Physical things like supplies, tokens of luck, and nick-nacks are not only what people carry, but emotional baggage and mental sorrows that one suffers are also carried. The main plot of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien involves the protagonist Tim himself and his traumatic experiences in the war and how he copes with everything he has faced. The narrator showed many fates of different characters, such as Kiowa and Dave Jensen, who died during the war. After witnessing the repetitive, insensible, and savage deaths of comrades, O’Brien takes on the huge psychological burden of serving in the war and the distress that comes with it. The men of Alpha Company March live a scheduled life: march into battles, fight their war, camp, make jokes, recollect everything they had seen, and then die. The book tells a story of what men, peculiar to Tim O’Brien, did before and after the war. This exposed readers to experiences that a soldier faced after the war. Readers see the soldier’s triumphs - loyal, valiant, and altruistic - but also at their worst - vulnerable, horrified, and vicious.
The idea of death and losing comrades has hung over the soldiers’ heads ever since the beginning of the war. What’s to come is inevitable and the outcome of the trauma has taken a toll on all characters. O’Brien is overloaded with thoughts about his death and everyone else around him. These deaths haunt O’Brien - Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, and Kiowa. Each soldier and O’Brien narrate their experience of the deaths, trying and failing repetitively to process their feelings and emotions. The deaths impact the thoughts and actions of the soldiers who suffer with everything they felt, saw, and heard during and after the war. Death can come at any time, with no mercy to be shown, from any direction, and no exemptions to anyone’s superstitions. For example, Ted Lavender always carried an extra mag of ammo on his gun, and Kiowa carried the New Testament in his backpack. The death of these two individuals, unable to predict their fate and protect themselves from it, taught the other soldiers to anticipate what could happen and there is no way around it. This constant idea of death drove Rat Kiley insane. As stated by O’Brien “The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its dimension, replaying itself over and over.” (cite pg #). This quote means that bad things are repetitive, and the impact of the idea of death on one’s mind can drive one mad.
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Shame and guilt are two constant themes that develop throughout the plot of this story. To the soldiers, being heroic, masculine, and patriotic was their way of covering the possibility of being an embarrassment to their families, country, and name. The feelings of shame and guilt followed the soldiers into the war, leading them to do irrational and unexplainable things. For example, Norman Bowker is completely devastated and full of shame because he did not win The Silver Star of Valor. Bowker thought he could have won it if he had not failed to save Kiowa. The crushing and intense feelings of shame and guilt followed Bowker, which eventually led him to hang himself. Guilt presents itself in the same situation with O’Brien, who believes that he is responsible for Kiowa’s death. There is no one to blame for the death of Kiowa; because death is inevitable in this situation. The war created an impossible scenario to outrun, no matter where it occurred, that death was inevitable. These soldiers that survived are crushed with the thoughts that maybe if they had been sneakier, smarter, or faster, they could have saved their comrades, therefore they will never gain closure or stop blaming themselves. The feeling of guilt and shame; the feeling that no soldier in the series, or according to O’Brien, no soldier in Vietnam, was able to escape.
How does one cope with memories that haunt them, or express their emotions when replaying the image of seeing a friend die? Storytelling and memories bring an important theme into the stories of The Things They Carried because they help the reader gain insight into what soldiers are feeling. The recollection of these memories explores the role and purpose of “war stories.” There is a reason to tell war stories, along with gruesome and intense details. The role of the war stories establish an escape for the soldiers’ and to take their minds off the devastation and loss going on around them. A war story presents a level that speaks to the bond of the men who fought and died together while recognizing that the greatest truth behind The Things They Carried is the trauma and emotional baggage that men carry. O’Brien believes that stories contain a power that allows tellers and listeners to confront the past together and share unexplainable experiences. For example, Sanders told a story about hearing voices in the jungle but admits that he made up a few things to convey his point. Nevertheless, his story has resonance. The added details prove that the eerie quiet of the jungle causes soldiers’ imaginations to run wild with vivid images, stranger than they encounter. Perhaps the hallucinations help their minds wander and sharing them gives them something to talk about.
There is no doubt that emotional baggage is the heaviest thing the soldiers carry. Soldiers know they might die, but the more unsettling thought is when or how it will happen. They carry complex and cathartic emotions that need to be expressed, but they bury them inside to keep their masculine personality. The emotional burdens that the soldiers bear impact them greatly because of their young age and lack of experience. Being in their late teens and early twenties means that they are still children, students, and boyfriends. Young adults had no perspective on war; they did not know how to rationalize killing, or cope with experiences of seeing friends' deaths, and they did not know the effects that this would have on them as a person in the long run. O’Brien uses explicit and gruesome details to illustrate what the experience was like for these young and terrified men.
All soldiers carry something physically: pocket knives, dog tags, heavy artillery, and heavy armor. However, non-physical items all soldiers carry weigh more than any material item could ever measure up to. Ghosts, the weight of memory, took on emotions of others that they could no longer bear, they carried each other - wounded or weak, their own lives, the secret of cowardice, and emotions: grief, terror, longing, and love. Henry Dobbins physically carried an empty sandbag, that can be filled at night for extra protection, because the sandbags show his fear of being ambushed and vulnerability. Kiowa physically carried an illustrated New Testament, but mentally associated it with religious affiliations and adhering to moral code. Lee Strunk carried a slingshot - a weapon of last resort. This slingshot represents his fear of dying - a slingshot will never run out of ammo, and if all else fails, Strunk will do anything to fight back and stay alive. Ted Lavender physically carried 2-6 ounces of premium dope to deal with the extreme mental anxiety that requires him to self-medicate to numb the fear.
In conclusion, readers find the true meaning of things that are carried. This title ties back into the message that O’Brien is trying to convey. The soldiers in this novel have a lot to carry. Physically, they’re loaded with ammunition, food, and water, lugging rifles, survival equipment, and personal items - comics, photos, and letters from home. However, these physical items are outweighed by what is carried internally. Emotionally and mentally, they carry heavier and more cathartic baggage - memories, dreams, what they’ve encountered, tragedies, pain, and demons from the past, and what they hope for in the future. Through the eyes of O’Brien, recalling his traumatic experiences and storytelling techniques, the things they carried illustrate the ruthless ways of the Vietnam War, and show that things can be carried anyway.
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