Summary Of The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The Things They Carried is written by the author, Tim O’Brien, and follows the protagonist, Tim O’Brien and his fellow foot soldiers in the Vietnam War. This novel captures the nature of the Vietnam War through mainly fictional war stories. These war stories are told through the eyes of the main character, Tim O’Brien, who tells and writes these stories as a way to cope with what he’s been through in the war. The Things They Carried follows Tim O’Brien on his hero’s journey and coming of age adventure.

Protagonist Tim O’Brien is trying to achieve inner peace in this coming of age story; he’s trying to cope with the faceless responsibility and faceless grief he experiences after the Vietnam War. He is trying to find inner peace through his

As O’Brien states, telling stories objectifies what happens to a person, disconnecting and detaching him or her from the event. For O’Brien, being able to detach himself allows him to accept what has happened and who he is now because of it. However, O’Brien has difficulty finding peace because what happened to him blurs with his imagination. In addition, O’Brien’s blame and guilt is a grey area where he takes too little or too much responsibility for the events he experiences in the Vietnam War. For example, when it comes to whether he has or has not killed someone, he cannot decide if he is guilty for the death of a young soldier. To him, he is equally responsible for the soldier’s death whether he witnessed the soldier’s death or was the cause of the soldier’s death. O’Brien can’t

One specific location they go to was the field where Bob “Rat” Kiley dies. Kathleen doesn’t know what happened there; all she sees is a field that smells funny. But O’Brien, he sees this field that looks different from what he’s expecting. He expects to see the field as his mind paints it; with his grief and guilt painting the shadows darker and making the field more foreboding. However, in contrast to his mental picture, the field is just a field. The field is just as Kathleen sees it; a weird smelling field with a river. O’Brien goes into the river and squats, the water comes up to his chest, a flashback to when he sits in the field of muck and grime. He sets Rat Kiley’s moccasins in the water, letting the moccasins flow downstream. In this instant, he lets go of all the anger and guilt he felt for Rat Kiley’s death. Before, he was holding on to a piece of Rat Kiley; trying to keep his friend alive and out of the jaws of Vietnam with a physical object. However, when he lets Rat Kiley’s moccasins go, he is forgiving himself and giving Rat Kiley, as well as his guilt back to Vietnam. This event changes O’Brien because he is now at peace with himself and he realizes that he doesn’t have to keep his friends alive with objects, he can bring them back to life with