20. Theme

The Things They Carried seemed to have a theme centered on the emotional states of the soldiers during the Vietnam War and trying to deal with them afterwards. The book begins talking about the literal objects the soldiers carried with them from fort to fort, but as the story continues we also are informed of "the things they carried" emotionally and how exactly they coped with them, or in some cases, how they failed to cope with them. The main feeling I picked up on was guilt of the deaths of others. Dealing with such burdens was not an easy task for any of the men in Vietnam. O'Brien dealt with such negative burdens through his writing. He not only writes to deal with the war, but in the end he also wrote about Linda to continue dealing with a traumatic childhood experience. The book concludes with the following, "I'll never die. I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story," (233). I found this to be a beautiful yet disconsolate statement. It is beautiful in that O'Brien can cope with such tragedy so well through his stories and writing and imagination. But I find it sad that he has to do so in order to protect himself from such pain. He has endured much tragedy and things that no one could ever understand unless they had experienced it themselves. Now that I have completed this book, I cannot decide how I feel about it. I cannot say I liked it, but I cannot say that I did not like it either. I did not necessarily enjoy reading it, but now that it is done, I know I really enjoyed some of the statements from O'Brien throughout the novel. What I do know for sure is that I definitely liked this book better than The Sun Also Rises.

19. Dealing with Death

In the final section of The Things They Carried, O'Brien recalls his first experience with death in the army and his first experience of death ever at the young age of nine. It really bothers me how the soldiers treat the dead bodies. "In Vietnam, too, we had ways of making the dead seem not quite so dead. Shaking hands, that was one way. By slighting death, by acting, we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was. By out language, which was both hard and wistful, we transformed the bodies into piles of waste," (225-226). Reading the things that the soldiers said to the farmer just really got to me. That definitely is no way to treat someone who just died. I suppose they had to do that in order to deal with killing so many people, but I just have a hard time finding that okay, especially them referring to bodies as "waste." They were real people, not garbage. I definitely know I would not last a day in any war. I would never be able to handle the things I would see and hear and experience.

18. A Last Resort

"Night Life" was mainly about the story of how Rat Kiley got sent to Japan. First of all, I really do not understand the order O'Brien places his chapters in sometimes. I would think he would talk about Kiley's departure before he talked about the arrival of the new medic Jorgenson. I don't really see what difference he is making by mixing up the order of things. But more importantly, I found this section more interesting because it was interesting to see the progression up to Kiley's breakdown. "He took off his boots and socks, laid out his medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot," (212). I really don't blame Kiley whatsoever. Honestly if I had to do what those men did, I would probably shoot my own foot too if that meant I could get out of it. I think it'd be worth it. I for sure could not handle the "night life".

17. A Sense of Loss

In "The Ghost Soldiers" O'Brien writes about his experiences getting shot. After his second gun wound, he is sent to a battalion supply headquarters and when his old comrades come to see him, O'Brien experienced some new feelings. "I felt something shift inside me. It was anger, partly, but it was also a sense of pure and total loss: I didn't fit in anymore," (188). After all the things he had been through, and now he lost the only friends he had. Being a soldier and being away from home is an extreme loss in itself, but then to be considered a misfit by the only people you have left would be an added sadness. The whole war experience seems so lonely. The soldiers honestly had no one and nothing. That would definitely change a person negatively. O'Brien poses the idea that that cold lonely feeling never really leaves. I still cannot imagine what that would be like coming back home and not being able to move on and get rid of all those bad feelings. It would have to take a very strong individual to pull that off.

16. A World of Difference

While reading "Field Trip," I found it a little strange that O'Brien took Kathleen to see war sites in Vietnam as a birthday gift. No ten year old girl wants to go visit open fields that hold no meaning. Kathleen does not understand what O'Brien does. She does not get the purpose of the war and why her father had to fight it in. She sees no need for her father to come visit these places again. On page 175 Kathleen asks her father questions about it:

"This whole war, why was everybody so mad at everybody else?"

"They weren't mad exactly. Some people wanted one thing, other people wanted another thing."

"What did you want?"

"Nothing. To stay alive."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

Kathleen sees no purpose to the war. She cannot relate with her father in this regard. She later calls him "weird" for "...coming over here. Some dumb things happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it," (175). I think this story of Kathleen kind of represents the idea that many Americans' attitude towards the veterans was similar. They did not see why it was as big a deal as some made it. This further proves O'Brien's point as to why he had to use made up stories in order to tell others the truth. Just seeing the war for what it was if you are an outsider does not seem that huge of a deal. But knowing the feeling and emotion behind it is what makes you understand, just like seeing the field was boring to Kathleen because she could not feel the connection to it like her father was able to do.

15. Untruthful Truths

The section "Good Form" at first really confused me. But as I've sat here and thought about it for awhile, I think I kind of get where O'Brien is coming from. "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why the story-truth is truer than the happening-truth," (171). I was not sure how that was true at all at first. But then I read, "What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again," (172). In the beginning I was very frustrated with O'Brien for telling a story and then in the next section saying it was not true. I never got the point until now. The facts themselves are not true. But the feeling and the emotion behind it could not be truer. It is the only way O'Brien can begin to explain what war is like. You have to make it comprehensible for your audience, because they will never fully understand the guilt and the pain and the heartbreak. He isn't just making up war stories for the heck of it. He is just explaining his feelings in a way that we can understand. By describing to us the appearance of his "first kill" with the star shaped hole in the young boy's head, we are able to better understand why O'Brien is so scarred by it. If he said that he killed many people but could not describe their face, we would not think as much of it. But to O'Brien, the guilt and the sorrow he felt was equal to that of the made up experience he wrote with the description of the boy's dead body. This book is meant to be felt, not just read word for word. The words don't make this book true, rather it is the feeling and emotion and experience behind it.

14. Perpetual Guilt

"In the Field" gives us yet another view of Kiowa's death. This time I noticed that there were many people that blamed themselves for his death: Norman Bowker, Jimmy Cross, and the young soldier who turned on the flashlight to show Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend. Guilt has been made a large part of the last few sections in this novel. "...but I felt sort of guilty almost, like if I'd kept my mouth shut none of it would've ever happened. Like it was my fault," (168) was said by Azar regarding the comments he made about the "irony" of Kiowa's death. Even he begins to feel responsible for his death just because of insensitive remarks he made. The soldiers all carry around a huge burden constantly. I could never do what those men did. It is especially unnerving to think that some of these men were only 18 or 19, not too much older than I, and they saw people getting blown to pieces. I would never be able to recover from something like that. O'Brien keeps writing war stories in order to try to explain to everyone what it was like. But it seems he keeps having to write because its impossible to make someone understand what it was like if they were never actually there to witness it. No matter how many stories he tells, no one will ever fully understand what he went through those years in Vietnam. I think that would be an unbelievably frustrating and lonely feeling.

13. Finding Solace

"...it occurred to me that the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself," (152). I find this statement from O'Brien to be a pretty universal idea in some ways. With anyone who goes through a traumatic experience, they either learn to cope with it, or they never find a way to escape it. O'Brien found solace in his writing, so he was able to move on, start a family, and live his life to the fullest. Norman Bowker found no means of peace, therefore he ended up committing suicide because he just could not find a way to handle everything that had happened. I really liked this statement because I found it so easy to relate to. With certain experiences in my own life, I've seen both sides. Those who find ways to cope and deal with things and move on the best they can, like myself, and those who just cannot find a way out of their thoughts and the traumatic things that have happened like some family members of mine. Its very important to find your source of solace and be at peace with your life. If you never find that peace, then life just is not what it is supposed to be.

12. New Beginnings

"Speaking of Courage" posed a few new ideas to me. When the war had ended and the soldiers returned to their hometowns, everything had changed a great deal. Life had moved on without them. Norman Bowker came home and was still stuck in the place he was when he left. He was not completely aware of how different things would be. "He felt invisible in the soft twilight," (144). Norman felt alone upon his return. He didn't know his place and where he fit in. Coming back home after being gone for so long would be extremely difficult. You would have to completely start over from scratch. I think it would be very sad to come home and feel completely forgotten like no one even cared you had been gone so long. This was a time too that the soldiers probably needed close friends to confide in so that they could talk out some of their feelings of guilt and sadness. Instead they came home and had to keep everything to themselves. No one would ever understand what they went through and what they saw. It would be an extremely troubling life I would think.

11. Personification

In the section "Ambush," O'Brien again relives the moment of is first kill. But this time was somewhat different in that he discussed events leading up to the death and his thoughts before it happened. "I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it," (127). O'Brien had no idea that this man was going to die, as he informs us in this section. As it was happening O'Brien was just as shocked as the man was who got a grenade launched at him. War instincts took over O'Brien before he could consider what this man was walking up the path for. He gives the grenade human abilities by saying that it "seem[ed] to freeze above me for an instant," (127) as if to give him the chance to realize what his body chose to do on its own. I like how O'Brien wrote two separate accounts of his first kill. I like the two different perspectives, the first just explaining the shock of the aftermath and the second walking me through such an out of body experience. I felt like I was there with O'Brien witnessing it all with him.

10. Imagery

"The Man I Killed" was practically bursting with unpleasant imagery. O'Brien relives the memories of the first boy he killed in the war. "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of his skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless...his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him," (118). O'Brien continues to describe the way the boy is lying on the ground. He begins to imagine how he just took away everything from this young man. I could feel his guilt and his confusion and the pure shock he was experiencing in that moment. He was not able to speak because of it. He just stood there examining every square inch of this man who he killed. He frequently repeats parts of this first paragraph throughout the entire section. It shows that that is all he could think about at the time. He could not seem to grasp everything about what he had done and had to do to save his own life. Just reading this section made me feel sick, I cannot fathom how terrible it would have been to be in O'Brien's place in that moment. His description has not become rusty at all. The imagery he provides for the readers is as clear as the day it happened. This has stuck with him through the years. Something like that could never escape my mind. I would feel guilty forever.

9. Stereotype

In "Church," Dobbins and Kiowa are the main characters we see interacting with one another. While cleaning Dobbins' gun, they discuss the idea of possibly becoming a minister. Dobbins said he had considered becoming one and he asked Kiowa if he had also. Kiowa responds,"No. Not ever," (116) and Dobbins began to laugh at the idea saying, "An Indian preacher. Man, that's one I'd love to see. Feathers and buffalo robes," (116). This was a very stereotypical statement on his part. Dobbins assumes that individuals with Native American descent still wear headdresses, feathers, etc. "Kiowa lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and for a time he didn't speak," (116). Kiowa is bothered by Dobbins' statement, but he does not try to explain that they do not wear feathers and such any longer because he probably finds it pointless to explain that to someone so ignorant and unwilling to see the truth. To be one of the few Indians in his group of soldiers must have been a very challenging lifestyle to take on, especially when so few understood that he was just the same as everyone else. They were all fighting for the same country.

8. Quick Transitions and Adaptations

In the section Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, we first meet Mary Anne. It was kind of interesting to me to see her transition throughout her first three weeks in Vietnam. In only three weeks she became a completely different person. "...she quickly fell into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna. Hygiene became a matter of small consequence," (94). The main thing this book has done for me is allow me to recognize how much a war mentally and physically changes an individual. Their surroundings are different, they are with new people, new cultures. They are completely submersed in a new lifestyle. No one can experience all this without becoming a new person. O'Brien makes the war seem something almost animalistic. Everyone seems to forget their old ways and simply commit themselves to being "ready for the kill," (110).

7. Anecdote

In the next section, The Dentist, O'Brien begins talking about Curt Lemon again. He starts off talking about his death, but then he suddenly sways the topic away from death and gives an anecdote from pages 82-84 about the February afternoon when "...an Army dentist was choppered in to check our teeth and do minor repair work." The anecdote was used to "guard against" O'Brien becoming sentimental over Lemon's death, as he states on page 82. This section shows how brave and macho these men feel like they have to be. O'Brien cannot get sentimental about death and Lemon is ashamed that he fainted at the dentist, so much so that he makes the dentist rip out a tooth, just so he won't seem so sheepish. I believe this is still true of a lot of men these days today also though. Not all, but most men seem to have trouble showing their sensitive sides and always try to act braver than they actually are. (No offense to the men out there, it's just a natural difference between guys and girls). I guess that is one thing that makes this novel timeless. The same rules still apply.

6. Hyperbole

In the beginning of the seventh section, How to Tell a True War Story, we first read about the letter Rat sends to Curt Lemon's sister after his death. On page 65 a hyperbole was used: "...the funniest thing in world history." Rat writes this in regards to a war experience he had with Curt, about "fishing with a crate of hand grenades," which does not seem like the "funniest thing in world history" to me. All the soldiers seem to take on an odd sense of humor in this book. The war seems to take over all their thoughts and perceptions. This whole section confused me. O'Brien kept talking about truthful truths and untruthful truths and I honestly do not understand one thing he was trying to say in this chapter. I was even more confused on page 81 where O'Brien writes about the story of Lemon's death, "It wasn't a war story. It was a love story." I have no idea how that was about love. Then further down on the page he says, "None of it happened. None of it." Why did he write 18 pages of a "true war story" if it really ends up not being true in the end? I'm a little frustrated because I just am not getting this Tim O'Brien character at all..

5. Random Stories

In sections 5 and 6, O'Brien tells the story of Jensen and Strunk. I don't understand why O'Brien adds this story in here. It seems really random and I don't see O'Brien's purpose behind it. After his recollection of the fight, O'Brien writes, "In any other circumstance it might've ended there. But this was Vietnam..." (59). I guess he was just trying to show the reader what the war did to some individuals' mental states? I just feel like these ideas are evident throughout his writing and he has no need to tell these stories randomly about others in between the chapters he writes about his personal life. He frequently goes back and forth throughout the book. I feel as if this novel was mainly written for his own benefit rather than making a point to others, as maybe it served as an easier way to talk through all his repressed memories. The little sections are so randomized and his thoughts seem very scattered. But maybe he just does this on purpose to show more negative and lasting effects of serving in the war.

4. Internal Conflict

In the fourth section, O'Brien shares his thoughts and feelings when he first received his draft notice. He experiences a mix of feelings as stated on page 43, "I was bitter, sure. But it was so much more than that. The emotions went from outrage to terror to bewilderment to guilt to sorrow and then back again to outrage. I felt a sickness inside me. Real disease." His internal conflict was whether or not he should run away to Canada or actually serve in a war he knew nothing about. O'Brien seems to really want his readers to understand what he went through back then. He seems to really stress the importance of not taking anything for granted. He never expected to be enlisted and it greatly altered his perspective on life. His emotional state was greatly changed as well. He experienced a variety of feelings within a short time frame, leading mainly to an uncertainty as to what would happen. Everything about the war changed who he was as a person and he attempts to relay that point to the reader in section four.

3. Simile

In the third section, O'Brien again describes memories from the war. On page 31, he uses a simile to help him explain what some parts of war are like. "On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put a fancy spin on it, you could make it dance." I am not completely sure what O'Brien meant, but I believe that this simile is his way of saying that the war was not entirely bad. He found ways to make it a more positive experience than a negative one. Later in the chapter, however, he resumes talk of the negative experiences. As he says, "The thing about remembering is that you don't forget," (33). As he shares more positive experiences, he always leads back to the negative because he cannot ever forget no matter how much he may wish to do so. No matter how many good things happened, the bad will still always be a huge part of who O'Brien is.

2. Suspense

First of all, chapter 2 sort of threw me for a loop there when it turned into 1st person. The first chapter was not in 1st person I don't believe, so when the next section began I was confused there for a bit. But moving on, Jimmy Cross came to visit O'Brien in this section. They talked about old times and old friends. Towards the end, O'Brien tells Cross that he wishes to write a book about him. On page 29, Cross "hesitated for a second," then he said, "And do me a favor. Don't mention anything about-". Does anyone else really want to know what that little incident is? I know I sure do. I'm just hoping that it is actually something of interest because I also feel as if he could maybe just have been referring to the incident of Lavender's death. I am hoping that that is not all it is, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.

1. Parallelism

In the beginning of chapter 1, I found parallelism present on page 3 in which Tom O'Brien is describing the reasoning behind why each soldier carries the things that he does. "Because the land was mined and booby-trapped... Because you could die so quickly... Because the nights were cold and the monsoons were wet..." The use of because as the first word in the sentences continues on for some time to provide justification for why each soldier had to carry what he did. The entire 25 pages of chapter 1 do nothing but explain what these men carry. I am PRAYING this book gets less dull. I do not understand the point of having a 25 page long list of random items the men had with them. It could have been explained in about 10 pages I'd say. That seems way more reasonable to me. Alls you need to understand is that each soldier has a different personality and a different value system which makes them find certain things important that others do not. And I'm sure this will play a role later on in the novel. But I understood that idea in about 5 pages so I do not see the need for the following twenty. Oh well! Time to continue...

The Things They Carried

By: Tim O'Brien