An Essay on Tim O'Brien's Short Story "The Things They Carried"

Tim O'Brien's short story "The Things They Carried" is at times a recitation of the mundane items carried by the soldiers of Alpha Company, fired off as if from the barrel of a rifle, and at other times is an in-depth look at the thoughts and emotions of the "grunts" as they "hump" their way through the jungles of Vietnam. It demonstrates that, while each man determines the physical items he carries in his pack; it is the psychological items that determine what each man carries in his heart. And while the physical items may change, it is the psychological that, in the end, changes them.

Narrated in the omniscient third-person, we learn of Lieutenant Cross and his platoon of men and the physical items each carry. O'Brien "uses this technique to describe the grunts experience not in terms of how they carry on, but what they carry on." (Piedmont-Marton 21) Each item carried is determined by many factors: rank, mission, time of day and, most importantly, by each man's unique character. "The soldiers in Lt. Cross's platoon are what they carry."(Piedmont-Marton 31) "Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations"; Kiowa carried his grandfather's hunting hatchet; "Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds" of ammunition, tranquilizers and "six or seven ounces of premium dope" "plus the unweighed fear." It is this emotion, that of fear, that makes the extra weight in drugs and ammunition a necessity to him and "necessity dictated."