Things They Carried Critical Analysis

Have you ever done something wrong? Did you try to place blame other places until eventually coming to the conclusion that it’s your fault? Well in Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried this is something that happens often. Especially after one of their men dies in combat.
In the Novel The Things They Carried it starts of by talking about the things the men carried physically mentally and emotionally. Throughout the book It gives many examples of how they carry emotional things such as guilt. They tell stories to keep their men alive in memory. It explains how O'Brien has coped with war and why he writes the way he does. Throughout the book they talk about the death of their men and some of the places they were assigned to. It talks about

the men and how young they were and in some cases they used their age to justify what they were doing.
In the beginning of the book it talks about how lieutenant Jimmy Cross blames himself for Ted Lavender's death. He blamed himself because all he could think about was martha.
In the book he tim says “ On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned martha's letters(22).
This shows that he is mad at himself for thinking about her and that is why he burned those letters to try to forget about her. He holds himself more accountable for the deaths because he is the Lieutenant and thinks it's his job to keep them all safe. Cross believes that he has let his men down when they die and all he can do is think about martha.

Later It talks about how jimmy cross blames himself for kiowa's death at first then he tries to justify it by saying he was given order to do so. He goes back and forth with himself for several minutes before going onto say what it is you can blame.
O'Brien says, “When a man died their has to be blame…. you could blame the war. You could blame the idiot who made war you could blame Kiowa for going to it.(169). You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar round. You could blame the people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame God. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote.”(170)
“In a field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever.” (170)
This quote show some of the many things you could blame some of them being things that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross often did blame until going to the realization that it's his fault that his men die. He holds himself more accountable for the deaths because he is the lieutenant and thinks it's his job to keep them all safe.

Lastly in the book there is a story that talks about how the men sometimes keep the memories of the ones they lost alive by day dreaming about them.They also dreaming about them when they sleep or by telling stories to honor the men who have died This could be because of the guilt they feel for still being alive and making it through war. they also feel guilt because they feel like something they did could have been what killed their men or something they could have done would have saved them. “ We kept the dead alive with stories. When Ted Lavender was shot in the head, the men talked about how they’d never seen him so mellow, how tranquil he was, how it wasn't the bullet but the tranquilizer that blew his mind,”(226)
This is an example of how they justified Ted Lavender's death because he was always taking tranquilizer so they used that to make his death seem less horrid.

Rat Kiley tells the story of Curt Lemon going trick or treating in in a village near where they were stationed.They say how he was butt naked and he came back with all kinds of treats. “ To listen to the story especially as Rat Kiley told it, you’d never know that Curt Lemon was dead. He was still out there in the dark, naked and painted up, trick or treating…”(227)
This goes to show how they keep the dead alive with stories. They make the stories sound like they are happening right then and they take characteristics about the person that make them who they are and it allows the people to picture Kurt Lemon running around naked trick or treating. For this story of curt lemon they used his goofy nature to tell this story.

In the book The Things They Carried Jimmy Cross chang as a charter he started out not caring only wanting to think about Martha and forgetting about war. After ted lavender dies he is determined to become a better Lieutenant for his men. It goes on to talk about the good things in war as well as the bad. The story is an eye opener for many who don't know much about

war.