The Things They Carried

Global Issue 1: Values Global Issue 2: Art (Story Truth vs. Actual
Truth

Passage 1: ​“Something had gone  Passage 2: ​“The butterfly was making 

wrong. I’d come to this war a quiet,  its way along the young man's 
thoughtful sort of person, a college  forehead, which was spotted with 
grad, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum  small dark freckles. The nose was 
laude, all the credentials, but after  undamaged. The skin on the right 
seven months in the bush I realized  cheek was smooth and fine-grained 
that those high, civilized trappings  and hairless. Frail-looking, delicately 
had somehow been crushed under the  boned, the young man would not 
weight of the simple daily realities.  have wanted to be a soldier and in his 
I’d turned mean inside. Even a little  heart would have feared performing 
cruel at times. For all my education,  badly in battle. Even as a boy growing 
all my fine liberal values, I now felt a  up in the village of My Khe, he had 
deep coldness inside me, something  often worried about this. He 
dark and beyond reason. It’s a hard  imagined covering his head and lying 
thing to admit, even to myself, but I  in a deep hole and closing his eyes 
was capable of evil. I wanted to hurt  and not moving until the war was 
Bobby Jorgenson the way he’d hurt  over. He had no stomach for violence. 
me. For weeks it had been a vow-​I’ll  He loved mathematics. His eyebrows 
get him, I’ll get him-​it was down  were thin and arched like a woman's, 
inside me like a rock. Granted, I  and at school the boys sometimes 
didn’t hate him anymore, and I’d lost  teased him about how pretty he was, 
some of the outrage and passion, but  the arched eyebrows and long 
the need for revenge kept eating at  shapely fingers, and on the 
me. At night I sometimes drank too  playground they mimicked a 
much. I’d remember getting shot and  woman's walk and made fun of his 
yelling out for a medic and then  smooth skin and his love for 
waiting and waiting and waiting,  mathematics. The young man could 
passing out once, then waking up and  not make himself fight them. He 
screaming some more, and how the  often wanted to, but he was afraid, 
screaming seemed to make new pain,  and this increased his shame. If he 
the awful stink of myself, the sweat  could not fight little boys, he 
and fear, Bobby’ Jorgenson’s clumsy  thought, how could he ever become a 
fingers when he finally got around to  soldier and fight the Americans with 
working on me. I kept going over it  their airplanes and helicopters and 
all, every detail. I remembered the  bombs? It did not seem possible. In 
soft, fluid heat of my own blood.  the presence of his father and uncles, 
Shock, I​ thought, and I tried to tell  he pretended to look forward to doing 
him that, but my tongue wouldn’t  his patriotic duty, which was also a 
make the connection. I wanted to  privilege, but at night he prayed with 
yell, “You jerk, it’s shock-I’m d
​ ying!​”  his mother that the war might end 
but all I could do was whinny and  soon. Beyond anything else, he was 
squeal. I remembered the rage. But I  afraid of disgracing himself, and 
couldn’t feel it anymore. In the end,  therefore his family and village. But 
all I felt was that coldness down  all he could do, he thought, was wait 
inside my chest. Number one: the guy  and pray and try not to grow up too 
had almost killed me. Number two:  fast. "Listen to me," Kiowa said. "You 
there had to be consequences. That  feel terrible, I know that." Then he 
afternoon I asked Mitchell Sanders to  said, "Okay, maybe I don't know." 
give me a hand. “No pain,” I said.  Along the trail there were small blue 
“Basic psychology, that’s all. Mess  flowers shaped like bells. The young 
with his head a little.” “Negative,”  man's head was wrenched sideways, 
Sanders said. “Spook the fucker.”  not (121) quite facing the flowers, and 
Sanders shook his head. “Man,  even in the shade a single blade of 
you’re sick.” “All I want is-”  sunlight sparkled against the buckle 
“Sick.”(Page 190-192).  of his ammunition belt. The left 
cheek was peeled back in three 
ragged strips. The wounds at his neck 
had not yet clotted, which made him 
seem animate even in death, the 
blood still spreading out across his 
shirt. Kiowa shook his head. There 
was some silence before he said, 
‘Stop staring.’’” (102-104). 

O’Brien feels that values remain unchanged
even throughout the trying times of war,
however, the inclination and the ability to act
against these beliefs increases in wartime.
O’Brien feels that story truth is just as
important if not more important than
happening truth, as story truth can more
accurately conveys the emotions felt than a
factual retelling.

● Vivid, Detailed Diction ● Imagery - Vivid images of the dead

● Imagery - Uses images of his blood,
of his screaming to convey his trauma
● Personification - personifies the need
for revenge
● Syntax - long, flowy sentences
juxtaposed to short, interrupted
sentences
body convey pain felt by O’Brien
● Symbolism - Kiowa’s role as the
reality of the situation, how the death
should’ve been perceived
● Simile - comparing the man’s features
to that of a woman or child conveys
innocence