War is a traumatizing and life-changing experience. In The Things They Carried (1990), Tim O’Brien brings the trials and tribulations of war to life and attempts to convey both the physical and emotional burdens of the battlefield. O’Brien seeks to show his readers the side of war we seldom hear about; the indelible emotional scar of death and loss that continues long after the dust of battle is cleared. O’Brien’s journey, loaded with the emotions of war and the strength of brotherhood, makes this novel one you won’t want to put down.
Imagine being forced to risk your life. Now imagine being forced to risk your life for a cause you do not even agree with in the first place! This is the plight of Tim O’Brien in 1968, when he receives his draft notice to join the US military’s Vietnam effort. O’Brien relays the stories of the Alpha Company, the platoon of soldiers in which he fights.
How can one properly relate the true experience of war? When attempting to accomplish such a task, it is difficult to fit into the concrete genres of literature (fiction, nonfiction etc). O’Brien’s novel is a masterful first-person narrative that finds it somewhere in between. While the setting of the novel—a jungle during the Vietnam War—renders the book grounded in real events, the characters, emotions and events that take place are far stretches from the truth. The resulting genre is metafiction. Additionally, O’Brien utilizes a stream-of-consciousness style to accurately portray the experiences of the soldiers. This technique, heavily utilized in the "Speaking of Courage" tale, provides the reader with a beautiful, uninterrupted peek into the natural workings of the mind and feelings of a soldier.
War is not fun. It is dirty, bloody, and unforgiving. O’Brien uses profanity as a symbol of the emotions and attitudes of the soldiers in his platoon. They are tough and full of grit, and the dirty language they use aligns perfectly with the dirty life they live. This makes the novel fun to read, because there is no sugarcoating and there is no mushy gushy. It is war in its pure nakedness. The reader is particularly struck by O’Brien’s use of contrast, paradox and oxymoron, all of which give the writing some umph! and highlight the confusion that comes with being a soldier. The reader learns that war can turn one into a man but can also kill him. The depth of the novel is truly fascinating and intriguing, provoking salivation as the reader anxiously flips through the pages.
No book is perfect, however, and The Things They Carried is no exception. An off-putting element about the novel is it’s lack of continuity. It is confusing and frustrating to be heavily immersed in a heart-wrenching story, only to be interrupted by a new narrative, the relevance of which is not readily recognizable. For example, the rapid and unexpected transition from intense wartime to calm lakeside driving that happens from the chapters “Style” to “Speaking of Courage” may leave readers begging for answers. However, while this can be disconcerting, it is but a single negative element that is clearly outweighed by the various positives of the novel.
Finally, the component of the story that makes it so appealing and relatable for readers everywhere is the overarching idea of unbreakable friendship through difficult times. During the war, nothing comes easy. The men in the Alpha Company must rely on and trust one another in order to survive. At this point in their lives, the soldiers have little to fall back on: no parents to offer love, no girls to provide comfort, and no stable shelter to provide protection. What they do have, however, is one another. For example, soldiers Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk make a deal: if one of them sustains a bad enough injury in battle, the other would kill him to put his out of his misery. When Kiowa dies, the emotional impact it has on O’Brien bleeds through the pages. Years after the war, O’Brien visits Kiowa’s grave to pay homage to the friendship they had. After so long, the thing that leaves the biggest impact on O’Brien is the bonds he creates in the heat of the war.
Friendship, however, is only one piece of the puzzle. Tim O’Brien gives the audience the full range of emotions that come with war in his novel. The ideas conveyed in The Things They Carried are reminiscent of the “Lost Generation” of 1920s, when authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis wrote about their disillusionment of society after First World War. O’Brien leaves the reader with mouths wide open, wondering how war can be so “thrilling,” “drudgery,” and “fun,” all at the same time.
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