The Things They Carried Analysis Essay

Tim O’Brien’s story about vietnam war is The Things They Carried. This work tells what the soldiers went through the time during Vietnam. As the story begins, it focuses on the Alpha Company is sent to fight in Vietnam war. The soldiers carry goods and personal items to be able to survive. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters and pictures from a female named Martha. The first casualty for the company is Ted Lavender, shot dead. Cross blames himself for the death because he thinks he was too busy thinking about Martha to properly take care of his troops. O’Brien received a draft letter and he is not looking forward to going into war because he had just graduated Harvard for graduate school. He was stuck between wanting to run or doing what everyone expected which
Too show this, “ as we sat waiting, Curt Lemon began to tense up. He kept fidgeting, playing with his dog tags. He said he’d had a couple of bad experiences with dentists.” Curt shows weakness because he is scared to be looked at by the dentist in front of the other soldiers because they are not scared like he is. Norman Bowkeris in “Speaking of Courage”, fears disappointing his father. This is because his father expected him to bring back some metals with him from Vietnam but he came back with none. A quote in the chapter to show this is, “He thinks also of this father, whose greatest hope, that Norman would bring home medals from Vietnam.” Norman feels that he let his father down because he didn’t have anything to bring back to show to his father. In The Things They Carried, characters experience many signs of weakness and embarrassment. These characters experience the feeling of worry, guilt, and nervousness throughout the story because of what they all have to go through or have been through. Tim O’Brien ended up at war because he thought it through and did not want to let anyone