Hindrances In The Things They Carried

Deeper Meaning
When reading the novel ¨The Things They Carried¨, a consistent trend can be seen throughout the work. In the beginning, Tim O'Brien described the burdens that weighed down each soldier in Vietnam. Some of those hindrances were physical, but those which caused the most substantial impact on them were emotional. Each soldier had their own package to carry. The things they carried led to suffering and ultimately to destruction.
For instance, in the first few pages of the book, Kiowa was said to have carried ¨his grandmother's distrust of the white man¨ (page 3). Later on, in chapter 15, Kiowa´s story is told. Despite frantic warnings from local mama-sans, the men were ordered to set up camp in the village latrine. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross --a white man-- had been the one to give that order. The latrine-field happened to be located on low ground, not too far from the Song Tra Bong. Overnight, there was another, of many, intense storm and the river overflowed into the field, turning it all to muck. Then, after night fall, the men began receiving mortar fire. “The field just exploded” (page 148). There was shrapnel and muck everywhere. The field began

to consume everything around it and included Kiowa in its wrath. He was pulled under when a shell exploded close by. Norman Bowker, a fellow soldier-- a white man --saw Kiowa slipping away under the muck. Bowman cautiously made his way over to the place where Kiowa had been. “There was a knee, there was an arm and a gold wrist watch and part of a boot” (page 149). Bowker made a feeble attempt to pull Kiowa from the waste; but released his grip when the smell became too much to bear. From the beginning, Kiowa had distrusted the white men and, in the end, it only took two of them to sentence him to death.
Ever since that day in Vietnam, Norman Bowker had never forgiven himself for allowing a friend to die. He spent countless hours each day driving endless circles around a lake in his hometown as he replayed that horrendous moment in his mind. One day, Lieutenant Cross sent a piece of his writing to Bowker. It was a postwar story that “appeared in an anthology of short fiction” (page 160). Bowker replied bitterly with “it's not terrible, but you left out Vietnam. Where's Kiowa? Where's sh**?” He could not let go of the intensity of the war. Bowker hanged himself just eight months after that reply. By carrying that tragic story through his life, Bowker eventually succumbed to the inescapable guilt he felt and ended his own life. By carrying that guilt, Bowker relieved his suffering over and over until it became unbearable.
Furthermore, in the case of Jimmy Cross, he carried an obsession for Martha.

She was a girl from home which he held pictures of. He was truly in love with her but she did not feel the same in return. One day, as the men were humping through Than Khe, a gunshot rang through the air and Ted Lavender dropped dead. Throughout the walk, Lieutenant Cross had been thinking about Martha rather than his current situation. “He pictured Martha’s smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because [of it]...” (page 7). His obsessive love had led to the murder of a friend, and, the guilt of that event was added to the burdens that he carried throughout the rest of the war. Later on, he could no longer stand the feeling and he burned Martha’s

pictures.
So, whether they carried distrust, guilt, or love, every soldier was eventually destroyed by the things they carried. Their greatest beliefs and passions caused them ample amounts of suffering, until they eventually snapped and rid themselves of that burden. One way or another, each man was sabotaged by the things they carried.