Analysis of The Things They Carried
Thus far, Mason’s In Country has introduced the reader to a cacophony of characters with various difficulties and struggles in life. Of these, Sam Hughes appears to be one figure in the book who is attempting to understand the past. As demonstrated by her insatiable curiosity about the pasts of her Uncle Emmett and her own father, Sam has a burning desire to know the truth of the past and what actually occurred during the Vietnam War. Being sheltered from the past by Emmett’s refusal to talk about the Vietnam War and the lack of information that she has been given about her father appears to disturb her because she endlessly continues that search for knowledge. The act of sheltering Sam from the past and Sam’s reaction to this sheltering suggests the potential theme that the secrets of the past can sometimes be hard to cope with, and despite an intense desire to have this truth, it may be best not to have it. Sam is confronted with two mysteries in her life- that of her father and that of Emmett. Her father’s past is almost a complete blank to her, and her efforts to learn more about him and his actions in the Vietnam War have been fruitless. Emmett is similarly mysterious; he refuses to speak in detail of his Vietnam experiences. Regardless of Emmett’s warnings that she “would not want to know the truth” and “could not understand” that truth, she presses on- pushing Emmett to talk about “what it was like over there.” She has been told by her mother that Emmett was significantly changed by his time in the war, and now it appears that his life is empty- he has no wife, no children, no job, no bright future.