The Things They Carried: Character Analysis

The historic fiction book “The things they Carried” is a marvelous book that melds a bunch of short stories together to create a unique flowing narrative. The many characters throughout the book give life to the harsh land of Vietnam, adding color to the palette of brown, fatigue green, and constant rain/blue. Characters like Kiowa, who brought compassion to Alpha Company, Rat Kiley, who brought sanity to Alpha Company before he went mad himself, Mitchell Sanders, who brought a form of moral code in a place where morals don’t exist, Azar, who tried to light up a situation with comedy and finally Norman Bowker, who could show the guilt of the deaths that had happened within the war. These were the characters that I payed attention too, I knew
Now the way that the story built around her disappearing into the night it made it feel as if she were to be found dead, which invoked a feeling of suspicion and added tension. When we learn that she has just kind of gone mad by adorning a necklace of human tongues and said she had found herself within the forests of Vietnam. The final event that actually affected me had to definity been the death of Kiowa, probably my favorite character within this novelization. We learn through Norman Bowker, who by the way blames himself for his death, that Kiowa had died since he could not save him from the shit field on the Song Tra Bong. In “Notes” we learn that Norman Bowker is filled with guilt that he could not save his dear friend Kiowa, who also was loved by the rest of Alpha Company. Mitchell Sanders even blames Jimmy Cross for setting up camp on a terrible position and is the reason Kiowa’s dead. Even Azar stops being a total jerk when he finally sees the dead body of Kiowa, Kiowa’s death was an important one for the characters of the novel and the readers of the novel. Overall I actually really enjoyed this book, it peaked my interest unlike most war