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Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Decent Essays

The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien gives readers a greater understanding of underlying motivations of soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war in his short story "The Things They Carried." He shows the bond the soldiers share and how that bond helps to hide their fear in order to maintain an honorable reputation. He also depicts the soldiers’ common fear of showing weakness and the ways they hide that fear from the other men in order to avoid being judged. He shows how the men of Alpha Company have the principles of masculinity drilled into their minds, and therefore believe that their reputations hinge upon their manliness. In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the author uses the brotherhood of the soldiers and the fear of weakness as motivators for the soldiers’ obsession with reputation. …show more content…

The author talks specifically about the weights of items, how necessary they are, what they are for, and which soldiers carry what. As Steve Kaplan puts it, “All of the ‘things’ are depicted in a style that is almost scientific in its precision,” (Kaplan 44). The things they carried included physical baggage they needed to survive. For example, “P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent” (O’Brien 564). He even tells the reader that “Together, these things weighed between 12 and 18 pounds, depending on a man’s habits or rate of metabolism” (O’Brien 565). The things they carried can also be seen as symbolism for the soldiers’ emotional baggage. O’Brien writes, “And they dreamed of freedom birds,” (575) which is symbolism for their dreams of leaving the war. Rena Korb explains the symbolism in the statement in her essay on “The Things They Carried” writing that “instead of carrying the weight of the war, they are now carried by a creature that is larger, more powerful, and more mystical than themselves,”

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