Innocence In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Tim O’ Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, is a collection of short stories with a common topic that discuss events (before,during, and after the Vietnam war) that the men of the Alpha Companies live through; their challenges, thoughts, decisions, and of course the things they carried. The vignettes in this book put you in the characters shoes, allowing you to picture the certain joys and tragedies with detail, witnessing truth, religion, superstition, and loss of innocence. In the first chapter of the story, you are introduced to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, a weak and insecure leader, always daydreaming and fantasizing about the love of his life, Martha. He carries letters from her and when he reads the word “Love” at the end he

Jimmy was woken up from his day dream and realized what happened at the sound of the shots and blamed himself for the death of Ted, leading him to burning pictures and letters from Martha for no further distractions. Him burning the items is him loosing his innocence in a way, in the book Tim describes him as “a kid at war, in love.” He becomes tougher, and decides to grow up after this. Another character who lost his innocence would be Rat Kiley (Bob). Rat was a medic and a good one at that. He also is a great story teller, always exaggerating and trying to make the listener feel what he felt and stay interested. In “ Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” Rat explains the story of Mary Anne, opening everyones eyes who heard. Every soldier or medic dealing with the war deals with things differently and thats what Rat shows us. After being around for his best friend, Curt Lemon, dying, he becomes paranoid. Surrounded by death, he has dreams and visions of body parts and bugs eating him, scratching himself constantly. Finally, when Mary Anne goes crazy, and Bowker commits suicide, Kiley becomes way to worked up and decides to injure himself (shooting his toe) then being sent to Japan, earning his release from duty. Before this, he explains to Sanders how people could be alive one minute, and gone the other and mentions Lemon, and Lavender. He begins to think he isn't good enough to be a medic, and breaks down. This shows Rat Kileys loss

In the story it begins with the men discussing how to get girls into their camps, and Fossie then mentions how he's bringing his girl over. Mark Fossie and Mary Anne have been together since 6th grade, always talking about how they were going to grow old together. Mark explains how she would be there for 6 weeks, and that its a complicated routine for her to get there. She rides three planes and a helicopter. Mary Anne just graduated high school, and she's blonde, has blue eyes, a cosmetic bag, and a pink sweater. She is FULL of innocence. As she arrives, Kiley tells the story saying that she was extremely curious about everything in Vietnam. In just a few days, she picked up on some Vietnamese, and learned how to clean and use guns. Her girly side disappears, she cuts her hair short, wears a green bandana, drops her feminine habits, and hygiene isn't a big deal to her anymore. Mary Anne learns to shoot morphine, and repair arteries. She is extremely interested about the Vietnamese life. Weeks pass and Mark says she's changed, she rarely laughs and when she does its only because something is truly funny. Then, one night she goes out on an ambush with the Greenies and Mark thinks she is cheating on him. Kiley looks at every bunk and she's nowhere, they search the land and nothing. Finally, the next morning she comes back with black charcoal on her face, and a rifle in her hands. “We’ll talk later, I’m exhausted,”