The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien tells the stories of a small company of American soldiers serving in the Vietnam War. Through the narrative, the book blurs the line between autobiography and fiction, leaving the reader unsure as to what is fact and what is myth. In reading these stories, we explore the harrowing physical and psychological toll of warfare and the dehumanizing and brutalizing effects of combat on human beings. We see these men engage in shocking acts of cruelty toward Vietnamese soldiers, civilians, each other, and even themselves. We see how the high chance of sudden death makes life a cheap commodity for the soldiers.We also see the transformative power that narrative and storytelling have to help us make sense of our experiences and give meaning and clarity to even the most shocking, chaotic, and traumatizing events. Telling stories enables them to objectify their experiences, to make them seem more distant, third-party, and remote—and thus, more bearable. But creating a narrative around their experiences also brings the war and the people whom they lost to it back to life. Telling their stories makes them immortal.