Caroline Jilek

Mrs. Priest
IB English
12 September 2019
The Things They Carried One Pager
War is overwhelming. War fills those who survive with stories, friends, and pride.
However war leaves one with immense guilt. This guilt never goes away; memories fade and
friends come and go but guilt weighs down on an individual’s conscience and invades their
mind. The issue concerning guilt and the incapability of others to empathize with the feelings of
the soldiers remains prominent in ​The Things They Carried,​ especially in the vignette “Speaking
of Courage”. Norman Bowker, a soldier in narrator Tim O’Brien’s platoon, returned from the
Vietnam War back to his modest Iowan town. Bowker drove in circles reflecting on his time in
warfare, specifically the time ​he​ let Kiowa die. Kiowa sunk into a “shit field” and Bowker tried
his best to pull him out but his senses betrayed him (139). The smell became too much to handle
so the soldier let go. The setting in which this fateful event transpired symbolizes guilt. The field
of muck is filthy, the smell hung in the air and did not leave. Guilt, like the smell of the field,
hangs over an individual. It has a looming presence and it contains the ability to completely
swallow someone up like the mud and sewage of the battleground. For much of the population,
war is only something in the movies or tv shows or books. Those on the outside of a war cannot
feel what the soldier feels therefore they cannot empathize. Survivor’s guilt terrorizes soldiers
and much like war, they feel isolated and have no one to turn to about their problems. Norman
Bowker continued to revolve around a lake, “One half [of the lake] still glistened, the other was
caught in shadow” (144). O’Brien uses setting to convey the idea of survivor’s guilt and the
distance of others who have not experienced it. A lake is one body of water just as America is
one nation. However, one side of the nation was prospering and happy even in the face of war,
just as one side of the lake was sparkling. The dark side of the lake represents the soldiers from
Vietnam; they were cast into the shadows because of the acts of violence they partook in during
the war. It also symbolizes the dark place the soldiers remained in after the war. The American
people were unable to grasp the emotions that the soldiers were drowning in, including guilt.
This poses as a problem even today, many soldiers feel pushed to the side and forgotten. Being
in a state of complete emotional isolation allows one time to think about the “what if’s” of war
and the things they could have done better or the people they could have saved. The lack of
empathy from the general population only pushes soldiers deeper into their own thoughts and
forces them to reflect on their wartime experiences. Norman Bowker made many revolutions
around the lake, he decided that “He could not talk about [Kiowa’s death] and never would,”
(147). This symbolizes the secrets that soldiers felt they had to keep about the war. O’Brien
makes it seem as if Bowker felt he was not allowed to discuss the death of his friend perhaps to
avoid misjudgement of the situation. The lack of the ability to relate to the soldiers is so immense
that most feel like they cannot talk to anyone about their experiences or feelings after war. The
liability that soldiers hold over themselves for mistakes can consume them, sometimes these
emotions keep piling and lead to worse outcomes, such as suicide, PTSD, or other mental
disorders. This is a large scale problem and it not only affected soldiers in the Vietnam War but
the soldiers before and after them. It makes it more difficult for one to succumb to the feelings of
guilt if others are there for them. A very miniscule number of individuals have ever been to war
but there are plenty of people to offer support to soldiers who may feel isolated or may be
suffering from an emotional problem rooted from the perils of warfare. A soldier should never
feel ashamed for fighting for their country or for surviving a difficult war. The lack of
understanding of a soldier’s grief and guilt ultimately causes damage to that individual and can
lead to serious consequences, this was conveyed through O’Brien’s novel.