Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: An Analysis

Many people, in some point in their lives will experience a death of a loved one and will try to cope with it as best as they can. In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien talks about his war stories and how he and the soldiers handled the deaths of the soldiers while at war. The soldiers had to deal with the stress, sadness, and guilt when seeing their partner get killed. O’Brien talks about the different coping mechanisms the soldiers use when facing the death of a fellow comadre. The soldiers tell jokes, write letters, tell stories, take responsibility of their death, and even reenact the death scene. Trying to cope with the death of a person in your life is a time of sadness and some people even feel guilt. Through the emotions people face, some try to cope with death by telling jokes to make themselves feel better. By telling jokes, it temporarily relieves the sadness that was on your mind and just reminds you of the good times you have had with that person. In “The Things They Carried”,
When your friend dies, you may feel as if it is unfair and may want to seek revenge upon someone or something else. By doing so, you are bringing your pain and anger towards someone else so that they feel what you are feeling. Even though this method of dealing with death is not the best way to go, it is still common and when you are in a state of death, you do not consider how others will feel, rather how you feel. In the book, O’Brien explains that a time this happened was after Lemon was killed, Kiley’s best friend, Kiley shot a Viet Cong water buffalo several times. After Kiley shot the buffalo, it laid there bleeding but still remained alive. Kiley was distraught over Lemon’s death and so all he wanted was to see something else in the same pain he was going through. This coping mechanism is used when you do not blame yourself, rather the world for their