In Tim O' Brien's collection of war stories, The Things They Carried, Tim writes in his narrative, "Ambush" about the time his daughter asked him if he killed a man. At the time he says "Of course not,"(O'Brien 125) just to keep his daughter's fairytale, that her dad is a hero, alive, but as time goes on he wishes that she would ask again. He states "Someday, I hope, she'll ask again. But here I want to tell her exactly what happened or what I remember happening"(125). He hopes to one day fix his lie and come clean to his daughter, but he wants to do this at a time where he feels she would be able to understand why these actions occurred.
Tim O'Brien then goes on to tell the readers the story of how he killed the man, rather than his daughter. He states how his platoon was on preparing for ambush, when a man passed him on the trail, so out of fear he killed him. O'Brien had no intention of killing the man though, all he wanted him to do was just go away, but his fear got the best of him and he threw the grenade that exploded at the man's feet. O'Brien states his intentions when he says, "there were no thoughts about killing. That grenade was to make him go away--just evaporate"(126-7). O'Brien did not want to kill this man, but the kill or be killed mentality was in his head, so rather than let himself die, he protected himself. O'Brien later goes on to say "I wanted to warn him"(127). This just goes to show that O'Brien is no cold-blooded monster. He was going to warn the enemy about a grenade that he threw. This just shows to the readers that O'Brien was a good guy with good morals and just reenforces why he wanted to wait till his daughter was older to tell her this story. He wanted her to understand that he had no malicious intent, rather he just wanted to protect himself.
So, if you were in O'Brien's shoes and your nine year old daughter knew you went to war and asked if you had ever killed anyone, what would you say? Would you respond like O'Brien did and hope for an opportunity to come clean, or would you just come right out and say yes?
In this situation, I think the truth is better left untold. War is cruek and vicious, and it think I don't think it would he right for a 9 year old daughter to know about the cruelties that her dad did to some men in Vietnam. I think at the age that O'Brien's daughter is, she is too innocent and naive to know about the harsh things of the world, so I think her thoughts towards her dad would alter knowing that he has killed a man. I think obrien did the right thing by waiting until his daughter is older and is less innocent and naive about war and the world.
ReplyDelete