The Things They Carried is like an exercise in variation of style, with poetry and prose side-by-side blending with one another. Tim O'Brien more than lives up to the title by telling us not just what physical objects these soldiers are carrying, but the weight of those objects, and the Weight of it all. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from Martha back in New Jersey. These letters were not love letters like you might think. They weighed 4 ounces and were signed "Love, Martha," but she didn't mean Love as in "I love you," and those 4 ounces felt more like a thousand pounds on Lieutenant Cross' mind.
O'Brien goes through exceedingly meticulous laundry lists of the standard load of gear a soldier could be found hauling in the "late war," but the gear was of little importance. What was important was the weight it put on each soldier, physical and mentally. O'Brien uses normal prose to tell us all of these things. He tells us the story of what happened in this way, but when he finally gets to the meat of what they're really carrying--emotional baggage-- it reads more like spoken word beginning with "They were tough." on page 20 and ending after the first paragraph of page 22.
O'Brien is talking about real Weight and it's so important for him to say it, so important that he gets to the real Truth, that there's no time to breathe. There's no time to stop until the reader, someone, anyone finally gets it. The Weight is the secret fear that each soldier has-- people killing and dying because they were embarrassed not to. It seems so simple and petty of a fear, but it speaks to all of the things wrong with the idea that killing is heroic or that going to war is something honorable, or desirable in any way. And the story returns to First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and all of that fear and guilt and Weight is shut away. He was a soldier, after all.
Patrick, I agree with you entirely. The “laundry list” of items the soldiers kept with them is exactly what you described: symbolic, indicative of what each soldier thinks and feels, and riddled with meaning. I enjoyed the unique way we gained knowledge and understanding of the characters through what they kept with them, I found it very unique. To you last few comments, you touched on something I feel rather strongly about. You mentioned the idea of killing being heroic and the honor to be found in war. I hear soldiers, seamen, airmen, marines alike say that they would give their life in our country’s defense. Although it’s true (and written in the Military Code of Conduct and most creeds), I’m perturbed by the idea that someone is putting our men and women in love with the idea of death. Personally, I would want my men to hate the idea of dying so much that they fight to the last to avoid it. By the same token, I do not advocate joining the military, I feel like it’s a calling, you either have it or you don’t. I really enjoyed your post.
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