Communication In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The physical nature of war makes it nearly impossible for the soldiers to communicate their experiences to those living outside of the combat zone. Communication in war is different than how civilians communicate and that makes it impossible for the soldiers to escape their guilt by telling their stories to others. In war language becomes sharper and everything is in code however, after coming home the soldiers realize there are new codes that have been put in place that no one taught them. During the war the men try writing letters to those closest to them in an effort to express themselves, but are ultimately disappointed when the recipients fail to respond or do so in a way that minimizes their suffering. The war story that their civilian

Not only were soldiers physically barred from speech through their injuries, but also by social pressures. Even soldiers who did not die in the war still felt silence by the pressures of society when they returned home. O’Brien chose to write The Things They Carried, in an effort to show how soldiers were unable to communicate their emotions during and after the Vietnam War and to give a voice to those who were not heard, by having the narrative voice reflect their internal struggles. Through his postmodern writing style, he wants the reader learn not to look for morals or explanations to events, but just accept it as truth, even though we know it’s fiction, because that is what the men had to do in Vietnam. By deciding not to make The Things They Carried a memoir, O’Brien opens up the doors of communication to many more veterans than just those he severed

While none of the men were directly responsible for the death of Ted Lavender, O’Brien choses to place it next to their joy regarding Lee Strunk’s survival and the emphasis on Lavender’s fear to show that those events are connected in the minds of the soldiers. If Strunk had died it would have been explainable as O’Brien had taken the time to tell the reader, why the caves are dangerous and how the men know that they are in danger. Contrastingly, we are told that the men are in a safe area and no one was expecting to be ambushed. Therefore, the fact that Lavender is the one to die reflects O’Brien’s choice of contrasting the event with Strunk’s survival. Chronologically the two events exist in unison, “Strunk made that high happy moaning sound, when he went Ahhooooo, right then Ted Lavender was shot in the head on his way back from peeing. He lay with his mouth open. The teeth were broken”. This reflects how the men feel there is a connection between their celebration of life, consequently letting their guard down, and Lavenders