“The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien

Introduction

The “things” of the name that O'Brien's characters convey are both literal and figurative. While they all convey hefty personal burdens, they furthermore all convey hefty emotional burdens, created of sorrow, terror, love, and longing. Each man's personal problem highlights his emotional burden. Henry Dobbins, for demonstration, carries his girlfriend's pantyhose and, with them, the yearning for love and comfort. Similarly, Jimmy Cross carries compasses and charts and, with them, the blame for the men in his charge. Faced with the hefty problem of worry, the men furthermore convey the heaviness of their reputations. Although every constituent of the Alpha Company experiences worry at some issue, displaying worry will only disclose vulnerability to both the foe and sometimes fiendish young individual soldiers. (McMahan 250)

 

Quant Cast

After the war, the psychological burdens the men convey throughout the war extend to characterize them. Those who endure convey guilt, sorrow, and disarray, and numerous of the stories in the assemblage are about these survivors' endeavors to arrive to periods with their experience. In “Love,” for demonstration, Jimmy Cross confides in O'Brien that he has not ever forgiven himself for Ted Lavender's death. Norman Bowker's sorrow and disarray are so powerful that they punctual him to propel aimlessly round his hometown lagoon in “Speaking of Courage,” to compose O'Brien a seventeen-page note explaining how he not ever sensed right after the war in “Notes,” and to suspend himself in a YMCA. While Bowker bears his psychological burdens solely, O'Brien portions the things he carries, his war stories, with us. His assemblage of stories inquires us to assist convey the problem of the Vietnam War as part of our collective past. (Junger 287)

 

Fear of Shame as Motivation

O'Brien's individual experience displays that the worry of being disgraced before one's gazes is a mighty inspiring component in war. His story “On the Rainy River” explains his lesson dilemma after obtaining his preliminary notice—he does not desire to fight in a war he accepts as factual is unjust, but he does not desire to be considered a coward. What holds O'Brien from escaping into Canada is not patriotism or dedication to his country's cause—the customary inspiring components for fighting in a war—but anxiety over what his family and community will believe of him if he doesn't fight. This experience is emblematic of the confrontation, explored all through The Things They Carried, between the misguided expectations of an assembly of persons significant to a character and that character's doubt considering a correct course of action. (McMahan 200)

Fear of disgrace not only motivates reluctant men to proceed to Vietnam but furthermore sways soldiers' connections with each other one time there. Concern about communal acceptance, which might appear in the abstract an insignificant preoccupation, granted the immediacy of death and necessity of assembly harmony throughout war, directs O'Brien's characters to enlist in absurd or unsafe actions (Deghati 296). For demonstration, Curt Lemon concludes to have a flawlessly good tooth dragged (in “The Dentist”) to alleviate his disgrace ...