Hero... maybe?

Most books will fairly early on give a protagonist to the book. But for a book with such depth as this, determining the protagonist is fairly challenging. The first two chapters suggest that Jimmy Cross keeps the story going and develops the plot, first going from antihero to a model lieutenant. "... his obligation was not to be loved but to lead" (O'Brien 25). Once chapter three starts, however, the reader is told that the narrator/author Tim O'Brien is in fact the protagonist. So which is it?

In truth, the protagonist is something we all carry inside us: the ghosts of our pasts. We all must "hump" these burdens with us everyday, and everywhere we go. What distinguishes the antiheroes from the heroes, however, is how we carry them. Heroes carry them as a small reminder of what can potentially happen, and as a guide for the future. Antiheroes carry them as regrets and as a solemn reminder of what did happen. In order to develop the plots of our own lives, we must be the hero.

Superstition

Humans have been given an incredible sense of touch. When darkness falls we can see in the dark using our fingers. Our palm can tell when food is down cooking or when the fire is ready to be used to cook our meals. But like most blessings, our touch comes which a fatal flaw: the need to feel a tangible sense of safety. Sometimes all someone needs for comfort is a hug, or possibly a small child needs to hold a favorite toy. Our tangible sense of touch, along with our emotional sense of touch at one point or another needs human contact, a reminder of humanity.

Whether it be a "lucky pebble" (O'Brien 12) or " a rabbit's foot" (O'Brien 12) superstition is a mind's way of dealing with the soul's desperate fear for some form of security. But the mind can take any superstition or coincidence, and turn it against us as well. An example of this is myself. I happen to be deathly afraid of being enlisted, and Lavender (my girlfriend's favorite smell) was killed on April 16, which happens to be my birthday. Coincidences occur very frequently in this world of our's, but some people see signs that other's over look.

Boom- down. Like cement.

When an American, teenage boy hits the age of eighteen, they are required by law to sign up for the draft, should one ever be instituted. Some accept this fate with quiet acceptance. Others, such as myself, dread this inevitable outcome with cold blood slowly creeping through their system, procrastinating their destiny until the last possible moment. The reason being a unexplainable terror for the horrors of war illustrated in this book. Imagine walking back from relieving one's self, smiling away, only to have the brains and teeth blown out of one's mouth in the blink of an eye. After all of the work and planing and hopes for the future, to have it all just thrown away in the blink of an eye, to see the light from a comrades eyes slowly disappear... this is a fate worse than a thousand agonizing deaths.

Having one's heart and soul weighed down by all the "grief, terror, loving, longing, all the intangibles.... and to carry the heaviest weight of all, barely held- back fear" (O'Brien 20) is a feeling that no person that has not experienced this can imagine. Lavender fell like cement not because of the weight he carried, but because the emotions in his soul had hardened his heart and made it weigh that of cement.