Preconceived Ideas In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried
694 Words3 Pages
Objects of everyday life of a certain time period can tell you a lot about their culture and who they are. In the story “Things They Carried,” the author goes on and on listing things that were carried by soldiers during the Vietnam War. There were common things like toothbrush and water, the things you would expect, but then the author gets more personal talking about specific soldiers and their personal items. Every soldier had something from home, something to remind them of what they were fighting for or to at least keep them connected to the real world. Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers because he was always scared, Jimmy Cross carried letters because he needed to feel love, and Mitchell Sanders carried condoms. The things they carried…show more content… A quote from S. Karnow off the History Learning Company website says, “The heat and rain and insects were almost worse than the enemy. Drenched in sweat, the men waded through flooded paddies and plantations, stopping from time to time to pick leeches out of their boots.” Just from the description of mosquito repellent, rain jackets, mosquito netting, and machetes, you can picture them trudging through the jungle. In my research I found out that the war in Vietnam wasn’t like any war we have had before. Vietnam fought using guerilla warfare, which means they came out of nowhere and could vanish just as quick. Because of this, there were many more innocents killed than there should have been. This explains why the soldiers had such a hard time coping with everything that was going on. Often when we hear them talking we hear about the different ways the soldiers feel when it comes to the war. Kiowa even talks about how he wished he could feel more and be more upset, but he just isn’t. (“War in Vietnam”) Although it seems like a glorified list of things soldiers carried, “Things They Carried” has so much more meaning and depth. The reader can tell a lot about how the war was for a soldier both physically and emotionally. The things all represent artifacts of life and times during which the writer is in. They represent the way the military culture is changing and the lifestyle