This story is told in third person, but with the first person point of view of the narrator. According to Jill Talt-Kaufman, author of a narrative drama based on this story, “O’Brien as narrator focuses the reader’s attention on the platoon’s armaments and equipment; this detailed catalogue contrasts with the spare, economical way O’Brien describes their feelings”(19). Jill Talk-Kaufman also points out that O’Brien being author and narrator “fuse(s), dissolving demarcations between fiction and memoir, emphasizing theme and process” (20). O’Brien’s choice to use this type of point of view is necessary for readers to immerse themselves into the story, and place themselves in the action and mind of the characters. As Jill Taft-Kaufman explains, “the novel is about how storytelling affects teller and listener… draws the audience into an exploration of how the mind shapes experience in order to deal with death and loss, particularly in war” (20). This is an important aspect of this story to envision, O’Brien, as the narrator. The background and experiences of the author validates the feelings and emotions of these characters. It personifies these characters and allows the readers to live in the reality composed by author Tim O’Brien. As Taft-Kaufman puts it, “it would be crucial for the audience to recognize immediately that all the characters emerge from the narrator’s mind as he struggles with the past” (19). These emotions and feelings that reside in Lt. Cross originate from the experiences of Tim O’Brien. This use of point of view gives insight into the thoughts and feeling of those inflicted by the trauma of war. Moreover, it allows readers to experience the transformations of internal conflicts through the developments of defense mechanisms necessary for survival. The point of view by the author establishes the conflicts, however, it is equally important to identify the symbols and interpret their underlying meanings.
Symbolism is the key to understanding these conflicts and surfacing the underlying meanings. First, O’Brien provides great detail of what physically these men carry. Everything is broken down into ounces, pounds, and rounds. This exaggerated description shows the heavy weight these men carry without showing their vulnerabilities of the true emotional burdens that weight upon them. O’Brien’s in depth details of the physical things they carried is a ploy to attract attention away from the internal battles these men fought Another symbolism is the role that Martha plays to the main character Lt. Cross. Martha symbolizes the innocence and purity that Lt. Cross embodied before his exposure to the evils of war. It is not Martha, the person, who he needs to forget. Rather the struggle within himself to let go of his innocence and conform to the evils of war. This is necessary in order to survive, and to ensure the survival of his men. Development of defense mechanisms is necessary for these men to split from the realities of war. Narrator, Tim O’Brien, shows this through Lt. Cross’s description of the death of Ted Lavender. In that every time descriptions about the circumstances of Lavenders death arises, the tone quickly changes and focuses on something else. In the beginning of the story the narrator is going through descriptions of the items that three of the soldiers carried also giving clue to their personalities. “Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations… Dave Jansen, who practiced field hygiene…Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquillizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid April” (O’Brien, 523). With these descriptions the narrator goes into minute detail of each soldier, then when the description leads to Lavender, the narrator abruptly states how Lavender got killed. After this brief description of Lavender’s death, the narrator jumps to a different subject and generalizes the standard items all soldiers carry. “By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets and weighed five pounds including the liner and camouflage cover” (523). This shows the breaking away from reality of Lavender’s death and abrupt change in tone. Jill Taft-Kaufman notes the importance of these men, “to keep their feelings of vulnerability in check in order to carry on” (21). O’Brien makes it very apparent that creating defense mechanisms is essential to remain emotionally intact in combat. All in all, the symbolisms throughout, “The Things They Carried,” directly reflects the emotional burdens, loss of innocence, and defense mechanisms that truly weight upon these men’s shoulders.
This story doesn’t focus necessarily on the bombs and physical aspects of war. This story focuses on the men that fight it. They fight this war by physical means, but more importantly the battles within themselves. O’Brien allows the readers to obtain a small glimpse into what it really takes to survive war. He does this by selecting a point of view that allows readers to feel the heartaches, and internal struggles that soldiers confront in war. Ounces, pounds, or rounds do not measure internal and emotional burdens these men carry. Instead “they all carried ghosts,” these ghosts are the true weight they carried (526). The ghosts of lost innocence, of cowardice, of fallen soldiers, and of those they killed are what haunt these men. The use of symbolism uncovers these underlying struggles and shows the defense mechanisms essential to split from the evils of war. Most importantly the emphasis on point of view and symbolism of this story is the catalyst to capture the theme.
Works Cited
O’Brien, Tim. “The Things They Carried.”Barnet, Burto, and Cain. An Introduction to
Literature. (522-534).14th edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006
Taft-Kaufman, Jill. How to Tell a True War Story: The Dramaturgy and Staging of
Narrative Theatre. John Hopkins University Press.2000. Theatre topics 10.1
(17-38). UMUC Library Resources. Feb 15, 2006. <http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.
umuc.edu/journals/theatre_topics/v010/10.0taft-kaufman.html>