[Please note that the following matter on the topic is just a summary which I found online. It will help you to format the paper well.But please donot use same matter while writing the paper.]
Called both a novel and a collection of interrelated short stories, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a unique and challenging book that emerges from a complex variety of literary traditions. O’Brien presents to his readers both a war memoir and a writer’s autobiography, and complicates this presentation by creating a fictional protagonist who shares his name. To fully comprehend and appreciate the novel, particularly the passages that gloss the nature of writing and storytelling, it is important to remember that the work is fictional rather than a conventional non-fiction, historical account.
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Protagonist “Tim O’Brien” is a middle-aged writer and Vietnam War veteran. The primary action of the novel is “O’Brien’s” remembering the past and working and reworking the details of these memories of his service in Vietnam into meaning.
Through a series of linked semi-autobiographical stories, “O’Brien” illuminates the characters of the men with whom he served and draws meaning about the war from meditations on their relationships. He describes Lt. Jimmy Cross as an inexperienced and ill-equipped leader of Alpha Company, both in-country and at a post-war reunion. Years after the war, the two spent an afternoon together remembering their friends and those who were killed.
In the introductory vignette, O’Brien describes each of the major characters by describing what they carry, from physical items such as canteens and grenades and lice to the emotions of fear and love that they carry. After the first chapter, the narrator is identified as “Tim O’Brien,” a middle-aged writer and veteran.
“O’Brien” relates personal stories, among them a story that he had never divulged before about how he planned to flee to Canada to avoid the draft. “O’Brien,” who spent the summer before he had to report to the Army working in a meatpacking factory, left work early one day and drove toward Canada, stopping at a fishing lodge to rest and devise a plan. He is taken in by the lodge owner, who helps him confront the issue of evading the draft by taking him out on the lake that borders Canada. Ultimately, “O’Brien” yields to what he perceives as societal pressures to conform to notions of duty, courage, and obligation, and he returns home instead of continuing on to Canada. Through the telling of this story, “O’Brien” confesses what he considers a failure of his convictions: He was a coward because he went to participate in a war in which he did not believe.
As a writer, O’Brien constantly analyzes and comments upon how stories are told and why they are told. For example, he tells the story of Curt Lemon’s death and proceeds to analyze and explain why it holds an element of truth. Ultimately, he surmises, “truth in a story is not necessarily due to ‘factual’ accuracy.” Instead, if the story affects the reader or listener in a personal and meaningful way, then that emotion is the truth of the story. O’Brien tests these ideas by relating the stories that others told in Vietnam, like the story of a soldier who brought his girlfriend to Vietnam and grows more and more terrified as she becomes fascinated by the war and ultimately never returns home. The soldiers who hear the story doubt its truth, but are drawn into the story nonetheless, showing that factual accuracy is less important to truth than emotional involvement.
The recurring memory of the novel that O’Brien recalls as a sort of coda, or repeated image, is the death of his friend and fellow soldier, Kiowa. Kiowa was a soft-spoken Native American with whom “O’Brien” made a strong connection. The scene of Kiowa’s death in a battlefield becomes the basis for several of the novel’s vignettes: “Speaking of Courage,” “In the Field,” “Field Trip,” and “Notes.” In each of these, O’Brien recalls snippets of memory and builds an indictment against the wastefulness of the war.
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In “Speaking of Courage,” the fictional “O’Brien” presents a story that he wrote about a Vietnam comrade named Norman Bowker. “O’Brien” describes Bowker’s difficulty adjusting to civilian life after he returns from Vietnam as he recalls his own ease slipping back into the routine of daily life, which for him was graduate school. In the end, in “Notes,” “O’Brien” describes how Bowker suggested that he (“O’Brien”) write a story about a veteran with problems readjusting and intense feelings of survivor guilt. “O’Brien” realizes that he must not have put the memories of Vietnam behind him because he constantly writes about them.
Finally, “O’Brien” remembers a girl from his childhood who died from cancer, the first dead body he saw before being in-country. He describes how as a little boy, “Timmy,” he could dream her alive and see and talk to her. He recognizes the similarity of his ability to animate her in his mind and his writing about Vietnam, and realizes that he tells these stories to save his own life.
The Things They Carried is a powerful meditation on the experiences of foot soldiers in Vietnam and after the war. The work is simultaneously a war autobiography, writer’s memoir, and group of fictional short stories. Subtitled “A Work of Fiction,” O’Brien immediately and deliberately blurs the line between fact and fiction by dedicating the novel to individuals that the reader soon discovers are the novel’s fictional characters. To further complicate the genre blending and blurring between fiction and reality, O’Brien creates a protagonist, a Vietnam veteran, named “Tim O’Brien.” The creation of this fictional persona allows O’Brien to explore his real emotions as though they were fictional creations, and simultaneously challenges us when we dismiss a story as fiction when it could just as easily be true. The originality and innovation of O’Brien’s invented form are what make the novel particularly compelling because its main theme — more so than even the Vietnam War — is the act of storytelling. Storytelling becomes an expression of memory and a catharsis of the past. Many characters in the novel seek resolution of some kind.
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Readers should note the designations used in this study guide to distinguish between the author, Tim O’Brien, and the fictionalized character, “Tim O’Brien,” who is the main character of the novel. While O’Brien and “O’Brien” share a number of similarities, readers should remember that the work is a novel and not an autobiography of the writer who wrote it. Instead, the novel is presented as the autobiography of the fictional character.
The medium becomes part of the novel’s message; the unreliable protagonist “Tim O’Brien” continually questions the veracity of the stories he tells and the hearsay he retells, causing, in turn, the readers to question the veracity of the very stories that O’Brien confronts them with. For example, at one point we believe O’Brien, such as when he describes his fear and shock after killing a Vietnamese soldier, but he then challenges us by casting doubt on the soldier’s life and existence. The act of storytelling becomes more important than the stories told. This quality is a characteristic of many fiction and non-fiction works that comprise the Vietnam War literature genre.
The Vietnam War era was a historical moment marked by confusion and conflict, from the disagreement over the war to the inconsistent and unstructured war of attrition that soldiers were asked to fight. This confusion and conflict is often experienced by individuals in Vietnam War literature as well, a sort of microcosm of the larger macrocosm of disorder and chaos. This theme of chaos leads to the tone of uncertainty present in The Things They Carried. For example, O’Brien describes how “Tim O’Brien” struggles to decide whether he should avoid military service by fleeing to Canada. The historical issue of draft-dodging, that is, escaping from the country to avoid the military draft, was a high pressure topic about which many contemporary organizations felt strongly. O’Brien takes us through both sides of the issue, feeling the fear of a young man facing military service and possibly death to one feeling a patriotic duty toward his country. Many of O’Brien’s stories in The Things They Carried highlight important historical tensions regarding Vietnam and present multiple perspectives, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.
One of the important themes O’Brien confronts in the novel is the pressure caused by feeling the need to adhere to some cultural or community standard of duty, courage, or patriotism. Commonly referred to as “jingoism,” this notion is a frequent theme in Vietnam War related fiction, as most soldiers who fought in Vietnam were born and reared just after World War II. (Soldiers in World War II are thought of as having a much less conflicted sense of their place in the war and their duty to their country, although it was by no means without debate.) Soldiers in Vietnam, therefore, absorbed the mores and values of their parent’s generation — that is, the so-called G.I. generation who fought World War II — including duty, patriotism, and service.
Many young men who enlisted or were drafted found, once in Vietnam, that what they saw there and what they did there contradicted the message of service they had absorbed as they grew into their political consciousness during the Kennedy administration and the continued expansion of the Cold War. These feelings of confusion were fueled in large part by social action in the U.S., including peace rallies, the Hippie movement, and resistance music of the 60s and 70s. Prominent examples of this growing pressure are the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, a gathering of music and people that supported peace and opposed war, and the violent anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.
Even at its time, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War brought on strong debates for and against, from within the War community and from without. O’Brien inserts himself and his characters into this discussion, using pressing images such as a young Vietnamese girl dancing in the midst of rubble and corpses, as well as the character of Henry Dobbins who, although an effective soldier, harbors thoughts of joining the clergy. O’Brien gives his readers the opportunity to take sides on many of these debates, but always reminds readers that their thoughts are products more of themselves than any intrinsic meaning in the stories of war.
O’Brien demonstrates this — the reminder that what we think is a product of our own perceptions and recollections — through his innovative form. He sets out deliberately to manipulate the audience as they read his work, an act intended to provoke his audience into forming an opinion not about the Vietnam War, but about storytelling (or more precisely, story hearing). For example, O’Brien sets his reader up for a confirmation as he sketches out “Speaking of Courage,” a seemingly traditional narrative about a soldier’s difficulty readjusting to civilian life. O’Brien uses a narrative style called free indirect discourse, where the narrator supplies necessary information about Norman Bowker, and readers have no reason to doubt this information.
But, in the next chapter, “Notes,” O’Brien invites his readers into his writing studio, so to speak, by describing how the story of Norman Bowker came to be written. In doing so, “O’Brien” explains that some of the information he provided in “Speaking of Courage” was true and some was invented. By pointing out this inconsistency of factual truth, “O’Brien”/O’Brien challenges readers to make judgments about how much they value storytelling and why they value it. For example, do readers need a story to be actual and factual to believe it? Is a story that is fantastical (such as “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong”) valuable? Should it be believed? O’Brien’s choice of form raises a fact or fiction debate and also answers it: Any distinction between fact and fiction is a moot point.
For O’Brien, the “factuality” or “fictionality” of a story is, by far, secondary to the effect of the story on the reader. If the work evokes an emotional response, then it is a truth. For “O’Brien”/O’Brien, the primacy of emotion is a metaphorical comment on war: “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story, nothing is ever absolutely true.” O’Brien’s form, an amalgamation of the choices to share his protagonist’s name, to write a series of related vignettes, and the deliberate blurring of the boundary between fact and fiction, is meant to create a loss of the “sense of the definite” in the reader. Literary critic Toby Herzog suggests that “the ambiguity and complexity of the book’s form and content also mirror for readers the experience of war.”
While part of O’Brien’s objective is to create an aesthetic that simulates the chaos and uncertainty that characterized soldiers’ experiences, within the genre of
War literature, specifically Vietnam War-related Literature, O’Brien’s novel does the opposite. The Things They Carried, with its stylistic ambiguity, is also a tool for understanding the Vietnam War. Literature has often been used as a path to understanding history, and O’Brien follows the tradition of literary precursors such as Wilfred Owen, Ernest Hemingway, and Graham Greene.
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O’Brien’s novel originates at an important post-war moment, one which differed greatly from the post-World War I era in which Hemingway wrote. The main differences and obstacles for Vietnam veterans were the divisiveness of the war and the tide of public opinion opposing the war. Vietnam veterans’ return from the war — unlike the return of soldiers from World War I and World War II — was not celebrated or lauded. As the Nixon administration transitioned to the Ford administration, the general public wanted to forget about the longest foreign military involvement by the U.S. and the failure of this engagement to bring about its intended agenda. In short, the United States had not clearly won or lost, and the esteem of veterans suffered. Throughout the late 70s and early 80s, veterans struggled to receive recognition and to bring attention to the problems of post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor guilt from which many veterans suffered. Vietnam veterans such as Tim O’Brien, John Delvecchio, and Al Santoli helped to spark and maintain interest in a public discourse on the war.
The ambiguity of The Things They Carried reflects the lack of resolution of the war and illuminates the necessity to use fact, fiction, or fictionalized fact to tell the stories of Vietnam.
Character List
“Tim O’Brien” The protagonist of the novel, “O’Brien” symbolizes memory and storytelling, two central themes of the novel. He is a young foot soldier in the Vietnam War, a member of Alpha Company. He is also the fictional persona of O’Brien the writer, and similarly is a middle-aged writer with a Midwestern, middle-class background that informs his values. Readers follow “O’Brien” around Vietnam, experiencing his fear, guilt, curiosity, and blood lust. For all of the first hand accounts and stories, “O’Brien” is the readers’ source, and he demonstrates the danger of believing that something is either fact or fiction, often by evoking emotions in the reader.
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Kiowa Kiowa symbolizes the wastefulness of war. He is a foot soldier in Alpha Company, a Native American Baptist who always keeps an illustrated New Testament with him. He is O’Brien’s closest friend in Vietnam and is killed in battle when he drowns in a field during a flood. When “O’Brien” returns to Vietnam, he visits the site of Kiowa’s death and leaves his moccasins as a memorial to his friend.
Curt Lemon Lemon represents an outdated model of masculine heroism. He is brave and fearless to a fault, known in Alpha Company for pulling crazy stunts just for the attention and the thrill of danger. He even makes a dentist pull a healthy tooth from his mouth to prove to everyone that he is not afraid of dentists. Eventually stepping on a booby trap kills him.
Lt. Jimmy Cross The leader of Alpha Company, Cross personifies mental escapism, the ability to project one’s mind somewhere else to escape from an undesirable situation. Instead of concentrating on the war, Cross occupies his mind with memories of Martha, his old sweetheart. Rather than helping to search for Kiowa’s body, Cross spends time thinking about the letter he must write to Kiowa’s father. Cross meets up with O’Brien after the war, and he still carries feelings of unrequited love for Martha. Whether in the middle of the war or 20 years later, Cross focuses on life outside of war, but also carries a heavy, self-imposed burden of guilt because of it.
Norman Bowker A foot soldier in Alpha Company, Bowker embodies the effect known as “survivor guilt.” He cannot forgive himself for outliving his friends who died in battle. He feels intense culpability for Kiowa’s death and cannot adjust to civilian life in his small hometown after the war. He wants O’Brien to write a story about a guy like him who cannot talk about his war-related trauma. Bowker eventually commits suicide.
Rat Kiley The medic of Alpha Company, Rat represents the allure and the danger of storytelling. He is known for spinning yarns and making grotesque exaggerations. Rat helps O’Brien when he is shot for the first time. Rat’s imagination eventually claims his sanity, as he begins to hallucinate in-country. He shoots himself, not to kill, but to be excused from war because of injury.
Azar A foot soldier in Alpha Company, Azar is the wild man who enjoys war. He makes jokes about death, even the death of Kiowa. He mocks the movements of a traumatized Vietnamese girl dancing for fun and helps O’Brien play a cruel prank on Jorgenson. Azar’s real allegiance is to war itself, not to his friends or his cause.
Henry Dobbins Dobbins is a foot soldier in Alpha Company who symbolizes “America itself, big and strong…slow of foot but always plodding along.” He is a large man with a soft heart who feels sympathy for others and anger against unwarranted cruelty. He has a keen sense of morality and treats everyone, enemies and friends, with respect.
Mitchell Sanders The radio officer of Alpha Company, Sanders is the voice of soldierly experience and practical wisdom. He tells stories about how other soldiers react to Vietnam, and he vehemently blames Lt. Cross for Kiowa’s death due to his incompetence as a leader.
Ted Lavender A soldier in Alpha Company who represents emotional escapism from the war. He achieves this escapism through drug abuse and ultimately is killed.
Dave Jenson and Lee Strunk These Alpha Company soldiers demonstrate the close relationship between aggression and camaraderie. They serve as foil for one another, each bringing the other to the edge of loyalty and violence. They make an agreement to kill the other should he sustain a permanently debilitating wound.
Bobby Jorgenson The medic who replaces Rat Kiley, Jorgenson symbolizes the young, inexperienced, “green” soldier, or “FNG.” When O’Brien is shot a second time, Jorgenson is too afraid to help him quickly, and O’Brien subsequently develops a hideous infection. O’Brien later gets revenge when he and Azar play mind tricks on Jorgenson.
Young soldier in the field Representing naiveté and shock, this member of Alpha Company is talking to Kiowa when the attack begins that takes Kiowa’s life. The next morning he cannot think of anything but the picture of his girlfriend lost in the attack.
Mary Anne Bell Girlfriend to soldier Mark Fossie, she represents the corruption of innocence that takes place in war. She arrives wearing “white culottes and this sexy pink sweater,” fresh from suburban U.S., and becomes a bestial instrument of death, scarier than even the Green Berets.
Mark Fossie Medic at Tra Bong who brings his girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, over to Vietnam from the U.S.
Eddie Diamond Narcotic-addicted, highest-ranking officer in the Tra Bong area medic camp that Rat Kiley is temporarily assigned to with Mark Fossie and Mary Anne Bell.
North Vietnamese soldier Soldier killed by “O’Brien.” “O’Brien” invents an entire personal history for this soldier and feels shock and guilt for killing him. The soldier also appears in “O’Brien’s” dreams years later.
Vietnamese girl Traumatized sole survivor of a village, Alpha Company comes across this girl dancing in the midst of rubble and corpses.
Kathleen Young daughter of “O’Brien” who accompanies him back to Vietnam and to the spot where Kiowa died. She cannot understand why her father cannot put the war behind him.
Linda Fourth-grade girlfriend of “O’Brien.” They saw a war movie on a date. She died from a brain tumor. Hers was the first dead body “O’Brien” saw.
Timmy Fourth-grade persona of “Tim O’Brien” who felt a “deep and rich…love” for Linda.
Nick Veenhof Fourth-grade classmate of “O’Brien” and Linda who, being a prankster, pulls Linda’s hat off, revealing her bald head and surgery scars.
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Lemon’s sister Curt Lemon’s sister, who did not respond to Kiley’s letter about her brother’s death because, presumably, she found the letter’s content disturbing and inappropriate.
Martha Lt. Cross’s love interest; he keeps her picture with him in Vietnam. She does not return his feelings. “O’Brien” suggests that she has a secret, possibly that she had been raped. She becomes a Lutheran missionary and does not want to be married.
