The Things They Carried: The Dead Thumb

People all over the world have good luck charms. Whether it be a rabbits foot, or a stone from the ocean, many people have one. In The Things They Carried, Mitchell Sanders gave Norman Bowker a dead Vietnam boy's thumb. Is this a good luck charm or a present? Mitchell Sanders saw the thumb as neither, he saw it as a moral. I believe that the thumb symbolizes moral or war. Even characters in the book asked what the moral of the thumb was. "Henry Dobbins asked what the moral was. Moral? You know. Moral... Henry Dobbins thought about it. Yeah, well, he finally said. I don't see no moral. There it is man"(13-14). The thumb symbolizes that there is no moral to war. The quote is agreeing that none of the men know why they must fight in the war, only that they must. The thumb that was cut off and given to Bowker was a reminder that the war they are fighting has no moral. Maybe the question one should ask is if war is really worth the fight. The world should all just get along and enjoy the life that they are given and live it to the fullest. War has no moral and all that happens is death and destruction. Maybe the thumb symbolizes more than the pointless moral of the Vietnam War, but any wars in general. The symbolism of the thumb is, there is no moral to war, death and destruction.

Courtney Rusch