War In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Trauma in life causes people to do many things that you would not normally do, such as carry extra ammo in war, like Tim O'Brien had Ted Lavender do in "The Things They Carried". (419) In war, the soldiers carry so much more than their gear; they carry the burden of fear because of all the trauma they have had to endure or are afraid they may have to endure. O'Brien portrays trauma in war as the greatest burden they have to carry. It is not all the protective gear that weighs the soldiers down, but the guilt and fear of war. In Tim O'Brien's short story, "The Things They Carried" portrayed the trauma in war through abstract and literal things that they hauled as well as the elements of fiction. The reason that he conveyed this message was to

give his readers a picture of war so that they can understand the journey O'Brien's character Jimmy Cross is going to lead.
(1)O'Brien was very creative with how he used the characters individual belongings to show how they perceived the war as painful. What a person carries with them shows a lot about who they are and how they deal with things in their lives; the items are necessary for explaining who the soldiers were in O'Brien's story. These soldiers are already held down by all the gear they have to carry, as well as the emotions; so they have to pick something that means the most to them. O'Brien had the character Ted Lavender carry extra ammo and dope with him in the war. How would this show the trauma of war? What this man is carrying around is not something that everyday people haul around. The reason O'Brien had Lavender carry around extra ammo is that he wanted to show that Lavender is terrified of all the people dying around him and is trying to protect himself. Then there is the marijuana that he is carrying with him everywhere he goes in the war. According to Glen McGregor from Postmedia News, "Hillier says marijuana can be more effective in treating the PTSD symptoms than the anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals that the military health system prescribes". O'Brien must have known that the use of Marijuana is a substance used by some to calm the nerves. All the horrible things Lavender has to see in war, he needs to carry around the marijuana to calm his nerves and show just how tragic the war is. The use of drugs is a big thing that shows just how bad the war is. All of the things these soldiers are carrying around have a deeper meaning, and it is not just the concrete objects.
(2)Transporting war gear is hefty and weighs you down; O'Brien used this as a symbol of the soldiers carrying around their fear and pain of war.

All the soldiers have to carry super heavy gear around. O'Brien tells of what the soldiers would take on their march, he says:

Out of the necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed about 15 to 20 pounds, depending on a man's habits or rate of metabolism. (O'Brien 418)

These soldiers carried even more gear than that, including their overweight clothing. All of the equipment is enough to make anyone tired, but that is not all he is talking about being heavy. According to George Doug of the "Chicago Tribune" O'Brien says, "But the book is as much about emotional burdens and spiritual burdens. ... It's about Vietnam, but I do hope discussions go beyond that". O'Brien's wish has come true in this paper, as reading his story it is easy to see that the gear the soldiers are carrying is tangible, but it is also a symbol of the trauma they have to carry throughout the war. You can also tell O'Brien want his readers to see beyond the gear the soldiers are carrying because he writes in "The Things They Carried," "In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to march, but

it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive." Jimmy Cross had to carry all the gear, but that was a symbol for the weight of the responsibility he had for his troops.
(3)The plot is how events in a story play out, which is one way O'Brien portrays trauma in war. He starts out his story with the main character Jimmy Cross in the Vietnam War. Cross is the Lieutenant, the leader of a group of soldiers. They are all proceeding through the war, carrying their personal belongings as well as their emotional baggage, which weighs them down even more. As O'Brien has Cross and his soldiers march through the war, some of them end up getting shot and die. With that, the author uses to show how much tragedy these men have to endure and the trauma they have to add to the baggage they are already carrying. After some men die, Cross decides that this life he has been living in has just been a fantasy, his eyes become open for the first time. Once they are open, he sees that this war is not something to be taken lightly, rather something that is dangerous and causes pain. When reading the story, Cross feels that there is trauma in war, but now he sees it as well. Things are not what they were; he needs to be careful and open-eyed. The trauma he had to endure helped him to become stronger and better in his leading the troops. When reading through O'Brien's story, keep in mind that this is a story with some events that may or may not have happened the way he says. As Janis Haswell says, "‘Truth' is not mimetic; it is felt in the guts (84). Thus readers are forced into the same confused and chaotic flux as soldiers in the midst of war, sorting through impressions and perceptions, faltering in their attempt to lay hands on a clear ‘lesson'".
(4)The atmosphere can tell you a lot about a story, in the air of "The Things They Carried' you can feel the presence of suffering especially more towards the end of the story. O'Brien is a great literary writer and can make his readers feel as though they are in the story instead of just reading the pages in a book. The atmosphere in literature is the mood of the story; in this story the mood changes but overall the mood is tragic. There is a group of soldiers marching around in war, going from place to place. Then while on their mission, a man gets shot in the head and dies. You can feel the heaviness in the atmosphere. These men are not only carrying all their gear but the burdens of themselves as well as each other; as O'Brien said in his story, "Grief, terror, love, longing-these were the intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight." (O'Brien 426)
(5)The author's use of setting was a great advantage in his story; the weather, environment, place, and time all portrayed ache and fear. Let us start off with O'Brien's use of weather to help show his point in the short story. In the Vietnam war, it is sweltering and humid, and carrying all of that gear made it even hotter, more burdensome. Next is environment and place. Where they are is Vietnam, in the war. The environment of that is tragedy and dirt. O'Brien says, "They carried the land itself – Vietnam, the place, the soil – a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces." (O'Brien 423) Using the war, O'Brien shows the men having to carry around gear and orders. The war helps to show men in traumatic situations carrying around burdens either for themselves or each other. Finally the time this story is told is in the 50's through the 70's and the time varies from the night when Cross lays to sleep carrying his thoughts of Martha or the day when they have to lug all of their gear and burdens to march on through the war.
(6)Using the voice of third person, O'Brien's tone was very helpful in getting the point of trauma across. The use of third person has a deeper meaning than you may think. O'Brien, when he was younger, was sent to war and some of the things that he tells in his story happened to him, he just uses a character going through some of the things he has gone through. Janis Haswell from The South Carolina Review has some insight on why she believes O'Brien used the tone of third person:
Why third person in this ultimate confession from a speaker who previously had no trouble writing himself into the story? There are several possibilities: he wants to universalize the experience, or he still cannot own the responsibility of his actions. But there is another reason-perhaps a truer one. Clearly, the narrator feels alienated from the young boy who arrived in Viet Nam and who was still innocent, confused, and unscathed, the boy who later wandered the muddy river banks having "lost everything. He'd lost Kiowa and his weapon and his flashlight and his girlfriend's picture .... He remembered wondering if he could lose himself" (193).
The comment Haswell makes is a very convincing argument as to why O'Brien chose to use the voice of third person rather than himself; also how the trauma he went through affected the use of third person. As for the tone, it changes depending on what his character Jimmy Cross is talking about in the story. If Cross is thinking on Martha, then the tone is very light without a care in the world. He loves her and just wants to get back to her. On the other hand, when he is talking about war, his soldiers, or things they carry, his tone is saddened by all the things they have to bear to get through the traumatic war. Some of the things he talks about hauling he says, " …but they carried it anyway, partly for safety, partly for the illusion of safety." (O'Brien 421) The author had the soldiers lug around so much for security, whether it would save their lives or not, they were not one hundred percent sure, but they felt safe with all of the tragic events going on around them. Then later in the story, the tone changes completely into strength. The gruesome war has changed O'Brien's character Jimmy Cross from a man living in a fantasy world, loving Martha, into a man who sees things for what they are and that fills him with the strength he needs to do his job.
(7)If someone is motivated to get through something, then there has to be something that is against them. What O'Brien did in his story was gave his soldiers motivation to get through the war. What the need for motivation is, is that the author wanted to show that the soldiers were going through some pretty rough times and they just wanted it all to end. The way he did this at first was the use of Jimmy Cross' most treasured item, the letters of the woman Cross loved, Martha. The letters gave the character Jimmy the motivation to get through the war because he wanted to do the things he regretted not doing with Martha (O'Brien says Jimmy wants to). The use of motivation was quite an interesting concept. It helped O'Brien to show that they are going through something so bad they need the motivation to help them get through the trauma they are facing in this terrible war. Knowing that there is something worth fighting for, gives a person stamina to get through the tough times.
(8)Having a dynamic character in a story is imperative; O'Brien uses it to his greatest advantage at showing the trauma of war through this changing protagonist.

Jimmy Cross in the dynamic character in the short story "The Things They Carried", at first this man was motivated to get through the war and optimistic, thinking he was going to get home to the girl he loved. Then after the tragic event of his friend and soldier dying, Cross realized that he had loved Martha more than the soldiers he was supposed to be protecting. He realized he had been living in a fantasy world, loving a woman who never loved him back; carrying the burden of fake love around with him everywhere he went. According to Tina Chen in Contemporary Literature "…the book questions the nature of truth and the possibility of ever having an unchallenged ‘sense of the definite.'" (Chen 79) After the horrifying event of losing a soldier, that is where Cross changed forever, knowing there is nothing that is definite. Men die, you love people who do not love you back, bad things happen. O'Brien used the tragic death of Ted Lavender to cause Jimmy Cross to change. He turned into a man who no longer was in this war for Martha; he jumped out of that fantasy and into reality. The author says this about Jimmy Cross, "He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence." (O'Brien 428) He changed into a man who no longer thought in a fantasy land, the trauma of war had changed him, and now that

he had burned Martha's letters and photographs he can now lead the soldiers in a real state of mind with strength.
Tim O'Brien was a told a great short story. He showed how trauma in war affected people through the things that the people carried. Soldiers in war carry a lot more than their gear; they also carry fear and pain. The author also used the elements of fiction to portray the trauma of war. Being a dynamic character, carrying around all the war gear, as well as your emotional pain, really helps to get the point of trauma across. This story has so much more to offer than the literal things they carried in the war; it has to do with the emotional burdens the soldiers carried as well.