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Analysis of The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien’s "The Things They Carried" is a novel that could be easily read and interpreted as a work of nonfiction. I would have thought the book was just short stories that happened while he was in Vietnam if not for the cover page saying a work of fiction. In the book the narrator might as well be Tim O’Brien himself. With a novel such as this it isn’t hard to believe that Tim O’Brien must have drawn heavily on his own personal experience that he went through to write something as easily believable as the truth. With a book written so well and is so integrated with the history of the author it is hard to tell where these stories become fiction.

"O'Brien agonized about whether to ignore or accept his draft notice. After a decision described in his war autobiography as a "sleep-walking default," O'Brien entered the army." (Herzog) O’Brien was drafted to the war after he graduated college from Macalester College, graduating with a BA in political science. Much like his character in "The Things They Carried" he was opposed to the war in Vietnam. The chapter "On the Rainy River" tells the story of the character O’Brien making the tough decision of jumping the border and skipping the war or doing his patriotic duty and fighting for his country. In the begging of this chapter it talks about his job and him taking drives thinking about what he is going to choose. It describes a man that is just going through the motions of everyday life while his mind is preoccupied with greater worries. It is easy to understand where Tim O’Brien got the idea to write this chapter and to give his character such thoughts that many people could relate to it.
 
In the book his character was shot twice, one of the shots being nothing more than an easy fix followed by a week or two in the hospital. The second shot has more a story. It was the catalyst that set in motion the story between himself and the medic named Bobby Jorgenson. This epic tale is told in the chapter "The Ghost Soldiers". In the story he was shot in the butt, while he was laying there it took Bobby a longer time than it should have for him to get over to O’Brien. Compared to the first time he was shot where he had his friend there to take care of him and give him pain medicine, the second time the pain had already set in. Later he found out that he could have died from shock. This second wound took him out of the foot solider job that he had been doing to a desk job. The rest of the chapter is O’Brien getting revenge on Jorgenson; because O’Brien feels that he was let down and Jorgenson is the reason he no longer feels apart from guys that he used to feel closer to before his job change. "O’Brien served from 1969 to 1970 and was wounded during his tour of duty." (Krstovic pg. 82) With this piece of information people can see that some of the things the character felt was a shared experience that Tim used to write this story. Not being able to find more information that occurred when he was shot it is hard to tell which time the character was shot was more alike to the time O’Brien was shot. It doesn’t really matter though because Tim could have had a time similar to the first shot but had time to think about how it could have been if he didn’t have a good medic or like the second where he had a lousy experience and thought how it could of bee different if his good friend Rat to take care of him. Since the chapter has more to do with the second shot then the first I think Tim’s actual wound was more like the second.

"O'Brien's indirect consideration of the nature of good storytelling and the meaning of the word "true" becomes more overt in another of the book's twenty-two stories as the author, through his fictional narrator, examines the relationship between literary lies and story truths." (Herzog) This book is full of blurred lines of lies that make the stories better but the stories are still true. If that wasn’t confusing enough, the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story" is all about stories that have lies. "He has described himself as a lonely child, an overweight 'dreamer' who amused himself with magic tricks." (Frost) Magic tricks are kind of a perfect comparison to what O’Brien is trying to prove in the chapter. Magic is real right, a rabbit in a hat disappears. Yes but it is just an illusion that magician does for entertainment. It is the same with stories that are being told in the book, O’Brien is the magician and he tells us that these are just stories but tells them as if they were real. So they are real stories they just aren’t true stories. O’Brien knew that people would get confused reading this book if he didn’t put a work of fiction on the cover page. This chapter is just another way of saying just because I’m telling you a story like it really happened don’t mean it did.
 
Most of the chapters have the narrator the main focus of the stories. The other characters get some attention but not as in depth as the narrator. The exception to this is the four or five chapters where we are in the head of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Jimmy Cross stories usually involve the death of one of their friends. In the book it describes the guilt he feels for the death of his men. People blame him for the deaths this is more portrayed in the death of Kiowa. As Jimmy Cross can be a bit distracted at times or have bad judgment he carries the weight of the death of his men squarely on his shoulders. Tim O’Brien was never in charge so I suspect that all the truthiness in these stories come from when him and his Lieutenant. The biggest factors that make this a very plausible conclusion are the dedication of the book "This book is lovingly dedicated to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins and Kiowa." (O’Brien) and the chapter "Love". "Love" is a story after the war when Jimmy Cross visits the narrator in his home. At the end of the chapter the narrator asks Jimmy Cross if he can write about some of the things they went through, Jimmy says yes. "And do me a favor. Don’t mention anything about-"(O’Brien pg. 29) this can be seen as Jimmy asking to tell the story of how he lost his men. This chapter since it told from the point of view of the narrator it was more than likely a similar event that Tim O’Brien went through. Even though the parts with Jimmy Cross are written with second hand experience it is not lesser beautifully written then other parts in which O’Brien has firsthand experience. This leads me to believe that O’Brien and his lieutenant were fairly close and O’Brien has empathized with him.
 
O’Brien book "The Things They Carried" he uses his real life memories to write about a fake person who is telling stories that are real but never happened. Tim O’Brien and the narrator are so similar they might as well be the same person; they share the same name and many experiences. The only reason they aren’t the same person is because the stories in which the narrator are telling are fiction. Tim O’Brien’s experiences are different from the stories told in the book. There are many similarities between his real life and what he wrote about in the book. With this book he performs magic that he grew up loving, a magician of words he uses to show everybody a world that is described beautifully.

　

　

Work Cited

Frost, Adam. "O’Brien, Tim, 1946-." Literature Online Biography. (a ProQuest
Information and Learning Company), 2002. Web. 4 Nov. 2010
Herzog, Tobey C. "Tim O'Brien (1946- )." Literature Online Biography (a ProQuest
Information and Learning Company), 2001. Web. 4 Nov. 2010
Krstovic, Jelena. "Tim O’Brien (1946-)." Vol. 123. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. 82-190. Literature Criticism Online. Web. 4 Nov. 2010
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: a Work of Fiction. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Print.

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