The Things They Carried | Essays and Criticism

  • The Real and Unreal

    In this essay she discusses the blending of the real and unreal, the tangible and the imaginative, in ''The Things They Carried."

  • The Weight of War

    In the following essay, this author discusses the physical and emotional weight of the Vietnam War on a group of soldiers.

  • The Things Men Do: The Gendered Subtext in Tim O'Brien's Esquire Stories

    In the following excerpt, Smith contends that the dramatic resolution of ''The Things They Carried" "turns on recovering masculine power by suppressing femininity in both male and female characters,’’ and that female characters in O'Brien's work are often only plot devices.