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The Thumb Symbolism In The Things They Carried

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People all over the world have good luck charms. Whether it be a rabbits foot, or a stone from the ocean, many people have one. In The Things They Carried, Mitchell Sanders gave Norman Bowker a dead Vietnam boy's thumb. Is this a good luck charm or a present? Mitchell Sanders saw the thumb as neither, he saw it as a moral. I believe that the thumb symbolizes moral or war. Even characters in the book asked what the moral of the thumb was. "Henry Dobbins asked what the moral was. Moral? You know. Moral... Henry Dobbins thought about it. Yeah, well, he finally said. I don't see no moral. There it is man"(13-14). The thumb symbolizes that there is no moral to war. The quote is agreeing that none of the men know why they must fight in the war, only

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