Blog 3

Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried center's almost entirely around stories, both on and off the battlefield. Some are sad, some are funny, some are true, and some are half-truths. He uses stories to relay the horrors of war and the beauty and innocence of Vietnam and its people and to forget about the death he saw. His stories remind him of what he refers to as "the lives of the dead." He tells stories to the readers of what each soldier carries with him on his voyage through Vietnam and why they are carrying it. He uses the physical list of items to represent the emotional baggage that each soldier carries with him. Every gunshot, every corpse, and every memory adds to the weight on the men's shoulders. O'Brien uses the stories of what the men carry as a way to show how impacted they were by the war. The atrocities that they witness will haunt them long after their tour of duty.

Throughout the novel we hear about bravery and cowardliness. O'Brien talks about how he nearly ran to Canada to esape the draft but couldn't bear to only because of the embarrassment he and his family would feel. He feels he is a coward for not following his heart and deciding to go to war. For O'Brien doing something you don't want to do does not make you brave. Throughout the novel we also hear about soldiers shooting off their own fingers and toes so they can be discharged from service. One of O'Brien's own platoon members, Rat Kiley, the medic shoots off his own toe to escape the war. Although O'Brien never says it, he considers this move brave. He finds Kiley brave for being able to overcome the shame and humiliation that he will surely receive from his actions but believes that it is courageous for Kiley to follow what he feels is right.

The end of the novel and especially the story about O'Brien's first girlfriend give us insight into how he looks at death. He talks about how he was obsessed with sleeping because with sleep came dreams. He spoke of how he dreamt of her still alive and do all sorts of things. When he was awake he could only see her dead corpse. This shows how O'Brien dealed with the death of soldier's in Vietnam. He remembered them through stories instead of dwelling on there deaths.