Things They Carried Theme Essay

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“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” Norman Cousins. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien ,the main characters are Tim and his platoon are fighting in a wasted war in the middle of Vietnam. This book is a collection of memories that are not in order of how it happened. Also it was written 20 years after the war Tim O’Brien intended audience was other soldiers and he discussed the themes of mortality/death and shame/guilt.
In the chapter of “sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” has a theme of mortality/death. When Mary Anne first gets there she does not know what she is doing or happening in there. Then she cuts her hair and helps with the injured. Then goes on the night mission, finally she started going out by herself. Mary Anne the girl when she got there is not the same at the end. So she die and she will not be the same ever again. “They were very much in love, full of dreams, and in the ordinary flow of their lives, the whole scenario might well have come true.” (O’Brien 90). Mary Anne had a her life planned out and was all perfect and it was going to be one big happy ending. She did not know what Vietnam was going to be like and how it was going to affect her and her life. …show more content…

Mortality and death has an impact on people's lives. Also, some people feel shame/guilt for their lives because of something happened to someone like death but it did not happen to them. Soldiers experience death and fear of death that makes them feel guilty because nothing happened to them or feel responsible for it. The reader felt the novel was insightful because Tim O’Brien showed the reader what Vietnam as like on a soldier's point of view and how hard it was on them. Also, how they change from the war and how they are not the same when they come

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