Essays on The Things They Carried

March 28, 1990

Tim O'Brien

Collection of interconnected short stories

Historical Fiction

Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Henry Dobbins, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Tim O'Brien

Storytelling; ambiguous morality; loneliness and isolation, the dead young Vietnamese soldier; Kathleen; Linda

Physical and emotional burdens; fear of shame as motivaton; the subjection of truth to storytelling

"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."
"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole."
"But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world"
"I survived, but it's not a happy ending."

The Things They Carried" was also included in the 1987 volume of The Best American Short Stories, edited by Ann Beattie.
O'Brien has expressed surprise at how the book has become a staple in middle schools and high schools, stating that he "certainly hadn't
imagined fourteen year-old kids and eighteen year-olds and those even in their early twenties reading the book and bringing such fervor to it,
which comes from their own lives, really. The book is applied to a bad childhood or a broken home, and these are the things they're carrying. And
in a way, it's extremely flattering, and other times, it can be depressing.