Are all women bad drivers?  Do all men never listen to their wives? Do all war veterans suffer from PTSD?  Each of these stereotypes is present in everyday culture along with the thousands of other generalizations that plague society.  Stereotypes have been around for ages and will likely continue to be around for a very long time.  No matter who or what a stereotype targets, it will almost always spark some sort of reaction.  Some people can laugh it off while others may not find it as easy to do so.  In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Wendy Molyneux’s I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece, stereotypes establish a clear presence.  Although both pieces have a multitude of stereotypes present, they each present a different way of handling the stereotype.  In Wendy Molyneux’s I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece, stereotypes are fought with humor whereas in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the stereotypes, though much subtler, are accepted and incorporated into the daily lives of the characters. 

When looking at both pieces, it is rather interesting to find that even though they are quite different, they both still effectively portray relevant stereotypes.  I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece follows the stereotypical distractions that a woman busies herself with as she is trying to complete a task.  The piece, which was written in response to a derogatory essay by Christopher Hitchens, contends the sentiment that women aren’t funny.  Rather than doing so in a way that directly opposes Hitchens’s essay, Molyneux effectively proves Hitchens wrong by explaining that because so many stereotypical distractions for a woman got in her way, she was unable to write a comedy piece.  For example, Molyneux explains that one of the many reasons that she was unable to write back was because she “totally started to cry again, because [she is] so fat” (Molyneux 522).  Rather than directly attacking Hitchens and his article, Molyneux presents the distractions in a way that is comedic and light, while still standing her ground against Hitchens.  

Similarly, The Things They Carried presents readers with various stereotypes of a soldier in Vietnam.  However, rather than fighting the stereotypes, Tim O’Brien incorporates them into the daily life of each soldier.  For example, a common stereotype about war veterans is that they all return home with PTSD.  Although many soldiers do face this obstacle at some point, there is no evidence to prove that every single one faces it.  However, each soldier in The Things They Carried shows at least one early symptom of PTSD.  For example, Ted Lavender’s drug addiction and Kiowa’s inability to feel emotions are both common signs of early PTSD.  Unlike I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece, The Things They Carried does not use the stereotypes of a soldier with PTSD to attack critics.  Instead, O’Brien utilizes each stereotype to build the characters and enhance the plot of the story.   He does this by taking each soldier’s PTSD symptom and showing the reader how the symptom is present throughout the soldier’s day to day life and how it affects him.  For example, O’Brien uses Kiowa’s inability to feel emotion to set the mood for a scene.  As Kiowa sits out in the fog, he “wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger” (O’Brien 337) about Lavender’s death, which creates a somber mood.  Through the use of stereotypical PTSD symptoms, the story itself becomes more interesting for readers.  

Though the two texts are quite different from each other, they both show readers that there are many ways to handle stereotypes.  At first, one may not think that the texts can be related in any way because The Things They Carried does not seem to have stereotypes.  However, after doing further research about the Vietnam War and its background, it becomes more evident that the behaviors and actions of the characters are in fact based off of stereotypes and misconceptions.  Though Tim O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried 15 years after the end of the Vietnam War, it is apparent through the behaviors and actions of the characters that the anti-war movement still had a strong influence on the creation of the story.  War veteran William W. Stilwagen discusses how many misconceptions about war conditions were due to the images that protestors put in the public’s mind.  These images ranged anywhere from gory pictures of soldiers to unspeakable images of living conditions for the soldiers.  He explains that there are “stories that people like to believe and it's very hard to change that,” (Crescenti) meaning that many people have misconstrued ideas about the conditions that the soldiers endured in Vietnam. Some of these ideas are even present in The Things They Carried.  As O’Brien describes the “swamps” that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had to walk through, Stilwagen explains that “nobody lived in the jungle,” and that “most of the fighting in Vietnam took place in the forests,” (Crescenti) contrary to popular belief.  It is easy to see how society’s misconceptions about the conditions in Vietnam during the war shaped Tim O’Brien’s writing of The Things They Carried.

I am proud to say that I do not feel as if I struggled with much while reading these two pieces.  However, the one thing that I did find frustrating was why Christopher Hitchens even wrote his original essay in the first place.  I am fully aware that he can because of freedom of speech, and I am not one to tell anybody what they should or should not say.  However, the entire time that I was reading I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece, I did find it quite frustrating to know that it was written in response to a piece of work that bashes women and was published in a well-known publication.  Although I know that there is not much that I can do to directly address Hitchens, I know that I can do my best to prove other critics who may share his opinion wrong.  “Actions speak louder than words” is a very cliché statement, but it does prove to be true.  Some people will go on and on about how they are right and others are wrong, but the people who truly show that they are right are the ones who will get their point across in the best way possible.  

Some people may argue that I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece and The Things They Carried do not have stereotypes within their stories.  However, it is clear that they are quite prevalent in both.  I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece features stereotypes about women, such as their mood swings, their tendency to try on clothes for large amounts of time, and their desire to bake their feelings away.  The Things They Carried focuses on the stereotypes about soldiers, specifically those who suffer from PTSD.  These stereotypes include drug addiction and inability to feel emotion, among many other misconceptions about life overseas.  Though each story takes a different approach to presenting the stereotypes, they both bring attention to generalizations and misconceptions that are prevalent everywhere in society. 
