Wednesday, October 16, 2013

"In the Field"



     In the story “In the Field," soldiers of the same platoon as a recently killed soldier named Kiowa, look for the dead soldier in a shit field. While digging through the muck, the remaining soldiers begin to try to place blame for the death. Though Kiowa was buried in a river of shit brought on by a monsoon, and nobody actually murdered the Native American soldier, the men feel the universal belief that it has to be someone’s fault. 

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross feels as though it is his fault, because he led the soldiers to the field where Kiowa died. His feeling of guilt is illustrated in the lines, “He would place the blame where it belonged...My own fault, he would say” (161-162). Numerous other soldiers, such as Norman Bowker and the young man who was showing a picture of his girlfriend to Kiowa just before the soldier died, feel as though it is their fault as well. So many of the soldiers believe that the accident is their fault, that the narrator states, “He, too, blamed himself” (162) referring yet another guilt-ridden serviceman.

     This idea of placing blame onto someone is a motif in many films, television shows, and pieces of literature. One movie in which this idea is prominent is in The Lion King. In The Lion King, a lion named Scar sets up his brother Mufasa’s death, but makes it look as though it were Mufasa’s son Simba’s fault. Wildebeest trample Mufasa, killing him, and from Simba’s point of view, it looks like an accident. However, Scar has fabricated the plan for the murder. He then belies his true intentions, comforting Simba. However, while consoling the young lion, Scar implies that it was Simba’s fault that Mufasa is dead. Simba feels guilty for something he did not do, and runs away, leaving the kingdom of Pride Rock for his loathsome uncle to rule.

     In both The Things They Carried and The Lion King, the characters are overwhelmed by the circumstances they are faced with, and feel as though the guilt has to be placed somewhere. Individuals will go to great lengths to find someone to place blame on before they place it on themselves. Therefore, once someone has blamed himself or herself, he or she rarely decides that he or she is not guilty. In Simba’s case, the blame is placed on him by another being. However, he does not dismiss the guilt, but accepts the blame, causing him to enter a morose state. Both of these stories show how the pattern of placing blame is a powerful one, and that rarely can an event happen without it being thought of as someone’s fault.


10 comments:

  1. Nice post, Natalie. You provided a lot of quality evidence to tie The Lion King to O'Brien's writing in "In the Field." However, I feel the last paragraph depends person to person. While certainly people exist who will go great lengths before placing the blame on themselves, as you state, I feel like this is a bit of a generalization: a great number of people exist who would likely go great lengths before placing the blame on someone else. In total, the point you make is solid support for your overall comparison.

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  2. OH MY GOSH! I loved that movie!! The relationship that you made was literally genius!! You did a great job!!

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  3. Good comparison Natalie!
    This really makes you hate scar for blaming poor simba :(.
    Good word choice and your use of quotes really helped get your idea.
    Awesome job!

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  4. I really liked your comparison to the Lion King through guilt. Guilt is what drives us to do many things and you did an excellent job of showing the aftereffects of guilt in both works. One thing I would add is the differences between the characters of both works, but if you were working under a word limit, then this does not matter. Anyways, great job!

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  5. I certainly agree with that it is a very human quality for one to take the blame. I think this is actually one of the 7 stages of dealing with death, the self-blame. I think you also show very well how Mustafa takes advantage of this and foces Simba to accept the blame.

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  6. Good job Natalie! I really liked how you took a movie with many innocent themes and connected it very well with such a dark story. At the same time, both scenarios have very similar situations for the character.

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  7. Great job! I really like how you compared "In The Field" to the Lion King; this was a very original comparison! When bad things happen, it is human nature to blame someone/something. So, I like how you accentuated this in your analysis.

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  8. Awesome job Natalie!! Although I have never seen Lion King (it's shameful, I know), I am able to understand your blog post anyway. I think in most circumstances in books/movies/plays when there is a conflict, every character know whose fault it actually is, but each character tries to take the blame in order to make the person at fault feel better. It's pretty neat how a movie with animated, talking animals can be compared to a book about war. Nice job!

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  9. Great blog post Natalie! I love how you compared In The Field to The Lion King, a classic movie. The scene you chose from The Lion King always makes me cry, and it made the chapter more understandable. Someone always has to be at fault for everything, in both stories someone is forced to take the blame and they have to live with that guilt. Good comparison!

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  10. I couldn't agree more that the idea of blame is ubiquitous through out this chapter. I also loved the Lion King connection and the way you talk about the blame and guilt felt by Simba, Great post.

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