Themes, And Animal Cruelty In The Things They Carried

In literary works, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivator. In The Things They Carried, acts of cruelty are crucial to the entire theme of the book. There are plenty examples of cruelty throughout this book. The examples include, animal cruelty, mental cruelty, and physical cruelty. The cruelty in The Things They Carried acts as the end product of motivation and it reveals a lot about the past, present, and future of each character involved. Animal cruelty leads to violence against human beings. According to Animal Cruelty and Human Violence, of those arrested in Chicago for animal crimes, 65% had been arrested for battery against another person (1). An example of animal cruelty in the book is the scene with the water

Whether it is bullying or just leaving people to think for themselves, this cruelty can be the most bizarre. One afternoon when the platoon was just chilling, an Army dentist was choppered in to check on their teeth and fix minor work. The dentist talked about oral hygiene and the correct way to brush and floss your teeth. Afterwards, the dentist started taking checkups on the soldiers. Curt Lemon would not and could not get a checkup. He was so afraid of dentists that when he walked into his checkup, he fainted. He thought to himself and was very embarrassed that he fainted. He would cuss himself out and hit himself. Finally, he told the dentist he had a monster toothache. The dentist did not see anything wrong but Lemon kept insisting. The dentist then pulled out a perfectly good tooth. Lemon was all smiles after his experience. This shows that Lemon was neglected as a kid when he went to the dentist. He was cruel to himself and just thought to himself about how embarrassing it is to be scared of a dentist. His embarrassment was the main motivator to his own cruelty. Sadly, Lemon died in this book and we will never know what his experience will be like the next time he goes to the