The Things They Carried: A Literary Analysis

Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is set in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and describes a soldier’s burden by listing what they carried and portraying scenes in a war. Critics have debated over the classification of O’Brien’s story. The major dispute is over whether “The Things They Carried” is appropriately classified as war literature. Although Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is fictitious, it is war literature since it conveys the physical and emotional burdens borne by soldiers through war and depicts the emotions and reality of the experience effectively.
Some critics claim that “The Things They Carried” should not be classified as war literature because of its fictitious nature. Bruce Bawer is one of such critics; he feels that O’Brien “plays too many fact-or-fiction games” for his work to be taken seriously. He also asserts that O’Brien’s work cannot honestly capture the reality of war since O’Brien uses fiction. Bawer claims that by using fiction, O’Brien causes his message to be “so much less
While some believe that this short story should not be considered as war literature because it is not factual, others feel that a war story must be somewhat fictitious in order to capture the feelings of the participants of war and thus paint a correct image of war. By expressing the full truth of war in “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien writes a war story. The fictitious nature of his war story allows O’Brien to describe what goes through the minds of soldiers and accurately depict war. While a war story need not be entirely fictitious, strictly sticking to facts when depicting war neglects the important role of human emotion and perception of events in the war experience. “The Things They Carried” brings the Vietnam War to life and helps its audience understand the genuine consequences of war, not just how war is