The Things They Carried
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“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story base on the lives of a group of soldiers during the later years of the war in Vietnam. In this story, O’Brien examines the burdens of the soldiers and the effects that these burdens can have on man in life-threatening situations. The author describes these burdens referring to the weight that the soldiers carry. These soldiers have to go trough great physical strain but also mental and emotional difficulties that weigh them down immeasurably.
The most obvious need of the men in the story is the supplies that they carry that will keep them physically alive. OBrien makes this clear by listing every detail and accounting for every ounce of food, clothing and weaponry. He also establishes the importance by listing those items first in the story. “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity,” he states on page 2, and he goes on to discuss rations, water, defensive clothing, and necessary sleep gear (2-3). But ironically, in this paragraph he also includes items such as Ted Lavenders “six or seven ounces of premium dope,” Rat Kileys comic books, and Kiowas Bible and his distrust of the white man (2-3). This indicates the importance of these things to the men, no matter how ironic that may be, because obviously illicit drugs and comics are not necessary to the common man for physical survival purposes. But this irony suggests the desperation of the situation that the men faced, a situation that could place comics on the same level as food. Perhaps the emptiness that the men felt drove them to think that they had to carry all of these extra items to survive, because they filled the emotional void that was in their heads, created by the numbingly horrific violence of the war.
Another substantially detailed necessity of the men is their military supplies. OBrien goes into minute detail describing the supplies that the men used for defense purposes. Primarily, he lists the standard weaponry for war, the rifles, grenades,the flak jacket and helmet (6- 7). He relates the enormous burden of weight that Ted Lavender was carrying when he is shot, and how that weight caused him to fall like “a big sandbag or something – just boom, then down.” (7) The next passage describes all of the extra weapons they carried, ranging from fragmentation grenades to brass knuckles and a feathered hatchet (8-9). The wide variety and diversity of the weapons the men carry indicate the tremendous need to kill, by any possible means. “They carried all that they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.” (9)
These burdens – the supplies the men carried to stay physically alive – are placed on the same level in terms of description as the objects carried that provided emotional sustenance to the men of the platoon. OBrien makes no distinction in terms of writing style between the discussion of food and weapons and that of good luck charms and reminders of home. This is clearly evidenced in the previously mentioned passage on page 4, when the discussion of the mens habits and creature comforts are placed in the same paragraph as the lists of rations and sleep gear. Another extremely significant example of emotional sustenance is given in the descriptions of Lieutenant Crosss attachment to Martha. He carries her letters and reads them daily (1-2), and his love for her, as well as the mystery of her feelings for him, drives him, keeps him going, and gives his life meaning. He also carries her photographs (5-6) and the pebble she sends him (9) as constant reminders of her.
But despite the limited weight that these possessions actually contain (the pebble is described as almost weightless on page 9), they prove to be huge burdens to Lieutenant Cross. They bring back memories, such as the night at the movies when Martha would not kiss him back, as well as stimulate constant fantasies at random times, such as when Lee Strunk was in the tunnel. “Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there. He was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey shore. They were pressed together, and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue.” (12) He is unable to stay in touch with the reality before him because the fantasy world is much more bearable, and when Ted Lavender dies while Cross is thinking of only Martha (13), Cross feels that he must also now carry the guilt of loving Martha more than his men and allowing one of them to die.
The fact that there was little or nothing that Cross could do to prevent the shooting is apparently irrelevant to Cross, and this puzzles the reader. Crosss thoughts of Martha had nothing to do with Ted Lavenders death, and yet Cross feels the compulsion to associate them, which makes one wonder what other burdens Cross may be carrying internally that could provoke such unnecessary guilt. Perhaps it could be a predisposition to guilt, established as a response to the countless atrocities of the war with little emotion or thought attributed to them, such as the cutting of the VC corpse (13-4). But there is also some evidence pointing to the fact that Cross may be suffering from some psychological problems. Some of his thoughts are very disturbing, such as his desire to tie Martha down on a bed (6) and his fantasy of being crushed with her under the weight of the tunnel (12). OBrien never lists these mental instabilities as a tangible burden that Cross carries, perhaps because there is no standard unit to measure the loss of the senses, but it is implied nonetheless.
Yet perhaps the greatest burden that the men felt the necessity to carry was the load of dignity. There was an unspoken need to stay tough, to maintain composure and not let the terror and the anxiety of a dire situation break through to the surface. At the most dangerous times, this panic may have shown, but not for long; “awkwardly, the men would reassemble themselves, first in private, then in groups, becoming soldiers again.” (19) They felt the need to cover up fear with humor, looking death in the face with a grin; “they used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness . . . as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself” (19-20).
OBrien captures the meaning of this burden eloquently when he states, “they carried the soldiers greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.” (20-1) This was the fear that weighed the men down the most, because it was hidden, internal. They would only allow themselves to dream of freedom, but not really examine it as a possibility, for those who took the easy way out by wounding themselves were thought of with scorn