The things They Carried Analytical Letter
Friday, October 10th
Hello Ivy,
How are you? I want to talk to you about the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. My class read this book and I know that your class did too! Overall, I really enjoyed reading the different short stories in this book. O’Brien wrote these to inform readers of his daily life in combat. Once I got to the end, I figured out that all these stories were related to each other in a different way. In this letter, I am going to talk to you about a theme that I saw repeated in many chapters throughout this book.
The theme that stood out the most was the idea that storytelling can help soldiers heal from their shame and guilt. Storytelling is one of the ways that O'Brien healed himself from the stress after war because he really wanted to reflect and show this theme through his writing. There are a few chapters that really reflect this theme. One chapter is "The Man I Killed." This chapter shows O'Brien's guilt by examining the soldiers corpse and describing it in gruesome detail. In addition, "Speaking of Courage" shows that a soldier does not have much support when returning home from war.
In the story, "The Man I Killed," O'Brien is in denial after killing a Vietnamese soldier in battle. O'Brien's friends try to help him through the guilt of killing this innocent soldier. "Think it over," Kiowa said. Then later he said, "Tim, it's a war. The guy wasn't Heidi-he had a weapon, right?" It's a tough thing, for sure, but you got to cut out that staring..."(120). Although Kiowa was trying to convince O'Brien to walk away and forget about what he has done, his help is quickly dismissed by O'Brien. The details begin to get more gruesome when O’Brien describes the dead soldier with “His jaw in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole…” (295). O’Brien has the ability to express his guilt through his writing. Using details as gruesome as the ones described, help him cope with the fact that he did kill the man he is writing about.
In the story, "Speaking of Courage," we learn about Norman Bowker's life after the war. Norman Bowker was imagining what a conversation would be like with his father. Norman Bowker would begin his story with “I almost won the Silver Star...” (334). Later on in the story, Norman would lie to himself by saying “Well this one time, this one night out by the river...I wasn’t very brave…” (336). We know he is lying to himself because he wants to share a story that is not true. Because of this, he has a tremendous amount of guilt building up inside.If Norman had someone to talk to, he may not feel so guilty on the inside. Having someone to talk with could help him cope with his unforgettable war stories that seemed to wreak havoc on his life and make it easier for him to participate in everyday activities.
If we keep reading the story, “Speaking of Courage,” we continue to learn about the effects the war had on Norman Bowker’s mental health. As Norman Bowker begins his final revolution around the lake, he continues to think about how he was the one who killed Kiowa. Bowker always felt extremely guilty and remembered each moment like “He could not talk about it and never would. The evening was smooth and warm. If it had been possible, which it wasn’t, he would have explained how his friend Kiowa away that night beneath the dark swampy field. He was folded in with the war; he was part of the waste…(363). Bowker will never be able to live with the fact that he contributed to the death of his friend. Having the opportunity to tell his story could help him cope with the fact that his friend may have died at his fault.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I hope you did too! The various themes in this book really stood out to me. After reading The Things They Carried, I gained a new perspective of the thoughts in a soldier's mind. On the battlefield and at home, nothing seems to change after returning from war . After reading this letter, I hope you have a new appreciation for this book. The author does a great job of showing the different perspectives of the war in Vietnam. I hope everything is well! Talk to you later.
Sincerely,
Max Richter
In class, we read the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.