The things They Carried by Tim O''Brien story

Introduction

The things they carried' is Tim O'Brien's work of fiction consisting of beautiful, anguished collection of linked stories about Vietnam (1). These stories depict the lives of the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war. Mingling fact with fiction and telling events from different points of view, the book is as much about war as it is about the difference between truth and reality. This paper discusses the various aspects of the book and the manner in which the subject has been handled making it a magnum opus.

Theme

The Things they Carried' is a touching piece about the feelings ad experiences of the soldiers that fought bravely in the Vietnam War. One of the predominant themes of the book is the violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam. The effects of war on its participants, which are revealed to the reader by O'Brian through consciously, selected descriptive details of the drastic change in manner within the men. For instance Norman Bowler was a character that carried a Thumb, which was cut from a VC corpse of a boy of fifteen or sixteen years of age. Bowler had been showed as a very gentle person while he led the civilian life but after war he transforms into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill (2). Thus O'Brien effectively showed the psychological and emotional change that most soldiers undergo after the war and the negative effect it has on them.

The theme of the negative transformation after the war is vividly shown by the diction. The VC from which Bowler took the thumb was just a boy, giving the image of a young, innocent person who should not have been subjected to the horrors of war. Another prominent theme is the anti war statement that O'Brien gave through his work. O'Brien feels that U.S. involvement in Vietnamese affairs was unnecessary and wasteful. He includes an account of his plan to leave the country because he did not want to risk losing his life for a cause he did not believe in. The writer's liberal attitude and the antiwar theme are the axis around which his values concerning the war revolve.

Character

Strong characterization is one of the biggest qualities of O'Brien's work. His characters are dynamic going through drastic change with the passage of time due to war experiences. O'Brien makes several statements about war through them. He has skillfully used characters to develop the theme that he wanted to portray and illuminate the negative facet of war.

The characters effectively portray the violent nature of the soldiers, which were shown as gentle and caring before the war. "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy . . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(4). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. The fleeting moment ...