Tim O Brien: A Narrative Analysis

Cover Letter
Mrs. Dawalt, The majority of the feedback I received addressed my formatting. I knew when I completed my first draft that that would be the case considering formatting definitely isn’t my forte. I feel like I have learned a lot more as to how to format well by writing this. I’ve gotten much better at inserting headers, footers, and page numbers. I knew how to do it before but I almost had to re-learn it every time. I only received one peer review. The main thing that was brought up was my formatting and she suggested that I relate my response back to myself more because it seemed like additional summary instead of a response. I honestly had trouble doing this because I did respond to each quote and wrote out how each text
was important to the story and how it related to what I believed the main point was. I decided to add some additional text into the first paragraph of my response and spoke about how I have never analyzed soldiers struggles in wartime so closely and how it clarified the struggles that they face in an attempt to relate it to myself. I also worked on my thesis statement which was also addressed. I wanted to clarify my thesis because it made it seem that I believed that the main focus of the text was how the war changed the soldiers themselves. When my thesis was actually more focused on the physical and emotional weight soldiers are burdened with and how they can control you. The main thing I struggled with writing this was figuring out how to start them numbering on the second page. That took me about 30 minutes to figure out via Youtube and Yahoo Answers. Over all I enjoy how this piece turned out.
Koby Rose
Mrs. Linda Dawalt
ENG111
08 February 2015
The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brian’s “The Things They Carried” is arguably neither a novel in itself or a singular short story. The Things They Carried serves as almost a prologue to the collection of stories the together create the entire same titled novel itself. Whether a short story of a novel its serves the same purpose, to share the stories and feelings and realities of war and a soldier’s life and inner-workings with those who have not experienced it themselves. Written in 1990 “The Things They Carried” serves as almost a revisit to Vietnam and to the times surrounding the war. Several stories in the complete novel itself talk of visiting with old friends from the war and discuss the changes that they went through as a veteran of “the only war America ever ‘lost’.” It also serves a personal reflection for the author himself. Yet more prevalent than anything else is the sense of weight this story conveys. I puts you in their shoes so you can feel their struggle and pain. “The Things They Carried” makes the toll of the physical and emotional burdens that each soldier carries with them acutely aware to the reader.
An unknown narrator describes what the soldiers serving with Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carry. Throughout the text O’Brian tells the reader what each man carries with him. He tells us in detail what each man carries. O’Brian doesn’t only write of the physical things they carried but also the emotional and mental. The author gives us a look into each soldier’s personality and symbolizes who they are by stating what they carry. O’Brian speaks of Ted Lavender, the only human causality mentioned in the text:
“Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, over twenty pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the un-weighed fear.” (O’Brian 367)
The death of Ted Lavender would become a catalyst for Jimmy Cross, it’s the weight along with everything Cross carries with him proves to be too much for Jimmy to handle. Jimmy Cross carries the most of all. “Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.” (O’Brian 366) Jimmy Cross’s adoration and obsession with his unrequited love play a major role in the stories progression. It speaks of how the thoughts and emotions Cross carries for Martha keep him detracted and distant to what going on around him. He ultimately blames Martha and his inability to deal the love he has for her for the death of Ted Lavender, “who was afraid.” The guilt he carries over this eventually leads him to burn her photo and letter and rid himself of the pebble she gave him from the shore of New Jersey.
There are many themes and directives in O’Brian’s “The Things They Carried.” Tim O’Brian attempts to connect the reader with the characters in his story by describing “the things they carried.” He opens a window into the outward and inward life of each soldier by describing the physical and emotion burdens that each character in specific has to “hump” with them.
O’Brian writes “As a big man, therefore a machine gunner, Henry Dobbins carried the M-60, which weighed 23 pounds unloaded, which was almost always loaded. In addition, Dobbins carried 10 to 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders.” (O’Brian 369) In the excerpt from the passage O’Brian attempts and successfully makes the reader aware of the physical strains each man goes through. Connecting even a reader who has never experienced war to the characters in an understanding of physical burdens. Yet when O’Brian says “He [Jimmy Cross] would imagine romantic camping trips in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her,” (O’Brian 366) Later O’Brian writes: “His mind wandered. He had difficulty keeping his attention on the war. On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into day dreams, just pretending, walking on the Jersey Shore with Martha, bare foot, carrying nothing.” (O’Brian
371)
O’Brian connects the reader with Jimmy Cross emotionally, he makes the reader feel empathy for Cross while setting one of the central themes in the story of escape and difficulty removing themselves from the life they used to know and the new life they were thrust into. Jimmy Cross dwells on his memories and spends his time imagining what he would have done, should have done, and what he wants to do with Martha instead of focusing on the dangers around him.
Towards the end of “The Things They Carried” Jimmy Cross begins to blame himself for the death of Ted Lavender. He is angry with the fact that his lack of awareness factored into the loss of one of his men. He burns the letters and photos from Martha and plans of ridding himself of the pebble that she sent him from the beach in New Jersey. O’Brian writes, speaking of Jimmy Cross “He would accept the blame of what happened with Ted Lavender. He would be a man about it.” (O’Brian 394) He later writes “Jimmy Cross reminded himself it was his obligation not to love but to lead. He would dispense of love- it was now not a factor.” (O’Brian 394) O’Brian is conveying that in letting go of what he once held onto Cross could now focus on what surrounded him. In less specific terms a soldier has to let go of what they once held dear and become a facet of war themselves, otherwise the weight they carry will drop them to the ground like concrete as it did to Ted Lavender. Otherwise the things the carry will carry them to their graves.

Works Cited

O’Brian, Tim. “The Things They Carried.” The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories. Ed. Tobias Wolff. New York: Round House Incorporated, 1994. 366-384. Print.