Maturity Through Tragedy

In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried the issue of maturity is an ever occurring theme within the novel that sets out to tackle and open up for discussion of it on a broader level. Specifically within the chapters "Friends" and "Enemies" it is clear that both Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen are wedged in a personal psychological war. This issue faces many young adults but is perverted by the war and the tragic loss of innocent life. Many feel that the purpose of O'Brien's The Things They Carried is to show hardships and reality of war. While that is true, the most important issue and debate brought up is the rapid transformation of our young soldiers while they have to face the atrocities of war. Although, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen originate as bitter enemies, they conclude there relationship as friends who have maturely evolved due to there encounters in war and self reflection.

For the first time, we see that they have matured even though what sparked this evolution was relative immaturity on the part of both characters as one stole and the other over exaggerated and was not able to cope with his own situation. "Because late that same night he borrowed a pistol, gripped it by the barrel, and used it like a hammer to break his own nose." (63) The insecurity here on the part of Dave Jensen is truly amazing. Jensen feels that by breaking his own nose, he is evening the score with Strunk thus creating an environment where tensions are apparent but not obvious. The question arises here, is who is the more mature soldier regarding the situation at hand? The turn to injuring ones self on Jensen's part presents a mixture of maturity levels as a result. For one, he feels as he is so responsible for breaking Strunk's nose and causing him physical pain, he must break his own nose which is the equivalency to coping with the situation. However, for Jensen to result to violence on him self rather than on the enemy in Vietnam, he is being detrimental to his battalion, himself and the war effort. Thus Jensen's maturity level at first is not up to par and this psychological battle that he faces with himself has most definitely got to him.

The whole idea of the biblical ideal of "eye for an eye" is displayed as a very important theme in these chapters. It is clearly obvious that Dave Jensen adopts this practice when realizing his actions via his struggle with Lee Strunk. It is unclear as to whether or not he held these principles pervious to his engagement with Strunk, which possibly led to a damage of his psychological state but nevertheless, his practice and current belief of the ideal an "eye for an eye" is extremely intricate to these chapters. "Afterward, he crossed the perimeter to Lee Strunk's foxhole. He showed him what he'd done and asked if everything was square between them." (63-64) Jensen attempts to break off from his personally unbalanced psychological state in which his whole battalion saw him as a lunatic and uses the primitive "eye for an eye" method to consolidate his problems. Jensen's method of thinking at this point and time is not in a state where thoughts are coming out logically and without an extreme out of emotion. Thus, Jensen's maturity level has been drastically affected once again by this internal conflict that he is facing with Strunk. For him to turn to primitive methods that his enemies in Vietnam would use, O'Brien fundamentally strips Jensen of his maturity and thus creating a character filled with lunacy and mortification. A key word in this quote is "crossed" due to its multiple meanings and awkward placement in the text. Perhaps, O'Brien's intention is not too literally to mean to cross the perimeter but rather cross a boundary between sane and insane. Before Jensen crossed that boundary he was in a state of mind that would be considered insane and far from average in a negative way. But O'Brien's usage of "crossed the perimeter" is an indication that he has effectively coped with his problems in a personal manner consequently crossing a frontier that has formerly prohibited him from being liable for his actions and acting akin to a responsible soldier.

However, the other part of the argument one might make is that Lee Strunk is the character who is acting the least mature and is adding negatively to the superior state of affairs. Although, he was the individual who was injured not only by a mortar round when his leg was blown off but previous to that he is attacked by his fellow battalion member Dave Jensen who ferociously breaks his nose. Although, the chapter "Enemies" does not enlighten the reader till the closing stages, that Jensen as a matter of fact was correct about his suspicions of Strunk