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Men's Mentality In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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War Babies: London’s View of Men’s Mentality The Vietnam War was the second longest war in the United States history, an effort to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. An eighteen-year-old boy joined the Marine Corps in the year of 1965 as ranked Private First Class but was soon killed in action at the age of nineteen in Vietnam, Quang Nam on August 26, 1966 (Hunter). Similar to most soldiers during the Vietnam War, Duane Theodore Greenlee of Monroe County lacked the characteristics to be a leader, let alone a soldier in combat. With every terrified step in Vietnam that decided life or death, the unprepared Duane Theodore Greenlee fought like a newborn strolling in a war zone. Corresponding to Duane Theodore Greenlee, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross from “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien represents the thoughts and feelings of a young soldier coping through war and the hopeless atmosphere they live in. There were no rules and no limitations; the war was hell on earth. Each step was either living another day or meeting death …show more content…

London proves to the reader that men would rather believe in their own intuition than to believe in much wiser and experienced individuals due to the men’s mentality of superiority and selfishness. Near the end of the story, London makes it clear that The Man does not change his way of thinking when he “thrust it (the thought of death) back and strove to think of other things,” (121) failing to think of solutions and ways to improve his condition. The Man thrusts the idea of dying in the back of his mind because London is trying to show the reader that men who do not know any better would believe that they could withstand anything, even if it is obvious that death

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