Timothy O’Brien’s The Things They Carried deals with Death as a complicated subject of interpretation of the American soldiers and the public. Although this theme is dealt with throughout the book, He explicitly symbolizes the notion of mortality with the search for Kiowa’s body that presents a line of demarcation of mortality. The perspectives of Jimmy Cross, Azar, and O’Brien symbolize feelings of the American soldiers and public. While Jimmy Cross represents the soldiers whom are greatly affected by a comrade’s death, Azar’s unempathetic view of death represents the American public who saw soldier’s deaths as a number indicating the current winner of the war. In the search for Kiowa’s body, O’Brien utilizes …show more content…
Azar’s comedic dialogue leading up to discovering Kiowa’s body, treats mortality as an abstract idea. Commenting on Kiowa’s position Azar says, “Eating ****, it’s your classic irony,”(158) shows immaturity in dealing with the situation and Azar’s inability to understand how Jimmy Cross feels whom was responsible. Azar as the American public, deals with mortality as a joke, where as Jimmy Cross as the soldiers in vietnam, truly felt responsible for deaths of comrades. Dealing with death for Azar represents the American public who focused on deaths as a whole, not individually where true understanding of mortality is reached as it was by Jimmy Cross and eventually Azar. Azar’s tone changes from comedic to deeply sincere and sad by physically seeing death in first person, as the soldiers did in Vietnam therefore truly understanding death unlike the American public who never saw death. The reaction of “Moving to the dike and sitting holding his stomach. His face being pale.”(167) represents how the American public would feel if they understood how naive their previous assumptions of death were and how serious of an issue mortality was for the soldiers who befriended those killed. Additionally, Azar says, “Those dumb jokes, I didn’t mean anything,”(168) thus symbolizing how death is transported to reality after experiencing viewing the horror of death, as the American public never