The Things They Carried Analysis

We first learn about the sewage field in "Speaking of Courage," when Norman Bowker can't stop driving around a lake while he thinks about what happened to Kiowa. Kiowa, the most moral character in...

Because O'Brien starts with the war, we'll start there, too. First, some basic history:If you don't know already, the Vietnam War was a Cold War conflict that began for obscure reasons. Technical...

O'Brien switches back and forth between narrative voices, making the question about what's real and what isn't even more confusing. You start the book with "The Things They Carried," and you think...

Obviously, this is a war drama. It's more complicated than a simple war adventure, though. Because O'Brien finds the truth of the Vietnam War too complex to express through a straightforward reco...

While O'Brien's tone in regards to the war jumps around from emotional to clinical to manipulative to epic, his tone in regards to storytelling and the truth is constant: He is absolutely familiar...

O'Brien alternates between the grandiose and the conversational for effect. For example, in "The Things They Carried," we have this sentence: They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they car...

Shall we start with the lazy answer? You got it: "The Things They Carried" is the title of the first short story in the book, and therefore O'Brien chose it as the title of that book. Done.As we'r...

This book is essentially different from any other that has been published concerning the "late war" or any of its incidents. Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truth...

Okay, so, the first story, "The Things They Carried," is definitely about the war. It tells us about all the things that soldiers carry. (See "What's Up With the Title?" for more on this.) The b...

The language in The Things They Carried is not difficult to read. The vocabulary isn't simple, but it is modern, and the writing flows beautifully. The characters' dialogue carries the reader alo...

The Things They Carried doesn't really follow the classical narrative structure. While we do get exposition at the very beginning of the story in "The Things They Carried"—we're introduced to e...

In "On The Rainy River," Tim O'Brien is drafted to go to Vietnam.Before he's drafted, O'Brien has a totally abstract view of politics. He knows that he doesn't like the war, but for political re...

So right after he published The Things They Carried (in which O'Brien told us that he'd gone back to Vietnam, which wasn't true), O'Brien actually did go back to Vietnam. Then, in 1994, he publish...

There's no actual sex in this book, and the men don't even talk about it in very explicit terms. While Jimmy Cross does fantasize about tying Martha to his bed, it's not really in a super-sexual w...

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (On the Rainy River.64)Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone (On the Rainy River.64)Tim O'Brien, Going after Cacciato (How to Tell a True War S...