The Idea of Escaping:
Escapism. We’ve seen the concept illustrated a thousand times. Movies. Video games. Books. Imaginary friends. Humans are constantly looking for a way to dodge reality. This topic unites almost all of humanity, including Tim O’Brien and Robert Frost.
In The Things They Carried, the idea of escapism is realized in every second of respite. Each is a precious moment the war doesn’t exist. Tim and the soldiers are constantly searching for that instance where they get to pretend they aren’t in the midst of total darkness.
Spoilers AHEAD
For example, when Ted Lavender dies, Mitchell Sanders asks his corpse, “How’s the war today?” which is the question the troopers would ask Ted every time he popped his tranquilizers and spaced out (O’Brien 233). The rest of the group begins replying to Mitchell as Ted, using the same phrases Ted always used. This is their method with dealing with the war and gore and horror and death they face everyday. They escape from their settings by ignoring the grotesque reality and taking a moment to pretend that everything isn’t what it is.
Back to the main point. The trend of escapism is also seen in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. In this poem, a traveler is making his way to a nearby village when he stops to admire the beauty of a frozen woods. His horse finds this uncomfortable and urges his rider onward until, after some consideration, the traveler realizes that he has other responsibilities to attend too and continues on his way. Due to Frost’s use of specific diction, such as the complimentary adjectives “lovely, deep and dark” used to describe the woods and the conjunction “but” in the final stanza, the reader understands that the traveler would much rather be in his current locale than at the village (Frost lines 13 and 14).
This woods serves as his momentary escape, a place where he can be free of the realities he is surrounded by. I’m sure you can see where this is going. Both the soldiers and the traveler use the same method to find rest from the pressing issues of their everyday lives.
However, their environment doesn’t just leave them alone and let them enjoy finding a moment of happiness. In Vietnam the war is everywhere. The things they carry. Gunfire. Each other. Ted Lavender’s body. Everything reminds them that their escape is momentary. The same holds true for the traveler, with his horse and his duties beckoning him back to his village to continue on with life.
There’s quite a few lessons to be learned from their experiences. There’s the power of the human mind to distract itself from unpleasant surroundings. There’s the truth about the hardships of life. There’s a lesson or two about human nature. But for me, the one that stands out the most, is the importance of rest in a long journey. I know I rarely find time to truly rest, which I often find leaves me exhausted and spent. Even if I’m not in the middle of a war or in some snowy woods, I can create my own moments of peace in the business of life.
“But this too is true:
Stories can save us.”
O’Brien
Escapism definition:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/escapism
Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening”:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening
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