Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The book title, The Things They Carried, is the most accurate title that could have been given to the book written by Tim O’Brien. The title that O’Brien chose gives direct insight into what to the book is about: the things (burdens) soldiers carry when at war, and even when some return home. While soldiers will carry heavy physical loads at war, O’Brien describes to us the emotional loads men carry, and how some might be heaver than the physical loads. The emotional loads consist of many things and vary from man to man. Most soldiers carry a vast amount of grief, fear, love, loneliness, and longing. O’Brien connects the physical and emotional burdens of each man. For example, on page nine O’Brien mentions that Henry Dobbins physically …show more content…
The impact of separation and isolation on soldiers is constantly emphasized in the soldier’s stories. The thoughts the soldiers faced and the emotional burdens they carried were equivalently, if not more, dangerous than the opposing Vietnamese soldiers. In the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” we catch Mitchell Sanders’s story of how he, and additional soldiers, were made so paranoid by their experiences while listening to the patrol and Vietnamese radios that they would hear strange noises at random times of the day or even in their sleep. This is just one example in The Things They Carried depicting how imagination and internal thoughts rule the lives of a soldier. In Vietnam, isolation is synonymous with endless time to dwell on the things left unknown. In the chapter “The Ghost Soldiers,” we see how fear also controls the mind of a soldier. O’Brien attempts to takes complete advantage of Bobby Jorgenson on night duty. O’Brien plans to frighten Jorgenson but is reminded of how wicked his revenge plot is when O’Brien reflects on the fact he had an enormous childhood fear of the