Who Is Rat Kiley's Innocence In The Things They Carried

22 million American men were drafted for the Vietnam War, 30,000 men leaving the country to avoid the inevitable draft. In Tim O’Brien’s 1990 historical fiction novel The Things They Carried, 22 short stories of the war are told by a first hand soldier who had experienced the guilt and grief associated with war. These stories follow O’Brien’s fellow soldiers and friends as they go along the war and the audience sees the development of these soldiers whose life had just been turned upside down. The readers see the guilt and grief associated with the war and the variety of how these soldiers cope with this loss. Rat Kiley, Mary Anne, and Linda are all characters the readers see whose innocence is ripped away from them at such a young age and

19-year-old medic, Rat Kiley’s innocence is a slow descent into madness as the grief and guilt overpower him. Kiley’s character is seen as very easy going and compassionate for every soldier in his platoon. A friendship blooms between Kiley and a fellow soldier Curt Lemon as the two are more on the childish spectrum of the group. According to O’Brien, “Right away, Lemon and Rat Kiley start goofing. They didn’t understand about the spookiness. They were kids; they didn’t know… they were giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they’d invented.” (69) Rat Kiley at first is seen letting loose in the war and being able to feel at home in a foreign place. This childish act between the two gives the book a calm before the storm as immediately after the two boys mess around, Curt Lemon dies. The silly game had ended with the first step into the spiral of madness Kiley soon fell into. With the tragedy of his friend, Rat Kiley starts to exaggerate his stories into a better one as if he were trying to escape his reality. O’Brien says, “Still, with this particular story, Rat never backed down. He claimed

Mary Ann is the girlfriend of Mark Fossie who is brought in for a visit, however this visit is the start to her obsession with the war. Mary Anne had a normal life with normal goals before she was dropped into the war. O’Brien says, “From the sixth grade on they had known for a fact that someday they would be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three healthy yellow-haired children, and grow old together, and no doubt die in each other's arms and be buried in the same walnut casket.” (94) A regular teenage girl with regular visions of the future arrives to aid the hurt and before she know it these goals are just a blurry memory of her old innocent childhood. This girl who had only come down for a visit soon sees the life of Vietnamese culture and learns more, at this point it's seen as just a fun learning experience. O’Brien writes, “Often, especially during the hot afternoons, she would spend time with the ARVNs out along the perimeter, picking up little phrases of Vietnamese, learning how to cook rice over a can of Sterno, how to eat with her hands.” (95) Starting as an innocent thing, she quickly is intrigued by the culture and this starts to influence her ideals with Fossie. Instead of an immediate marriage and a house on Lake Erie, she soon wants to travel the world instead, however she still promises Fossie a marriage, seeing as she is not