Masks of Altered Reality

A detailed Summary of Masks of Altered Reality

In Timothy O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, a number of insightful themes are forwarded by the author. One theme in particular interests me the most; the subject area is how people handle their emotions through the avoidance or distortion of reality. Specifically, throughout the novel a number of characters respond to the emotionally charged realities they are confronted with in one of two major ways, distortion or escapism. This pattern, shown throughout the novel, surveys one manner in which humans approach the rough emotions they carry with them throughout their life. To support this thesis I will analyze a number of character's responses to emotional stressors and compare them against my claims of escape and distortion reactions.

I have identified two major ways the characters I analyze respond to their realities in this novel, distortion and escapism. When I identify something as distortion, I intend to imply that the characters take the edge off of the reality of their situations by making the events they encounter seem less real. Examples of such behavior would include finding humor in otherwise horrifying situations or even romanticizing the environment around them to make it seem something different than w

It is when we ask these questions that we see yet another instance of reality avoidance in the novel. These men are not emotionless; on the contrary, they are so filled with internal emotional conflict that their joking is a way of responding to the reality they are faced with, the death of a friend and fellow soldier. The narrator says on page 19, "They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it. They found jokes to tell. They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness." This quotation captures very accurately the idea that some people respond to intense emotion through humor. This is yet another method of reality avoidance in emotionally intense situations.

As the story progresses Mary Anne begins to change from her bubbly and alive pink sweater persona into a more withdrawn individual. On page 109, Rat Kiley describes, "The way she quickly fell into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandana." A noticeable point of departure is when Mary Anne begins to spend more and more time with the Green Berets and even goes on an ambush with them. After going on the ambush Mary Anne is remarkably withdrawn. Despite that she temporarily seems to get "straightened out" by her boyfriend and ends up wearing a nice blue dress and has groomed hair the next day, she is still distinctly different than before. As Rat Kiley notes on page 113, "Over dinner she kept her eyes down, poking at her food, subdued to the point of silence." Questions run through the reader's mind at this point. What did she see out there? What does she feel? Why is she acting like this? These questions signify a failure of reading. They force us to wonder what to make of Mary Anne's character change and her reactions. The remainder of the story of Mary Anne brings us to her eventual departure into the jungle. Not on a mission with the Green Berets, but alone. She simply disappears. If we conjecture that while on their missions the Green Berets ambushed and killed people, then it is reasonable to assume that Mary Anne experienced and witnessed killing. Perhaps, the horror of such acts forced her to run. The intense emotions that the war produces within simply got to her. Her reaction was to escape. She escaped from a world in which she had to deal with the emotions into a world in which she let herself be consumed by them.

hat it is. The escapist manner of reacting to the intensity of emotions is to distance oneself from the actual events or surrounding. To accomplish this all a character needs to do is to daydream themselves away from the problem or to create alternative realities in their own mind.

In the first chapter, Timothy O'Brien wastes no time examining one coping mechanism, escapism. Escapism is a rather basic way of handling intense emotions. Timothy O'Brien first introduces a character named Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who exhibits the escapist manner of dealing with his emotions. Jimmy Cross is the Lieutenant of the group of men that this story focuses on. Jimmy Cross is first introduced fantasizing about his love, a girl name Martha. Martha is a student back home in New Jersey and for all intents and purposes does not return Lieutenant Cross's love. On pages 3 and 4, the narrator comments that, "They [the letters] w

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Approximate Word count = 2256
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English