Summary Of The Things They Carried 'By Tim O' Brien

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a great collection of short stories about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War. Perhaps some would feel that all of these stories are entirely unrelated; however, I believe that they all somehow come together to create one ultimate message. I truthfully think that one short section of the text can represent O’Brien’s entire collection. The idea of the emotional baggage that these American soldiers carry shows up in various stories in the book, as well as plays a major role in O’Brien’s final message. What strikes me as a reader is that soldiers carry more than just physical memorabilia; they endure and carry all of the emotional baggage that comes with the job. Thus, soldiers react both

The concurring theme that I believe O’Brien is trying to show is the emotional baggage that some of these soldiers carry with them at all times. Yes, they carried physical things such as Cross’s good luck pebble or Jensen’s rabbit foot or Bowker’s thumb, but the emotional baggage may be even more significant. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing…” In this short quote from the passage I have chosen, it really just sums up all of the different emotions that soldiers truly experience. They carried grief; they experienced deep sorrow. They carried terror; soldiers were extremely terrified of the fact that something bad could actually happen to them. They carried love; soldiers always remember the people they love in the most troublesome times. They think about friends and family back home and how they wish they were there with them. They carry longing; they had a yearning desire for really anything they didn’t have. They wanted safety, cleanliness, something to look forward to. So yes, a lucky pebble may seem important to one at that specific time, but these emotions are what people hold on to

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.” In this short quote, O’Brien explains that the most important thing that soldiers carried was the fear of blushing. Men went to war not because they wanted to be heroes, but because they were “forced” to. If they refused to enter the war, they were considered a coward, a fraud. Later, in “On the Rainy River,” O’Brien explains again that the only reason he went to the war was so people thought he was brave. He didn’t want to be considered a coward, or a traitor, to everyone he knew. Yes, O’Brien was against the Vietnam War and was against all of the fighting, but in his mind, he had no choice to go or not. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Vietnam War is not its violence, but its ability to convince men to simply carry out the