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Guilt And Shame In The Things They Carried

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Literary Analysis: Guilt and Shame within “The Things They Carried”
In the book The Things They Carried, there is a strong overall theme of guilt and shame. These two feelings correspond greatly with their involvement in the war. From these feelings, the Vietnam soldiers were forced to bear with hopelessness and despair as well when reflecting on their lives, and to continue to cope with it - for better or for worse. Jimmy Cross gets distracted by looking at the pictures of Martha in the chapter “The Things They Carried.” Due to his inattentiveness, he fails to keep a watchful eye out for Khe which results in Khe’s death. Jimmy feels very guilty about this, and handles it by living with regret and holding on to the belief that he should have …show more content…

There are so many people affected by the deaths of their comrades. After O’Brien kills a man, and he feels bad, but also realizes that life goes on. That even though a tragedy happened, he has to keep going. It’s about the beauty of life instead of death. (118-125)
Within the chapter “Ambush”, there is a lot of shame and regret. When O’Brien’s daughter Kathleen said, “You keep writing these war stories, so I guess you must’ve killed somebody.” O’Brien disputed this at first, and said of course not. He then recalls one particular instance when he was pulling a pin out of a grenade. He wanted to warn the young man that was getting ready to be blown away, but O’Brien didn’t say anything to try to help. Right in front of his eyes he saw him die. He is having a rough time forgiving himself. (125)
Norman Bowker hangs himself at the YMCA in the later chapter “Notes.” He has so much guilt from the battlefield that he felt trapped. Vietnam robbed the life from him. Bowker felt he was responsible for his inability to find a method to communicate his feelings after failing to save someone and watching them die before his eyes. When Kiowa was on the ledge and he let go, it killed him.

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