The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

The Things They Carried serves as a primary source of Vietnam War culture: a narrative of the men who lived it. O’Brien’s life alone is able to shed light on multiple facets of the larger story of this period of America, including the controversy of the war and its draft, the extreme conditions faced in Vietnam, and the stresses put on soldiers during this time, among other things. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien illustrates the turmoil surrounding the war in Vietnam, with a perspective transitioning from a college graduate with anti-war leanings to a drafted soldier in the chaos of guerilla warfare to a veteran reflective of the shocking events that transpired in those jungles. Through peripheral narration and first-person points

of view, O’Brien explores the connection between experiencing war firsthand and how to effectively recount coping with the draft, the immaturity and brutality of the war, and its short and long-term effects to a civilian audience.
The point of view of this novel is a crucial tool for O’Brien and is unique in that it varies from chapter to chapter. Third-person perspective that recounts vivid descriptions of their time in Vietnam is used throughout the first chapter, “The Things They Carried,” as well as a few of the later chapters. Later on, the reader can surmise that this particular voice is actually more of a peripheral narrator than a third-person narrator because O’Brien is speaking about the times and tribulations faced by his own team in the Alpha company, just excluding himself as an active character in this part of the story. The remaining chapters are either O’Brien relaying these events in the first-person or him speaking to his fellow soldiers as a window into their own post-war thoughts and recollections. The purposeful disorder of the book parallels to the disorder of the Vietnam War; the reader is never sure where O’Brien will jump to next, similar to how the soldiers felt about the Vietcong’s sneaky combat tactics. Some stories are even told twice from two different points of view, or are started at one point in the book and finished several chapters further. All of these different perspectives and techniques work collectively to construct a novel that is an engaging intertwinement of short stories highlighting the surrealism and hardships of the Vietnam War.
O’Brien exemplifies the response to the draft through his individual reaction, characterized by a stark evolution of feelings, and although he talks specifically about his own experience, it can be inferred that a multitude of other drafted men were feeling exactly the same way at what turned out to be such a crossroads in their lives. For O’Brien, this crossroads occurred on the Rainy River in Elroy Berdahl’s boat.
In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naïve, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? ... America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets, and smart men in pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy… It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why… it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. (O’Brien 38)

These initial feelings shed light on not just his sentiment towards the war, but that of many other young people at this time across the nation, providing the reader with insight as to part of the larger story of late-1960’s America.

Because of the very short time between graduating from college and receiving the draft notice, the letter must have been accompanied by some shock value because students were exempt from the draft. The new graduates probably had yet to fathom that the draft was now an entirely real possibility for them, despite their ambitious plans for the future that may have already been established, like in O’Brien’s case. He explains, “Stupidly… I assumed that the problems of killing and dying did not fall within my special province” (39). Coping with this shock involved anger, bargaining, and the planning of possible escape routes. The anger felt by O’Brien included suggesting the LBJ’s daughters go off to serve in the war instead, since LBJ thought the fighting was so necessary. The escape routes were most typically burning the letter or running away to Canada. In his case, Canada was temptingly feasible due to his proximity to the

border.
One of the first main issues both of this novel and of draft-employed wars such as the Vietnam War is the idea of draftees motivated to serve not necessarily because of patriotism or bravery, but due to the shame that would ensue on themselves as well as their families. O’Brien uses stylistic repetition in the “The Things They Carried” chapter to convey to the reader just how much of a burden, both concrete and abstract, these soldiers lugged around with them on a daily basis.
They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment (20).

According to O’Brien, cowardice was a “common secret,” which at first seems like an oxymoron. However, upon further analysis, this makes perfect sense given the context and situation these men are in. Because of the draft, most of the men are in the same proverbial boat as O’Brien, terribly afraid of death but even more afraid of dishonor. He says, “My hometown was a conservative little spot on the prairie, a place where tradition counted, and it was easy to imagine people sitting around a table down at the old Gobbler Café… the conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O’Brien kid, how the damned sissy had taken off for Canada” (43). This hierarchy of fear shared among a majority of draftees stopped them from fleeing their summon. The men obviously neglected to talk about their fears of death and shame among each other so as not to be shamed again by their peers, resulting in a common secret. In many instances, in order to distract themselves from their trepidations, the young men acted in monstrous and immature ways, such as strapping a puppy to explosives, insisting on having perfectly healthy teeth extracted, and setting up pulley systems to spook their fellow team members who were on night watch.
In addition to writing about the war in Vietnam and its implications, O’Brien also spends a significant portion of the novel explaining to the reader about the essence of all war stories. He says,
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. (65)

Part of his style is making the readers question what war stories, especially those they have read in this novel, are in fact fictional.

In addition to making them think twice about the readings, this will likely cause them to think about the book’s events long after they are finished reading it. It is in these chapters about storytelling that metafiction comes into play— O’Brien has explicitly stated that The Things They Carried is a work of fiction, but not entirely fictional, thus sparking curiosity as to where the fiction ends and truth begins. Certain aspects of war stories, he says, must be embellished in order for the audience to achieve the desired emotion, however the parts being embellished are generally not what is expected, those of shocking violence, but the smaller details. This is also not surprising considering the great amount of time that has passed since the actual war. According to the philosophy of the novel, these embellishments are necessary in order to get the intended point across and instill the story’s resonance with its readers, which makes sense considering the huge emotional barrier between the soldiers who actually experienced this and the civilians who are merely reading their words. The successful communication of these aspects are, most often, more important than the concrete

truth.
In The Things They Carried, O’Brien challenges classic, renowned “non-fiction” works about war because he says a war story can never be told completely factual— embellishments are always present, and generally necessary. Along with his embellishments, varying perspectives are utilized strategically for each individual story, which in turn keeps the reader engaged from all of the jumping around. The assembly of stories is portrayed in no particular order, including interviews with fellow soldiers long after the war ended, accounts of their friends being killed and killing the enemy, issues with women both in Vietnam and at home, various superstitions carried on in the jungle, and the mentally and physically exhausting conditions that were faced every day. O’Brien’s goal is to show the reader, using fictional details as needed, an accurate depiction of the war that will evoke the emotions shared by the soldiers in that moment, leaving a lasting effect on the reader. This lasting effect will not only keep the readers contemplating the book after they have put it down, but will cause them to be more thoughtful of war in future situations.