Weight And Truth In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Weight and Truth, two terms with definitions that appear as simple and concrete ideas. Simply put, Weight is the measure of how heavy something is. Truth is a fact about an event or idea. However, in the Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a fictional novel about a squad of American soldiers in the Vietnam War narrated by a character who takes the author’s name, O’Brien uses his own definitions of Weight and Truth. The men carry physical and mental burdens both during and after the war. The men take up all the physical and mental weight they can during the war because even “for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry” (O’Brien 15). There would always be new supplies and new things to fear that needed carrying. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien blurs the line between fact and fiction to evoke a feeling of uncertainty

It is obvious he still has not been able to move past this traumatic event. As more shells fell, it brought back to the surface the smell of centuries worth of fecal matter. Then, he hears someone screaming close by and Bowker knew it was Kiowa, another member of Alpha Company. He describes everything; the rain, Kiowa’s screams, the gunfire, the sound of his own heart. He paints a picture so vivid that little is left to the imagination. When he reaches Kiowa, Kiowa has been almost completely submerged in the field. Bowker recalls that “there was a knee. There was an arm and a gold wristwatch and part of a boot” (O’Brien 142). The image of Kiowa still haunts him even as he circles the lake. Then, he grabbed Kiowa and tried to pull him out. As he pulls, he thinks about how “the shit was in his nose and his eyes” (O’Brien 143). He can no longer tolerate it so he lets Kiowa go. Then he crawls out of the field and thinks that all he wanted was “a hot soapy bath” (O’Brien