Key Facts
full title · The Things They Carried
author · Tim O'Brien
type of work · Collection of interconnected short stories
genre · War stories; coming-of-age stories; memory stories
language · English
time and place written · Massachusetts, late 1980s
date of first publication · 1990
publisher · Houghton Mifflin / Seymour Lawrence
narrator · Tim O'Brien
point of view · Most of the stories are told from the first person,
but on several occasions, O'Brien uses the third person as either
a distancing tactic or a chance to let one of his platoon-mates,
such as Mitchell Sanders or Rat Kiley, tell his story.
tone · The Things They Carried is an introspective
memory story and a self-conscious examination of the methods and
reasons behind storytelling. The narrator is unreliable; he speaks
of the necessity of blurring truth and fiction in a true war story.
tense · Past tense, shifting between the Vietnam War in the
late 1960s and the narrator's immediate past,
twenty years after the war
setting (time) · Late 1960s and late 1980s
setting (place) · Vietnam and Massachusetts
protagonist · Tim O'Brien
major conflict · The men of the Alpha Company, especially Tim O'Brien,
grapple with the effects—both immediate and long-term—of the Vietnam
War.
rising action · In the summer of 1968, Tim O'Brien
receives a draft notice. Despite a desire to follow his convictions
and flee to Canada, he feels he would be embarrassed to refuse to
fulfill his patriotic duty and so concedes to fight in Vietnam.
climax · During their tour of duty, the men of the Alpha Company
must cope with the loss of their own men and the guilt that comes
from killing and watching others die.
falling action · After he returns from war, O'Brien grapples with his
memories by telling stories about Vietnam.
themes · Physical and emotional burdens; fear of shame as motivaton;
the subjection of truth to storytelling
motifs · Storytelling; ambiguous morality; loneliness and isolation
symbols · The dead young Vietnamese soldier; Kathleen; Linda
foreshadowing · O'Brien mentions the deaths of men such as Ted Lavender,
Curt Lemon, and Kiowa before he gives detailed accounts of how and when
they died in later stories.
