Buried Social Issues Exposed in The Things They WoreThe Things They Wore by Tim O'Brien is a wonderful and personal look at the one of the darkest periods in this country. The vivid imagery used by the author allows the reader to truly experience the feeling of actually being in the war. Using the cultural studies method of literary criticism, we can use the social conditions at the time of writing to explore beneath the surface. What we find underneath might just be more interesting than the story itself. In the story "Enemies", Lee Strunk and Dave Jenson have a fistfight over a missing jackknife. “Stupid” (p. 63) is how the author describes the fight, yet he describes the bloody battle and its emotional outcome in detail. If we look at society in the 1960s, we see that America was going through a period when sharing was a common value. “Free love” and “Peace, love, and Rock-n-Roll” were the battle cry of an entire subculture revolting against the narrowness of their parents. (Bob Dylan versus Ward Clever) This counterculture was not very interested in individualistic ideas as evidenced by the crowds of groupies who followed (and still follow) the Grateful Dead. The U.S. military had basically the same effect on young boys volunteering for war. They have been stripped of their individualism and transformed into a team, a fighting machine. The only way for them to gain a true sense of individuality was to grab some small personal possessions that they were allowed to keep or those that were contraband. On the other hand, growing up in the early 1980s and 1990s (the ME generation) makes it difficult to understand how a sim...... middle of paper ......he spends time. When Dave feels he can no longer tolerate the situation, "he borrowed a gun, grabbed it by the barrel and used it like a hammer to break his nose." (63) Also like society at the time, the "establishment" felt it needed to shut down the sit-ins and peace marches because it believed the protesters would become violent. This was a form of proactive violence. In conclusion, there are many ways to unpack the many layers of a literary work. The most simplistic of these methods focuses primarily on words and their basic meaning. The more complex ones, like the cultural studies method, will reveal a deeper insight and motivation of the author. You may discover more than just a jackknife fight story. In the end, you may learn a lesson in human psychology and socio-economics..