Sofia Migala

April 21, 2018

Coping.

All throughout Tim O’Brien’s ​The Things They Carried, ​responsibility, guilt, and

culpability are pivotal issues in which the characters deal with as they go through this war.

Though all the characters have felt at least a bit of guilt during the novel, O’Brien puts heavy

emphasis on how Rat Kiley, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Norman Bowker all cope with their

feelings of responsibility and guilt after their comrades die. These three men did not just feel this

immense regret while still in Vietnam, these feelings stuck with them even after they returned

home, and they won’t ever forget them.

Towards the beginning of the novel, O’Brien goes into depth about how Lieutenant

Jimmy Cross was in love with a girl names Martha back in the United States. These feelings

were so powerful, however, that they clouded his vision and while he was supposed to be

looking out for his men, “suddenly, without willing it, he was thinking about Martha… [and

then] Ted Lavender was shot on his way back from peeing.” (O’Brien 12) Of course, being the

Lieutenant, Jimmy Cross took all the blame for Lavender's death, and would not forgive himself

for it. Even years after the war, when Cross and O’Brien met up, the subject of Lavender was

hard for Cross. As the men were looking at old pictures of Vietnam, they “...paused over a

snapshot of Ted Lavender, and after a while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said he’d never forgiven

himself for Lavender's death. It was something that would never go away, he said quietly.”
(O’Brien 27). After Lavender died, Cross knew that something needed to change in order for him

to successfully watch and take care of his men. He could not let his mind wander toward things

that didn't matter during this time, like Martha, and needed to be more prudent and aware of his

surroundings, especially being in charge of 20 men. To begins these changes, he “...burned

Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs...He realized it was only a gesture…

Lavender was dead. You couldn't burn the blame… No more fantasies, he told himself.”

(O'Brien 23). Still grieving, Cross tried altering his passive ways. “He was now determined to

perform his duties firmly and without negligence. It wouldn't help Lavender, he knew that, but

from this point on he would comport himself as an officer... he would accept the blame for what

had happened to Ted Lavender. He would be a man about it.” (O’Brien 25). Dealing with his

feelings of remorse and guilt, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross took the blame and became more strict in

order for his laxity and carelessness not to take another man’s life.

Another character whom O’Brien goes into the depth with about his guilt and culpability

when Curt Lemon dies is Rat Kiley. Rat and Curt were best friends, and Rat loved him. During

one of their missions, “Lemon and Rat Kiley started goofing...and they were giggling and calling

each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they invented. The game involved smoke

grenades, which were harmless unless you did stupid things and what they did was pull out the

pin and stand a few feet apart and play catch… Whoever chickened out was a yellow mother.”

(O’Brien 70). After a while, Curt turned around, took a half a step, stepped on a rigged mortar

round, and died instantly. Rat Kiley, of course, takes this very hard and is full of regret and guilt.

To cope with all of these feelings, he writes a letter to Curt’s sister back in the United States. He
starts the letter calm and strictly speaking about all about how Curt was a great guy. “Rat tells

her what a great brother she had, how together the guy was, a number one pal and comrade. A

real soldier’s soldier, Rat says...The guy was as little crazy, for sure, but crazy in a good way, a

real daredevil.” (O’Brien 68). And then, as Rat gets deeper into the letter, he begins getting

serious about his and Curts friendship. “Rat pours his heart out, He says he loved the guy. He

says the guy was his best friend in the world. They were like soul mates, he says, like twins or

something, they had a whole lot in common.” (O’Brien 68). After his “best friend in the world”

dies, Rat Kiley copes with all of his feelings through writing a well-put, thoughtful letter.

Finally, another character dealing with feelings of sorrow and guilt due to the death of a

friend was Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker and Kiowa were very close. The day Kiowa dies,

the group of men “bivouacked in a field along the Song Tra Bong. A big swamy field beside the

river.” (O’Brien 144) which, described by O’Brien later, is what the native Vietnamese used as a

toilet. During the night, they became under attack, and Kiowa had been hit. Bowker “grabbed

Kiowa by the boot and tried to pull him out. He pulled hard but Kiowa was gone, and… he felt

himself going to… the stink was everywhere, and he could not tolerate it. He released Kiowa’s

boot and watched it slide away.” (O'Brien 149). This specific event will haunt Bowker, until

eventually he hangs himself a few years after returning home from the war. The chapter

“Speaking of Courage” is dedicated to Norman Bowker and his life, mostly how he coped after

the war. One day, back in the United States, he drives in his father’s car around a lake 12 times

which took him all day. What he’d seen in the war, and how he let himself lose Kiowa, made

him not know what to do or where to be, and so driving repetitively around a lake seemed like
the only thing he could bring himself to do. It was particularly hard for Bowker to get readjusted

after returning home. So hard, in fact, that he eventually took his own life.

Throughout ​The Things They Carried, ​the feelings of responsibility and guilt after those

around the men die are one of the biggest issues O’Brien displays. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross deals

with the death of Ted Lavender by burning the letters and pictures of the girl he loves and

changing his behavior to ensure no one else loses their life to his laxity. Rat Kiley copes with the

feelings he was having after the death of his best friend, Curt Lemon, by writing a letter to Curt’s

sister and putting a lot of feeling and depth into it. Finally, Norman Bowker deals with the death

of Kiowa by driving repetitively in a circle around a lake, not knowing what to do with his life,

and eventually killing himself. All of these characters deal with their distressed feelings of guilt

and remorse over the deaths of those around them, and all the deaths completely reshape these

men’s lives.