Love, Guilt and Death in "The Things They Carried"

In the inconceivable concept of war struggles occur on a moment-to-moment, place-to-place level and across many planes within each combatant. Beyond the obvious and often glamorized physical struggles of one soldier attempting to dispatch another soldier into the great beyond, soldiers deal with other forms of struggle be they mental, emotional or perhaps even spiritual. In his short story, “The Things they Carried” Tim O’Brien paints a picture of soldiers burdened with these pan-human struggles. From the physical accoutrements of battle to the emotional struggles of friends and family left behind at home, comrades left dead on the field of battle, the mental struggles of remaining sane amidst the insanity of battle, to the attempts to maintain rank and order in front of other men, O’Brien deftly describes the Herculean efforts of these common men. Men carrying much more than their battlefield gear.

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