'The Things They Carried'
'The Things They Carried' is a collection of twenty-two stories, all of which are based on the Alpha Company and the fate of the soldiers after their return to America from war. The soldiers carry along essential goods, and the war is isolating but exposes the truth of warfare. The story covers the war in Vietnam as a long and controversial military conflict between colors. It tells of the story of the squad of soldiers in the Vietnam war in a cut-through of the veil of romanticized war to show the heroic and flawed nature of the soldiers. The story "The Things They Carried" by O'Brien portrays a clear picture of race and class in America in the 1950s (O'Brien 3-4). Symbolism and characterization demonstrate the impact of racism and poverty among other core themes of the story.
Symbols
Tom O'Brien uses symbolism to show the challenges caused by racism and poverty. For instance, The Sewage Field is symbolic; in the story "Speaking of Courage," Norwan Bowker keeps driving around the lake thinking about what happened to Kiowa. Kiowa symbolizes the American decency which now drowns in the sewage of war (O'Brien 2). Norman Bowker's driving in circles is a symbol of his inability to speak about what is happening. He has a feeling that the war destroyed decency.
The nylon stockings worn by Henry Dobbins around his neck are also symbolic. He got them from his girlfriend back at home as a good luck charm, and they bring him good memories. The stockings might be a symbol of female intimacy, but they are also mysterious. The soldiers are puzzled by the effects that stockings have on Henry (O'Brien 4). In this context, the stockings symbolize the charm of the female sex which is now rare for the men here.
The title itself, "The Things They Carried" is also symbolic. It shows not only the physical things the solders carried but also the emotional baggage they carried. Some examples of the emotional baggage they took with them are love, fear, hope, religion, and guilt (O'Brien 5-6). The physical and emotional baggage they carry gives the audience a glimpse of their personalities.
In the book "The Things They Carried," the characters use imagery and symbolism to expose the hardships they experienced at the waterfront. "The grenade made a popping noise...not soft...there was a puff of dust .... invisible wires..." This quote expresses that the soldiers did things that made them feel guilty. Every soldier seems to feel guilty about something they have had to do in the war ground (O'Brien 10). Jimmy kills for the first time and feels like he did not have to do it; he feels guilty for running away and thinks that everyone knows what he has done.
Lieutenant Cross' trauma has been symbolized in the story; he is used by the writer to symbolize the guilt that the soldier's carried and the psychological turmoil they encountered. He daydreams all along about Martha, a girl he once loved and apparently, they will never be together. Being the leader of the platoon, he blames himself for any deaths of his soldiers. He confesses that he loved Martha more than any of the soldiers and that he would carry the guilt if his dead soldiers his entire life. Cross signed up to be a soldier just because his friends did. He feels horrible knowing that many soldiers are bound to die under his rule. While imagining of his romance with Martha, Jimmy Cross goes into his foxhole and reads the letters. To cope with the fear of being at war, the letters Martha writes to Jimmy Cross are a symbol of the emotional burden. Jimmy uses these letters to distract himself from war (O'Brien 10-17).
Additionally, the dead dainty young man is used by the writer to symbolize the faceless deaths that occur in Vietnam. O'Brien tells of the hundreds and thousands of Vietnam's who die as others go unidentified due to their burns. "There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces .... I was young and afraid to look...". O'Brien trails the young man to give the victims of the war some identity.
Again, Mary Anne Bell is the perfect symbol of racism and the primary embodiment of American arrogance in Vietnam. She appears her head high, in some pink sweater and culottes and full of curiosity. She demands to know everything that is happening on the battlefield as if it were her right. Like all Americans, she thinks she does not deserve the claws of the war as the blacks do (O'Brien 12-15). She claims that behind her sandbags, sometimes, she feels like consuming the whole place, however, she eventually slips off and leaves the soldiers and is not on their side anymore.
The puppy and a water buffalo are used as symbols of purity and innocence. The narrator flashbacks to a scene where one of his colleagues, Azar, straps a puppy to a pit and squeezes his gun. He celebrates as the animal groans for pain since it gave him a sense of control over his conditions. Again, Rat Kiley shoots a water buffalo to revenge the death of Curt Lemon. The narrator tells of how the animal is fully helpless against the aggression of Rat. The scene enhances the essence of inhumanity that the soldiers have acquired in the fields after witnessing the horrors and brutality of war (O'Brien 14). The animals are a reminder of the childhood purity and innocence that the men cannot acquire again.
Symbolism is evident in the scene where Dave Jensen carries a foot of a rabbit as a symbol of good luck to protect him from powers of the unknown. The dead boy's thumb gifted to him by Mitchell Sanders makes him feel tough. It provides comfort and hopes that someday, everything will be okay. The foot enabled him to counter the fears and worries of dying in the war. War has desensitized all these soldiers. It symbolizes the trauma that the soldiers have had to go through such that they have no sense of humanity at all (O'Brien 14-16). The superstitious symbols they carry with them through the war enable the reader feel all the emotional baggage and terror that these men endure from sunrise to sunset.
Evidently, symbolism serves an important function in the story by creating a link between the physical and emotional weight that the soldiers carry. It also serves to show the fear and callousness that the soldiers have gained and insensitivity that the war has driven them to. The themes have also been spearheaded by the numerous symbols that O'Brien uses. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that the writer personalizes the Vietnam war through symbols that lead to a better understanding of the story. Employing symbols in the story makes it imaginative and fascinating.
Works cited
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009, pp. 1-17.
