THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

CHARACTERS

Tim O’Brien

The narrator and protagonist of the collection of stories. O’Brien is a pacifist who rationalizes his
participation in Vietnam by concluding that his feelings of obligation toward his family and country are
stronger influences than his own politics.

Jimmy Cross

The lieutenant of the Alpha Company, who is responsible for the entire group of men.

Mitchell Sanders

One of the most likable soldiers in the war. Sanders strongly influences the narrator, O’Brien. He is kind
and devoted, and he has a strong sense of justice.

Kiowa

O’Brien’s closest friend and a model of quiet, rational morality amid the atrocities of war.

Norman Bowker

A man who embodies the damage that the war can do to a soldier long after the war is over.

Henry Dobbins

The platoon’s machine gunner and resident gentle giant. Dobbins’s profound decency, despite his
simplicity, contrasts with his bearish frame. He is a perfect example of the incongruities in Vietnam.

Bob “Rat” Kiley

The platoon’s medic. Kiley previously served in the mountains of Chu Lai, the setting of “Sweetheart of
the Song Tra Bong.”

Curt Lemon

A childish and careless member of the Alpha Company who is killed when he steps on a rigged mortar
round.
Ted Lavender

A young, scared soldier in the Alpha Company. Lavender is the first to die in the work. He makes only a
brief appearance in the narrative, popping tranquilizers to calm himself while the company is outside
Than Khe.

Lee Strunk

Another soldier in the platoon and a minor character.

Dave Jensen

A minor character whose guilt over his injury of Lee Strunk causes him to break his own nose.

Azar

A soldier in the Alpha Company and one of the few unsympathetic characters in the work. Every time
Azar appears, he is mean-spirited and cruel, torturing Vietnamese civilians and poking fun both at the
corpses of the enemy and the deaths of his own fellow soldiers.

Bobby Jorgenson

The medic who replaces Rat Kiley. The second time O’Brien is shot, Jorgenson’s incompetence inspires
O’Brien’s desire for irrational revenge.

Elroy Berdahl

The proprietor of the Tip Top Lodge on the Rainy River near the Canadian border.

Kathleen

O’Brien’s daughter and a symbol of the naïve outsider.

Mary Anne Bell

Mark Fossie’s high school sweetheart.

Mark Fossie

A medic in Rat Kiley’s previous assignment. Fossie loses his innocence in the realization that his
girlfriend, Mary Anne, would rather be out on ambush with Green Berets than planning her postwar
wedding to Fossie in Cleveland.

Linda

O’Brien’s first love, whose death of a brain tumor in the fifth grade is O’Brien’s first experience with
mortality.

SETTINGS

The Things They Carried is primarily set in the country of Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. While
Americans were involved in the war from 1955 to 1975, the specific characters in the stories are shown
in Vietnam from roughly 1969 to 1971. Vietnam is a Southeast Asian country bordering Cambodia and
Laos. The climate in Vietnam is hot and humid, and jungles abound. The characters in the book are often
shown hacking their way through the jungle, or taking refuge in the tropical foliage during fighting. The
beaches of Vietnam also figure into the book, serving both as places to relax and staging areas for
battles. Tim, the narrator of the book, paints Vietnam as a beautiful but fundamentally unknowable
country. The soldiers are often shown moving from one area to another without a real understanding of
where they are going, mirroring the soldiers’ lack of clarity about the purpose of the war they are
fighting.

Point of view

The Things They Carried is written from two points of view. The title story and several others are written
in first person, from the perspective of the character of Tim. Tim narrates all the stories but is not the
main character in of all of them. In several stories, Tim seeks to memorialize his friends from the platoon
by telling their stories, while trying to understand how his experiences in Vietnam changed him. The
other point of view is third person omniscient, as in the title story, which allows O’Brien to share the
thoughts of many of the characters in the novel, including Kiowa, Lt. Cross, and Rat. Making use of the
third person allows O’Brien to include stories that the character of Tim would not have first-hand
knowledge of. The combination of the two points of view makes the book a personal account of a
collective experience.

ENDING

The Things They Carried ends with the narrator revealing the fates of characters like Kiowa and Dave
Jensen, both of whom died during the war. The deaths of his fellow soldiers continue to haunt the
narrator, especially since they died in violent and senseless ways. Tim’s last story resolves the conflict of
how to create meaning from the war and how to make sense of the soldiers’ experiences. In “The Lives
of the Dead” Tim writes “stories can save us,” before telling the story of his childhood friend, Linda, who
died when she was young. By memorializing Linda in writing, and by remembering all of his friends from
Vietnam by writing about them, Tim concludes, he can keep them alive in some way. He recognizes that
he’s been writing the book to save his own life, and he has succeeded, ending this attempt to find
meaning for his time in Vietnam.

Conflict

The men of the Alpha Company, especially Tim O’Brien, grapple with the effects—both immediate and
long-term—of the Vietnam War.

Climax

During their tour of duty, the men of the Alpha Company must cope with the loss of their own men and
the guilt that comes from killing and watching others die. O'Brien and his fellow troops must deal with a
death very close to their hearts. O'Brien's best friend has died and he must try to move past the pain
and hurt of the tragedy. Now he has to start a new beginning of his life in Kiowa's honor.

Resolution

When the war ends Tim has a reflection over his life and wonders how different it would have been if he
never went into the war. Nevertheless, he honors all his fallen soldiers as well as his fallen friends.

Plot

"The Things They Carried"

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the leader of a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam, carries physical reminders of
Martha, the object of his unrequited love. Thoughts of Martha often distract Lieutenant Cross from his
team's objectives. A death in the squad under his supervision causes Cross to reconsider his priorities, as
he was heartbroken, he burns and throws away all reminders of Martha in order to focus on the mission
and avoid distractions.

"Love"

Cross and O'Brien reminisce about the war and about Martha. O'Brien asks if he can write a story about
Cross, expressing his memories and hopes for the future; Cross agrees, thinking that perhaps Martha will
read it and come find him.

"Spin"
A series of unrelated memories from the war are narrated from O'Brien's point of view. It includes
moments of camaraderie and beauty: a joke of a hate letter to the Draft Board; learning a rain dance
between battles.

"On the Rainy River"

O'Brien gets drafted as soon as he graduates from college. He is reluctant to go to war and considers
fleeing the draft; he begins to travel north to the Canada–US border on the Rainy River. Near the border,
he encounters an elderly stranger who allows him to work through his internal struggle. O'Brien is given
the opportunity to escape; however, the societal pressures are too much for him. He goes to war
ashamed with his inability to face the consequences of leaving.

"Enemies and Friends"

Told in two sections, the developing relationship between soldiers Jensen and Strunk is shown. At first
regularly antagonized by one another, the two are drawn toward respect and friendship by the stress
and horrors of warfare. Ultimately, they agree that if one should be wounded, the other must deal a
fatal blow as a form of mercy.

"How to Tell a True War Story"

O'Brien explores the telling of war stories by comrades, revealing that truth is delicate and malleable.
Anything can be faked ... but generally, only the worst events can be proven real. He concludes that, in
the end, the truth of a story doesn't matter so much as what the story is trying to say.

"The Dentist"

In order to mourn Curt Lemon, a man O'Brien did not know well, he shares a brief recollection about a
bizarre interaction between Lemon and an army dentist. Lemon, who is afraid of dentists, faints before
the dentist can examine him. Later that night, however, he complains of a phantom tooth ache so
severe a tooth is pulled - even though it's perfectly healthy. Lemon has felt he needs to prove himself in
front of his men and be the fearless man all soldiers are supposed to be.

"Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

O'Brien recounts the legendary (and almost certainly exaggerated) tale of Rat Kiley's first assignment,
near the Song Tra Bong river. The area is so isolated that one of the soldiers flies his hometown
girlfriend in by helicopter. At first, she cooks, cleans, and tends to the soldiers' wounds ... but gradually,
she assimilates into Vietnamese guerrilla culture, even wearing a necklace made of human tongues, and
disappears into the jungle.
"Stockings"

O'Brien explains how Henry Dobbins wore the stockings of his girlfriend around his neck to bed, and
sometimes to battle. Even when the girlfriend breaks things off, he keeps the stockings around his neck,
as their powers have been demonstrated.

"Church"

The platoon discovers an abandoned building being used as a sort of church, inhabited by monks who
bring them food and supplies. The men discuss their relationships with churches, and for the most part,
appreciate the interaction with other people and the peace of the building. Henry Dobbins wants to
become a priest, but decides otherwise.

"The Man I Killed"

O'Brien describes a man he killed in My Khe, and how he did it. He makes up a life story for the man,
torturing himself with the idea that the victim had been a gentle soul.

"Ambush"

O'Brien's daughter asks if he killed anyone in the war; he lies to her that he did not. He then tells the
story of an ambush outside My Khe, in which O'Brien kills a young man who may or may not have
wanted to harm him.

"Style"

The platoon witnesses a young Vietnamese girl dancing through the burned remains of her village, and
argue over whether it's a ritual or simply what she likes to do. Later, Azar mocks the girl, and Dobbins
rebukes him.

"Speaking of Courage"

After his service, Norman Bowker is at a loss. His former girlfriend has married someone else, his closest
friends are dead. He reflects on the medals he won in Vietnam, and imagines telling his father about
both these and the medals he did not win. Ultimately, although he has no one to share these memories
with, he finds catharsis in imagined conversations.

"Notes"
O'Brien says that Bowker asked him to write the previous story, and that he hanged himself three years
later unable to regain his footing and find any meaning in life after the war. O'Brien muses over the
suspicion that, without Harvard and writing, he too might have lost the will to live after returning from
Vietnam.

"In the Field"

When Kiowa is killed on the banks of a river, during a mission led by Jimmy Cross, Cross takes
responsibility for his death. He writes to Kiowa's father while the others search for the body - as usual,
Azar jokes around at first. Another soldier also feels responsible for the death, as he did not save Kiowa;
the story ends with the body being found in the mud, and both soldiers left to their guilt.

"Good Form"

O'Brien reiterates that the real truth does not have to be the same as the story truth, and that it is the
emotions evoked by the story that matter. He says that his story about killing a man on the trail outside
My Khe was false; he merely saw the man die. But he wanted to provoke the same feelings in the reader
that he felt on the trail.

"Field Trip"

After finishing the story, "In the Field," O'Brien says, he and his ten-year-old daughter visit the site of
Kiowa's death with an interpreter. The field looks different from his memory of it, but he leaves a pair of
Kiowa's moccasins in the spot where he believes Kiowa sank. In this way, he comes to terms with his
friend's death.

"The Ghost Soldiers"

O'Brien recounts the two times he was wounded. The first time, he is treated by Rat Kiley, and is
impressed with the man's courage and skill. The second time, he is treated by Kiley's replacement,
Bobby Jorgenson; Jorgenson is incompetent, and nearly kills O'Brien. Furious, O'Brien promises revenge,
but can recruit only Azar. They scare Jorgenson by pretending to be enemy soldiers, but the soldier
proves that he is not a coward, so O'Brien lets go of his resentment.

"Night Life"

O'Brien tells the second-hand account of Rat Kiley's injury: warned of a possible attack, the platoon is on
edge. Kiley reacts by distancing himself, the stress causing him first to be silent for days on end, and
then to talk constantly. He has a breakdown from the pressure of being a medic, and shoots himself in
the toe in order to get released from combat. No one questions his bravery.
"The Lives of the Dead"

O'Brien remembers his very first encounter with a dead body, that of his childhood sweetheart Linda.
Suffering from a brain tumor, Linda died at the age of nine and O'Brien was deeply affected by her
funeral. In Vietnam, O'Brien explains, the soldiers keep the dead alive by telling stories about them; in
this way, he keeps Linda alive by telling her story. The thought and presence of death has shown to have
a large effect on O'Brien.