Blog 3 - Things They Carried

The events and details of the Vietnam War are said to the most disturbing of any war. War itself is known to be an emotionally trying time, a time when soldiers have experiences that even their most horrific of dreams could not have imagined. But this is all hearsay. All war stories are just stories, and in those stories the power of the emotions and the experiences is lost within the words. Tim O’ Brien, author of The Things They Carried and a foot soldier in the Vietnam War, attempts to show his audience the complexities of the war that were buried under the overpowering voices of disapproval from the U.S. citizens.
Storytelling is arguably one of the oldest forms of entertainment. From the Egyptians, to Anne Frank and beyond, people have gossiped with one another, they’ve retold stories of friends or vented about their days to anyone who would listen. Sometimes those stories are true, and other times they aren’t. The Things They Carried is not, as Tim O’ Brien stresses to us throughout the entire novel. This book is designated to invoke the strong feelings that are lost in the practice of storytelling. “I want you to know what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer than sometimes than happening-truth” (203). O’ Brien makes an important differentiation between “happening-truth” and the “story-truth”. He explains that the individual details of his stories are not usually accurate. His art is in coupling the feelings he felt in that moment, with the actual event that happened. The result is the story that is published in this book. It’s as if he is taking the responsibility of capturing and preserving, at least some of, the powerful emotions associated with war, and delivering them to us in a form we can comprehend. Throughout the book, O’ Brien makes sure that the reader is aware of this trickery; he ensures that, while he may be fibbing or exaggerating in his tales, the reader is at least aware of his technique. And by making the reader aware, he is also showing them that there is still much lost in the translation of the experience to a story.
The idea of courage is questioned multiple times in O’ Brien’s novel. Tim learns through a series of difficult decisions his traditional definition of courage may not be all there is. Within the first week that Tim is over in Vietnam, his platoon runs into a dead Vietnamese man laying face up near the center of the village. The other men prop up the dead man and take turns shaking his hands and cracking jokes at the old man. They try to pressure Tim to shake his hand, but being so new to the war, Tim finds that he cannot bring himself to join in the mocking. Later on that night, one of the men approaches Tim and confides in him that his actions were brave, that he was brave for not shaking the man’s hand. “Should’ve done it myself. Takes guts, I know that” (257). But Tim resists, insisting that it wasn’t guts, he was just too scared to do anything about it. The visiting soldier replies “Same difference.” This is the first war experience where the values of traditional courage are tested. Later in that same last chapter, we learn about Tim’s stories with his elementary school friend Linda. He recollects on a time in 4th grade when the class bully yanks off his girlfriend’s red cap. As the cap falls off, the bare white scalp of a fourth grade girl with a brain tumor is revealed. Tim writes about how he still can’t justify his silence that day. He had no courage that day, but yet his girlfriend was forced to have the courage to battle through a brain tumor at such a young age. It is from this moment that Tim learns that courage is often times going against the loud voices of the crowd. When he attempts to flee the country to Canada, he turns around and goes to war because “I was too embarrassed not to” (62). Traditionally, one would think that it would be the courageous thing to go to war, but Tim learns that that is not this situation. It would take courage for Tim to go and run off into Canada, to disappoint all the people in his life who were counting on him. His lack of courage, forces Tim to submit himself to the war. Once again, he crumbles to the pressures of the people around him.
The Things They Carried is not a story. It is not a story because it does not have a continuous plotline. Instead it is a lesson about the Vietnam War encased in powerful stories and anecdotes. It is structured tactfully so that the reader can walk away with a little less ignorance about the war. The very first chapter sets up the ideals of the war. It is called “The Things They Carried” and in it we see a little bit further into the lives of the soldiers that O’Brien traveled with. This chapter sets the foundation for our attachment to the characters. O’ Brien wants us to feel at least a light pull on the strings of our hearts, and so he gives us personal introductions to most of the men we are about to learn from. We learn that Kiowa always carries his copy of the New Testament, and so it is even more gut wrenching when the rest of the platoon finds only Kiowa’s copy of the New Testament hidden in the shit field. And we discover that Lieutenant Cross carries around letters of his true-love Martha, hoping that one day they will be together. After learning this, we feel the true burden of her love as Ted Lavender’s left cheekbone is blown to bits and Lieutenant Cross’s distraction is to blame. The “Things They Carried” is a term which symbolizes the soldier’s personal and individual attachments to the story. Without the things they carried, we might not see them as the real people they are. By identifying these items, O’ Brien makes the distinction between living and staying alive. And it is those same things that they carry that keep the dead living, even after death. We don’t meet Tim’s 4th grade girlfriend until the last chapter because it isn’t until this last chapter that all the dead reunite. Tim explains that through these stories, he has found away to keep Linda smiling and Ted Lavender mellow. He saves himself, by keeping his friends alive through the stories of the things they carried.