O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Tim O'Brien's novel, "The Things They Carried",
illustrates that the greatest weight soldiers bear comes from nothing they can physically carry, but rather their emotions, grief, terror, and love. The author points out that O'Brien utilizes the composite novel form, which allows him to play with multiple settings, characters, the theme of storytelling, and even allusiveness, in a way that most fully incorporates the whole of humanity into his story. The paper relates that, through his unique narration, stylistic technique, and attention to detail, O'Brien captures the psychological aspects of war.

From the Paper:

"The psychological burden of war goes far beyond that of simply fighting. The struggle of staying alive was always emphasized after encountering a battle for which they found themselves alive. "For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't" (19). The fear of losing life was compounded by the idea of being a brave and courageous soldier. The fact of surviving always brought a sense of life to the soldiers. The psychological pressure of fighting and surviving was always followed with a sense of reassembling themselves as soldiers. O'Brien states that for the most part, the soldiers were "afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it" (20). Coping with the pressure of war was discovered by way of telling jokes and creating a "hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness" (20). Their encounters with death were instances where "irony was mixed with tragedy" (20). These statements illustrate how the soldiers did their best to cope with the psychological pressure of the war."

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