Important Quotes From The Things They Carried

Ghosts Follow Did memories from the war follow and destroy him like a demon, or was it from the living demons in his society? Written by Tim O'brien, The Things They Carried prevailed as a powerful writing according to the Milwaukee Journal. In this novel, O'brien dedicated a couple chapters to a soldier who was once named Norman Bowker. This man’s memories drove him to death. The war existed as a remote location where the truth was not always the truth; made up thoughts were not always made up; strangers were not always strangers; sounds were not always sounds; dreams were not always dreams; memories were not always memories. Not always did everything exist, but the soldiers recognized that everything did. Could that possibly make sense?

Bowker did not execute writing like Tim O’Brien, but he poured out his feelings in his own set of words: a diary. Therefore, Bowker wrote a lengthy letter discussing his problem of finding a meaning to his life after the war, and he sent it to his old friend, soldier and writer Tim O’Brien. From there, O’Brien edited the letter to the best of his writer’s knowledge and published it in the piece “Speaking Courage.” Although, many years after this book and Bowker’s death, another book by Tim O’Brien was published called The Things They Carried. Bowker had been yet again mentioned in a couple chapters of this story, specifically “Speaking of Courage” and “Notes.” The chapters of this book discuss profoundly of his death; his own self murder:

Max’s father became a silent man because of his son’s death; he imagined that his life did not have any meaning left because he lost his son. Like Max’s father, Norman Bowker began to gain this silence, and that silence lead to his feeling of not having a purpose in life after the war; the war killed Bowker on the inside similar to the way it killed Max’s father on the inside because of the “war” he faced with his son.
Finally, after the long truck rides around the lake that was crowded with children, boaters and memories, Bowker realized it was time to succumb. He decided to play basketball with some people- not friends because he could not make any- at the YMCA. After the game, the other guys left, however, Bowker never did. Later, he was found in the YMCA locker room hanging; the man committed suicide. The moment he was finally surrounded by people filled with life and meaning, he knew he did not fit in. Therefore, Norman Bowker became a ghost, just like some of the stories and people that were in the