The Things They Carried

Marie Hawkins
Instructor: Daniel McNamara
English 102
2 October 2011
What Defines a Person by The Things They Carry

The author is Tim O’Brien The Things they Carried written in 1986. The story is told by the author almost 20 years after the Vietnam war, it tells a story of men in combat and the things they carried before, during and after the war and how many of the things the soldiers carried help to shape and define their lives. In life people are defined by the things they carry like social class, education or lack of; race, religious belief, what we possess, while the author states “it is determined by necessity”(637), while necessity does dictate and define our everyday lives, like school after the age of 30, some do it for career advancement, some do it to re-enter the job market, whatever the reason necessity dictates that it must be done.
Throughout life it continues to dictate and shape and define the type of baggage that each person must carry throughout the life cycle, “each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move. They endured” (637), that is exactly what most people do each day. O’Brien goes on to say “they carry the things inside maintaining a mask of composure”(647), something that the average person does every day they go to work pretend to be happy smile a lot, when on the inside they are not that happy for whatever reason, they made of had a fight before leaving home, they may have stood up on a train the entire trip to work one never knows the reasons why. In life many carry enormous baggage around daily just as many of the soldiers in the Vietnam war did, many who were left feeling cheated, hurt, angry, many families were changed by the loss of a love one the altered personality of a love one, families not understanding how a solider could not internalized or compartmentalize their feelings. Some people go through their entire life trying to figure that out, while some figure it out only after a tragedy of some sort “after the death of Ted Lavender LT Cross has discovered he can no longer just be a dreamer he sees Martha as another life, another time (648), these are moments that define lives by the choices, sometimes hard choices and hard realities. So while we can never see another man’s baggage we can never dismiss the things they carry that define them.
Asking question for many people can be very traumatic just as the war was, many people don’t like to face or express their fears. In life we all must face fears which allows the opportunity to carry the baggage, and by doing so we are able to grow as humans. Understanding that in the baggage we carry there are lessons that only life and personal experience could have taught. In the story each many had a story to tell, while they made jokes out of the stories none of the men took it likely and they all carried the baggage for in the baggage it define each of them.
Dr Martin Luther King once wrote “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem” ironic how this story portrays exaltedly what he had said. Each person in all walks of life is defined by the things they carry which allow them the opportunity to face the problems that tomorrow will bring. Life is growing, forever changing with endless possibilities, lessons to learned and taught, wars to be fought won and lost, morning to be done for the living and dead. In the end with having said all of that it continues to be one big circle but the catch is to understand that the circle never changes it size, it dimensions only the people inside the circle, for a circle can never grow but as civilized humans we have the ability to grown, to shape our lives to become who and what we want.
As the reader you must always ask yourself what has help to shape and define you to be the person that you are today, what changes can you make in your life are those changes defined by the things that you carry?. “Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever? twixt that darkness and that light. Though the cause of evil prospers, yet? tis truth alone is strong Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own” written by (James Russell Lowell ) “And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream” (speech given by Rev. Dr Martin Luther King), for the reason stated in the speech we must all realize that we are defined by the things that we carry.

Work Cited

Beyond Vietnam New York, N.Y. 4 April 1967 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Speeches —www.writespirit.net/inspirational_talks/.../martin_luther_king_talks/

Ann Charters. The Story and Its Writers: Connecticut: BEDFORD/ ST MARTIN’S, 2011
Tim O’Brien. “The Things They Carried” 1987: 636-649

Cited: Beyond Vietnam New York, N.Y. 4 April 1967 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Speeches —www.writespirit.net/inspirational_talks/.../martin_luther_king_talks/ Ann Charters. The Story and Its Writers: Connecticut: BEDFORD/ ST MARTIN’S, 2011 Tim O’Brien. “The Things They Carried” 1987: 636-649