaten to
undo their resolution.
While O’Brien downplays, minimizes, and approaches denying
the existence of courage in the Vietnam War and his stories, he
slightly contradicts himself and actually points it out it a few
places. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” for instance, he
states, “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war
is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and
discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and
love,” (O’Brien 80).
Aside from mentioning courage as one of the generalizations
that war becomes to a soldier, he mentions love. The mention of
love alongside war and courage reveals a surprisingly obvious
relationship. One must love in order to be courageous. If
nothing exists for which a man is willing to sacrifice, he has
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no cause to take any actions which would preserve or honor that
object of his love. However, if he does love something or
someone, he has every motivation to safeguard and look after the
object or relationship. Antigone demonstrates this fact even
more obviously than the American soldiers. She loves her
brother, and therefore desires a proper burial for him.
The fact that courage requires love does not undermine the
assertion that courage is highly self-seeking. The courage both
Cross’s soldiers and Antigone display underscores the fact that
they were taking actions which would preserve things which they
held sacred and which helped them in some way. Norman Bowker
attempts to save Kiowa because he loves the guy and cannot go on
the same way without him. Antigone tries to give Polynices his
proper burial so that her soul can be at ease. However induced
by self-interest, these are pure actions motivated by love.
Both Antigone and The Things They Carried offer glimpses of
realistic courage which essentially has its basis in selfinterest. Love, as well, finds it role within the realm of
courage. Though O’Brien’s soldiers and Sophocles’s Antigone do
not act out of a selfless love, circumstances mold their actions
into those which take on the appearance of courage. The realism
of the soldiers’ courage, an accidental heroism brought about by
necessity, comes from the honesty with which O’Brien approaches
his subject. There is no hint of appealing to a higher power as
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in Antigone, where one must critically examine Antigone to
discover the self-interested nature of her courageous stand
against the king’s policy. The nature of courage may be reexamined and rewritten to better reflect the actuality of what
ordinary people experience in life, like O’Brien does in The
Things They Carried, but the ability to determine the existence
of courage in a particular situation always depends on
perception. Yet, the discovery of courage itself can still prove
difficult when it occurs as it does in these accounts, hidden as
an unwitting expression of self-interest.
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Works Cited
Aristotle. “Quotation #1901 from Laura Moncur’s Motivational
Quotations.” Quotationspage.com. 11 Dec 2006.
<http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1901.html>.
Bade, Robin, and Michael Parkin. Essential Foundations of
Economics Third Edition. Boston: Addison Wesley, 2007.
"Courage." Merriam Webster Online. 2006. Merriam-Webster
Dictionary. 10 Dec 2006. <http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/courage>.
"Dutch courage." Merriam Webster Online. 2006. Merriam-Webster
Dictionary. 10 Dec 2006. <http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/courage>.
Liparulo, Steven P. “Incense and Ashes”: The Postmodern Work of
Refutation in Three Vietnam War Novels.” War, Literature, and
the Arts 15.1-2 (unkn): 71-94.
Matney, Jan. “The Myth-Shattering Courage of Tim O'Brien.” 02
Dec 1999. Metropolitan State College of Denver. 10 Dec 2006.
<http://clem.mscd.edu/~english/3230/matney.htm>.