The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien: Literary Analysis

The Things They Carried is an assortment of short stories that, more or less, have some relation with each other. The first story, “The Things They Carried”, is a portion of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’ point of view and a portion of narration that describes the things the men of the platoon carry. The things the men carried depended on several aspects; “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity.” (O’Brien 2). They carried many necessities, tangible and intangible from dope to guilt, a diary to terror, a letter to love, each having “their own mass and specific gravity” (20). “Love” is narrated by (fictional) Tim O’Brien and is set in present-day, after the war. Jimmy Cross has gone to visit O’Brien and they talk of the things they …show more content…
He ends up dying from his wound, relieving Jensen of the weight. One of the deaths mentioned many times throughout the collections is Curt Lemon’s. The main story of his death is in “How to Tell a True War Story”; which has two stories that the narrator, Tim O’Brien, talks about to show examples of telling a war story that can be true or made up. He expresses that “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.” (67). The first story told is of Lemon’s death and is mentioned in an range of versions that all offer a different detail of the death. The second story told is from Mitchell Sanders; about six men who went on patrol in the mountains and end up freaking out. They would hear music so they had the place blown up; afterwards, they can still hear the sounds. O’Brien concludes that in the end, the only way to tell a true war story is to trust in your instincts; “A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (74). “The Dentist” is a shorter story about Curt Lemon. It is put in as a way to further describe his