Analyctial Essay Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

War is for Life: Vietnam The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a very descriptive story about a group of soldiers and their experiences during and after the Vietnam War. Included in this story of their experiences , is the physical weight of the objects they had to carry during the war. O’Brien not only tells the reader about the physical weight of war material , but also of the mental and emotional weight the war had on the soldiers. He goes into depth about the burdens of guilt, love, memory and terror the war had on his fellow men. O’Brien is sure to exaggerate these emotions in the story and makes it apparent to the reader that the physical weight of the war is heavy, but the emotional and mental weight are both heavier. The soldiers in the story are overwhelmed with a feeling of guilt throughout the story. At the start of the novel, O’Brien introduces two characters : Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Ted Lavender, who both contributed to Cross’ feeling of culpability during the novel. When Lavender died, he had just “popped a tranquilizer” (11). Cross was too busy daydreaming about “Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow T-shirt” (22). Cross’ mind wasn’t where it should’ve been, just as Lavender shouldn’t have taken that tranquilizer and he knew that. After Lavender’s death, Cross wanted to make sure that what happened to him wouldn’t happen to anybody else. He became strict with everybody including himself, “No more fantasies, he told himself” (23). He couldn’t stand by and watch his soldiers die one by one because of his fantasizing and lack of leadership skills. To Cross, Lavenders was his fault he hated that feeling of guilt. He hated it almost as much as the thought of another dead soldier on his watch. Death was one weight he didn’t want to carry anymore. He did not enjoy it and wanted to ensure that he never had to deal with the emotional weight of death again. He, like the other soldiers, was scared of death.
The soldiers