Essays on The Things They Carried

Ambiguous morality;Social Obligation,Storytelling and Memory, Shame and Guilt, Loneliness and isolation, the dead young Vietnamese soldier; Kathleen; Linda

The primary theme in the novel is the burdens we all carry. Physical and emotional burdens; fear of shame as motivation; the subjection of truth to storytelling

"They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment."
"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole."
"But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world"
"I survived, but it's not a happy ending."

The Things They Carried" was included in the 1987 volume of The Best American Short Stories, edited by Ann Beattie. O'Brien has expressed surprise at how the book has become very popular in middle schools and high schools.
Before the book's publication in 1990, five of the stories: "The Things They Carried," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "The Ghost Soldiers," and "The Lives of the Dead" were published in Esquire.[37]
"Speaking of Courage" was originally published (in heavily modified form) as a chapter of O'Brien's earlier novel Going After Cacciato.

Ambiguous morality;Social Obligation,Storytelling and Memory, Shame and Guilt, Loneliness and isolation, the dead young Vietnamese soldier; Kathleen; Linda

The primary theme in the novel is the burdens we all carry. Physical and emotional burdens; fear of shame as motivation; the subjection of truth to storytelling

"They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment."
"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole."
"But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world"
"I survived, but it's not a happy ending."

The Things They Carried" was included in the 1987 volume of The Best American Short Stories, edited by Ann Beattie. O'Brien has expressed surprise at how the book has become very popular in middle schools and high schools.
Before the book's publication in 1990, five of the stories: "The Things They Carried," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "The Ghost Soldiers," and "The Lives of the Dead" were published in Esquire.[37]
"Speaking of Courage" was originally published (in heavily modified form) as a chapter of O'Brien's earlier novel Going After Cacciato.