"They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage,the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility" page 259 from "The Things They Carried"
"The Things They Carried" was an absolutely devastating story to me. The way that it portrayed the life of a soldier and the struggle to keep one's humanity for such a long time was really poignant. The sentence above that I chose from the story really encapsulates this feeling of the fading humanity of the soldiers in my opinion. It shows the slow, methodical, stripping of humanity from these soldiers who were plucked away from their families and friends and lives to serve their country. So, let's start from the beginning of this lovely sentence.
"They plodded along, slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts". This phrase could have been taken out of a passage about moving livestock around on a hot summer day. This fact illuminates how ruthless the war and the process of being a soldier takes away one's humanity. The word "plod" is particularly interesting in that it is often used to describe cattle, but also in that it is less than a walk - there is no direction really when one "plods" along. Plodding has a sense of being targetless, one who just moves to move. This is further supported later in the phrase when it is said that they are "unthinking". They are moving forward just because they have to. They are not even described as human, but only as "blood and bone", as one might describe the essential important parts of animals.
The next phrase, "soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic" highlights just how far they go on their marches. They "soldier with their legs". This phrase not only describes how they must walk long distances, but also how their status as soldiers is reduced to how far they can walk; how strong they are. If the phrase had been amended with "and also their minds", there might be some element of value for their humanity, but instead the focus is placed solely on the physical nature of the soldiers. This section also emphasizes the arbitrary nature of their war, especially in the phrases "just jumping" and "because it was automatic". There is nor reason that they are doing this, and they can only move forward because they are commanded to do so. There is no reason almost for them to go where they go, they simply move as they are told to.
The final phrase, "it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage,the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility" further drives home how much humanity is sucked out of the soldiers. The first phrase also highlights this by comparing the soldiers to animals, and this phrase highlights this by comparing the soldiers to what they don't have as humans. The emptiness and dullness that they feel is what the war has drained them of. Citizens back at home have hope, are filled with a desire to do something and also the power to do that on their own terms, but these soldiers have been stripped of that and are being used essentially just for moving forward. Though they move forward, they have no inner motion. The war has taken away their intellectual joys and has left them with a hollow shell of a strong body.
This sentence overall being long and continuous, almost rhythmic, illustrates the draining nature of war and how it leaves soldiers feeling less than human.
"The Things They Carried" was an absolutely devastating story to me. The way that it portrayed the life of a soldier and the struggle to keep one's humanity for such a long time was really poignant. The sentence above that I chose from the story really encapsulates this feeling of the fading humanity of the soldiers in my opinion. It shows the slow, methodical, stripping of humanity from these soldiers who were plucked away from their families and friends and lives to serve their country. So, let's start from the beginning of this lovely sentence.
"They plodded along, slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts". This phrase could have been taken out of a passage about moving livestock around on a hot summer day. This fact illuminates how ruthless the war and the process of being a soldier takes away one's humanity. The word "plod" is particularly interesting in that it is often used to describe cattle, but also in that it is less than a walk - there is no direction really when one "plods" along. Plodding has a sense of being targetless, one who just moves to move. This is further supported later in the phrase when it is said that they are "unthinking". They are moving forward just because they have to. They are not even described as human, but only as "blood and bone", as one might describe the essential important parts of animals.
The next phrase, "soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic" highlights just how far they go on their marches. They "soldier with their legs". This phrase not only describes how they must walk long distances, but also how their status as soldiers is reduced to how far they can walk; how strong they are. If the phrase had been amended with "and also their minds", there might be some element of value for their humanity, but instead the focus is placed solely on the physical nature of the soldiers. This section also emphasizes the arbitrary nature of their war, especially in the phrases "just jumping" and "because it was automatic". There is nor reason that they are doing this, and they can only move forward because they are commanded to do so. There is no reason almost for them to go where they go, they simply move as they are told to.
The final phrase, "it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage,the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility" further drives home how much humanity is sucked out of the soldiers. The first phrase also highlights this by comparing the soldiers to animals, and this phrase highlights this by comparing the soldiers to what they don't have as humans. The emptiness and dullness that they feel is what the war has drained them of. Citizens back at home have hope, are filled with a desire to do something and also the power to do that on their own terms, but these soldiers have been stripped of that and are being used essentially just for moving forward. Though they move forward, they have no inner motion. The war has taken away their intellectual joys and has left them with a hollow shell of a strong body.
This sentence overall being long and continuous, almost rhythmic, illustrates the draining nature of war and how it leaves soldiers feeling less than human.
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