The Things They Carried

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to start this discussion i think that we should first talk about the title of the book. why do u guys think that the things they carried is the title?

Id say the the title of the book has two deeper meanings. The first being a lot of the characters in the story had something important that they carried with them, that showed and important part of who they were . Like Jimmy Cross who carried the picture of the girl he loved,the doctor Ted Lavender who carried more morphine, Klowa who carried the prayer pillow. Its meaning could also be about the fact that characters in the story bought back harsh feelings about them selfs or the war. Like the man who after the war feels so out of place in society that he eventually kills himself, or Norman Bouwker who never feels right after taking the blame for Klowa's deah.

i agree. i also think that its important that the weight of every item is known to the nearest decimal. because they keep track of such exact measurements you can understand that they went through a great burden.

hey guys!! casey, well done on starting us off with a good question.
i would have to agree with will, on the most obvious meaning of the book title, the things they carried, to the "things they actually carried", from their weapons to dave jensen's lucky rabbits foot. and then again, each person carried something different, like jim cross who carried his 'girlfriends' letters to ted lavander who carried tranquilizers, morphine, and, marijuana.

and then there is another meaning to the title, and that is the memories, wether good or bad, that they ALL carried.
like when the first person of their battalion, ted lavander was killed, or when Kiowa was killed. those are memories (things) that those men will have to carry for the rest of their lives.

Nice discussion on the first story, gentlemen. What about the rest of the book? Are there things that are carried (yet perhaps not as obviously) in some of them? Please discuss the other stories that stood out for you and ask questions about them.

Calwell I like the comment. One thing that really stood out for me was the whole storytelling thing. I think that the author is trying to show us that the way to deal with death is to tell stories of the deceased and of how they died to bring them back to life somewhat. We see this with Ted, Kiowa, Curt, and even Linda, the girl that died when Tim Obrien was a kid. By creating stories about them, even if the stories are exagerated or just untrue, it makes their death not seem so real. This is one of the themes that ties the stories in this book together.

Reguarding Stephen's comment, i don't really think that the character's deaths are made to seem less real. I think that their deaths are being emphasised to make the war and the characters seem more real, like actual people.

yeah step, but sometimes even more basic than that. when O'Brien killed that guy and was in sort of a shock, and kiowa and the guys were trying to get him to talk about it and not hold in all his emotions. its not just keeping them alive, its being able to get it out, so the thought of the person isnt constantly burning inside you. Also kind of dealing with KC's question, i think its more to do with them mentally, yeah they carried things, but you can put material things down, you cant put down the images/thoughts/feelings of killing a man, or seeing someone you know die, just like will said the guy who couldnt handle regular life when he went back(same thing as the guy in shaw shank redemption). you see similar things now with the current war, people who come back shell shocked, or without limbs, they will always carry those handicaps and life will never be the same.

KC, i think that step is saying that by reminiscing on the good things, even if they are embellished a little, like thinking of good times you had with the person who died makes them feel less distant, and in a sense less dead.

Yea JB thats what I was tryin to say. But about the them carrying things like the mental images of death and other things like that I think those can count as things they carried. With the Bowker guy he couldn't live with those things and the contrast to life at home so he killed himself. This also brings us back to story telling because Obrien's way of dealing with the things he saw in Nam' and the mental things he still carries with him is to write books and stories about them.

hey guys. in regard to dr wheelers question, on which on the stories stuck out the most, i would have to go with the chapter, the man i killed. i was surprised how attached tim was to the enemy he killed. i mean it can be impacting to someone after they kill another human, but just the mental side of things, and how badly it affected him... i mean he thinks about the life that this guy could have had, with his wife and all. he says, "the man i killed would have been determined to continue his education in mathematics...and after his year at the university, the man i killed retuned with his new wife to the village of My Khe, where he enlisted with the 48th vietcong battalion, and knew he would die quickly after

just the fact that he kept starring at the dead body, with the perfect nose, but messed up eyes/jaw/teeth...it was just shocking to how deeply it affected tim and how he was COMPLETELY speechless, and did not even acknowledge Kiowa's presence was surprising to me, especially how close Kiowa and tim were-

my question to the bloggers is, what do you think the butterfly represented that landed on the dead dude's chin?

yeah, honestly the whole idea of killing someone, in such a violent way and having to see their remains must be strange, T-OBRIEN must of felt wrong, for taking this mans life even though he saved there lives, thats why i think he was dwelling on it for so long, as if he had no right to play god (i got this from when he was thinking of what the kid did in his past in great detail). It must be hard once you kill, even if it saves yourself, because your not just killing a enemy, your killing someones family member, friend, lover and that thought must eat away at you, taking away not only his own life, but what he was to other people. oh and in response to AT's question i think the butterfly repesents a balance of life and death, how you cant have one with out the other. A kind of ying and yang idea, one without the other would leave the world misguided.

dude, good thinking JB
i would have never thought to use the ying and yang analogy, or just the fact that the butterfly represented a balance of life and death. awesome job JB; thanks for helping me figure that out too

Yea dudes that was definitely a shocking story and I like the life and death thing young bairdequin. The only weird thing I thought was that at one point in the book Obrien says that he can't even remember whether it was him who killed the guy. He says it could have been him or one of the others in his platoon. I think this further reinforces the point that the fact of death and killing severely mentally affects people: Obrien doesn't remember who did the killing but the image of the dead young man is forever etched in his mind. It shows that Obrien (and probably most other nam soldiers) hated killing and the killing they had to do in nam and the death they experienced stays with them forever.

Alright men lets move off death and talk about some of the cool stories in the book. Like the one with the sweet farm girl who travels out to a bass camp. How she eventually found the wild woman in her and threw her old life plans away to go on dangerous night missions with the green barrette. Necklace of body parts, pretty bad ass!

First of all, I got a whole jewelery set of body parts. Secondly, yea that story was really weird. I just couldnt get over the fact that that just wouldnt happen in a war. I didnt really get that much from that story other then it was a kind of funny story that might of cheered up the spirits of the soldiers. Other then that though, it just sounded like too much b.s., even for a "war story". Hopefully you guys saw something there that I didnt.

I don't know step, the whole body collecting thing seems pretty common in most war stories/movies. remembering in Saving Private Ryan when the dude carries around the hand in his bag, and how Native Americans would scalp their victims as a sort of trophy. Its like a symbol of accomplishments like the lucky charms in Austin Powers, just super creepy one.

Come on Jon the adults are talking don't interrupt. I think Stephen was talking more about how there would be no way to ship your girlfriend into the middle of the Vietnam War. But you have to take into account that we are hearing the story from a character that is known for stretching the truth. Like how he tells the whole trick or treating story. I honestly thought that this was a big problem in the book, i didn't like the fact that you never knew how true what you were would turn out to be. It gave me little trust in the story teller and therefor made the stories less epic.

Yeah that wasn't really realistic. it's more common to collect trinkets i.e. a dog tag as recognition that they survived or to remember a lost friend.

any way, back to the book. i agree with Stephen and Will about the girlfriend story. his other exagerations can lead you believe that it never happened at all

Alright, lets start to go in a different direction. Remember when obrien was shot for the 2nd time, and went into shock and was angry at the new medic and blamed it on him. Do you think, if the original medic had made that mistake he would of been as mad as he was, or because he put his trust and belief in someone he didn't know that well (and they failed) was the reason he was so pissed? Imagine how hard it must be, not only being at war and away from home and comfort, but to have to trust people you don't know to cover and give you assistance when your hurt and once you become comfortable with them, they die, or their term ends.

Jon I like it. Yea i definitely think that alot of the reason Obrien was so pissed was because the guy was kind of an outsider. We see this when they are all together afterwards at the service depot and Obrien is planning to get back at the guy (sorry cant remember his name) and he gets even more pissed off every time he sees the guy fitting in with Obrien's old platoon. This makes Obrien want to get back at the guy even more.
This whole thing seems bogus to me because when Obrien arrived in the platoon, all the guys were nice to him and helped him get over his shock at seeing death. But I guess for some people it is tough to instantly accept and trust someone as a comrade.

yeah, i would have to agree with stephen. like i think o'brien was double pissed that he was kinda 'kicked out' of the old company, then got re-located to that safer company...but in reference to JBs question i think that he was just pissed off because he didnt really trust the new medic, and like stephen said, an outsider. i mean i think that o'brien just had to get the dude more, and put more trust into his hands, like he is a medic, and tried to do the best he could to help out o'brien.

and it wasnt even a big deal after that because when o'brien tried to get 'revenge' on the medic by scaring him while he was on night duty with azar, it didnt really work; and in the end of it all o'brien and the medic ending up being friends, and jokingly wanted to try to scare azar, which i find hilarious.