The Things They Carried

A detailed Summary of The Things They Carried

"The Things They Carried," written by author Tim O'Brien, is the fictionalized realistic war story telling of the baggage and necessity created by and in war. The story is told through the third person narrative, utilizing either Tim himself or some unknown/unnamed soldier telling it as it seemingly happened, as the narrator. The narrator whoever it actually is, told the story in a somewhat reliable manner. Nothing within the story seemed to contradict or overlap anything else, but the narrator certainly did jump from person to person telling of their feelings, actions, and importance. The narrator also expressed "supreme omniscience." This meant that the narrator knew all the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that all characters in the story seemed to display. This story is strictly narrative in the sense that no sort of actual dialogue is spoken throughout the piece. So, the text is very descriptive about what is really in and about the story. The story descriptions !

ranged from the things the soldiers carried to descriptions of how and who the soldiers were. "The things they carried were largely determined by neccessity. Among the neccessities or ne

their nature, Cross is a little less flat than the other characters written up in the story. Lieutenant Cross changed towards the end of the story into something so far evolved in his awareness of the war, much more so than who he is in the beginning. "He would accept the blame for what happened to Ted Lavender. He would be a man about it. He would look them in the eyes, keeping his chin level, and he would issue the new SOP's in a calm, impersonal tone of voice, an officer's voice, leaving no room for argument or discussion" (O'Brien 431).

The story is written not to inspire or uplift, as O'Brien has said in his other stories, but instead is written for the sake of putting words on to paper as an account of events that would possibly not be remembered forever. Technically, that is. The story carried a meaning that is about how people always have baggage. No matter what people do, where they are, who they are. They carry some sort of baggage or memory or whatever. The theme in this one is fairly well hidden though, and is sort of hard to find in this story. The author never really gave any kind of real actual theme though, but what is made for it is a good characterization method. The characters in this story again seemed to come to life throughout. Little bites of unnecessary, but necessary information is given about all the characters that seemed to either made them mortal and associable to

Some common words found in the essay are:
Ted Lavender, Tim O'Brien, O'Brien Placed, Tim O'Brien's, Lieutenant Cross, Jimmy Cross, Badenhop English, FORM Carried, characterization method, ted lavender, war story, flat characters, story carried, characters story, soldiers carried, jimmy cross, excess baggage,

Approximate Word count = 954
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels