Kiowa Character Analysis

Kiowa Tim O’Brien uses many different methods of characterization to create the character Kiowa in The Things They Carried. There is use of four of the five methods of characterization, two methods used most are, what a character says and does and the author commenting directly. O’Brien uses both types of characterization to fabricate how Kiowa’s personality, beliefs and how he affects others. O’Brien usually shows beliefs through direct characterization, “Kiowa always took along his New Testament and a pair of moccasins for silence.”(O’Brien 9) While he typically uses indirect characterization to show his personality, “Afterward, Rat said, ‘So where’s the rain?’ and Kiowa said, ‘The earth is slow, but the buffalo is patient…” (35). Religion

At one point it will seem he is somewhat insensitive. After Ted Lavender died, Kiowa wouldn’t stop talking about it, “Kiowa, who saw it happen, said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag… the poor bastard just flat-fuck fell. Boom. Down. Nothing else… Kiowa kept explaining how you had to be there, how fast is was, how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement.”(6). Then a few minutes later Kiowa says, “One thing for sure, he said. The lieutenant’s in some deep hurt. I mean that crying jag --- the way he was carrying on --- it wasn’t fake or anything, it was real heavy duty hurt.”(17). Here he is taking note of how real the sadness and guilt is for the lieutenant. He is showing that it is more serious than it seemed to be to the Platoon. In the end, he is described as an intelligent, brave, kind person, and a fine soldier and

Very brave, too. And decent… Kiowa had been raised to believe in the promise of salvation under Jesus Christ, and this conviction had always been present in the boy’s smile, in his posture toward the world, in the way he never went anywhere without an illustrated New Testament that his father mailed him…”(157) This quote is from after Kiowa died. The author, who was also one of Kiowa’s friends, puts this as a conclusion and a summary of Kiowa. Indirect Characterization makes this quote so much more powerful because it is a thought coming from Jimmy Cross. The lieutenant, the big man on campus and he thinks highly of Kiowa. This shows how Kiowa impacted the lives of those around him. Using Both Direct and Indirect characterization Tim O’Brien shapes this character into the person he