A story about a young man being drafted into the Vietnam War, Tim O'Brien's novel If I Die in a Combat Zone is one that is focused heavily on the theme of technology and weaponry during the war. O'Brien uses the imagery and description of weaponry to show the fatality of the American soldiers in Vietnam through the haphazard manner with which death was treated during the war. This casual and mechanic mentality of weapons such as grenades and bayonets leads to a sentiment of hopelessness, as conveyed by the tone of the protagonist who shows no room for optimism and searches for a way out of the war for fear of the death he thinks is inevitable as an infantryman. O’Brien uses the protagonist’s tone to shed light on the popular sentiment of opposition to the Vietnam War and enforces this opposition through the imagery of violence and weaponry as a means of showing the horrors of a war that many thought was unnecessary and not justified.
OR
O’Brien uses his depiction of the unhealthy attitude toward excessive weapon-use to comment on the mirroring attitude of the American government as lead by President Lyndon Johnson and his dependence on highly developed US military technology and massive production of war material.
OR
O'Brien uses the protagonist's inner struggle to leave the war or to not leave the war as a means to represent the struggle America was facing with its citizen's divided on whether the war was right or wrong.
I can't decide between the three, what do you guys think?
