Fiction's Mutability

One of the central themes in The Things They Carried is the nature of storytelling itself. Many of the stories in the collection have metafictional qualities, and the narrator often draws attention to the blend of fact and fancy which goes into telling a story. Even a story based on fact is not entirely the hard, unvarnished truth, as O'Brien points out over and over.

Stories are also changed depending on the desires of the author. In "Love," which largely takes place years after the war, Tim meets First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross again and tells him he is writing about his experiences in Vietnam. Jimmy tells him to make him out to be a better person than he actually was and not to bring up anything that might show him in an unflattering or vulnerable light:

[Jimmy] got into his car and rolled down the window. "Make me out to be a good guy, okay? Brave and handsome, all that stuff. Best platoon leader ever." He hesitated for a second. "And do me a favor. Don't mention anything about—."
"No," I said. "I won't."

"How to Tell a True War Story" is one of the most metafictional stories in the book. The narrator says outright that "true war stories" are never about imparting morals or instructing the reader. He also says "it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen," since subjectivity plays such a big part of memory. So, even though none of the stories are exact reproductions of reality, they are authentic reproductions of the subjective experience of being in the Vietnam War.

The Emotional Weight of War

The titular "things they carried" not only refers to physical objects but to inner conflicts and memories which trouble the young soldiers. As the first story in the collection states, "They all carried ghosts." This baggage often either keeps the young men going in their trying circumstances or hinders them. Sometimes, the baggage has both effects at once.

The best example of double-edged baggage is Jimmy Cross's unrequited love for a girl back home named Martha. This love is symbolically represented by the letters from her he keeps on his person. He projects romantic ideals onto Martha, imagining fictional trips and trysts between them and wondering if she is still a virgin, when in reality, Martha is not interested in him and has no plans to change their relationship. However, the hope that things might change between them provides Jimmy with a false hope and a reason to get through the day.

When Ted Lavender is killed while Jimmy is distracted by thinking about Martha, Jimmy finally accepts that Martha will never love him. He takes on the additional burden of guilt, which the narrator describes as being like "a stone in his stomach."

A major theme that this story explores is the initiation of young men in wartime, when youths must become men. Pranksters must become killers, dreamers must become realists—or someone dies. The world of the intellect (Lieutenant Cross is a college graduate, Martha’s letters express her admiration for Geoffrey Chaucer and Virginia Woolf) is of little relevance here; neither is romance or idealism. Courage becomes a concept without meaning. Getting through the experience alive is the important thing, as Kiowa knows too well. Fear paralyzes them all, yet somehow they manage to continue their march, to put themselves at risk, to carry out their orders. The trick is to survive.

The weight of their burdens is real. What these men have to nourish and protect them is only what they bear on their backs. Scarcely past boyhood, a medic packs his comic books and M&M candies for the relief of particularly bad wounds. A gentle soldier carries a rubbery brown thumb cut from a Viet Cong corpse. A third, a big, stolid man, packs with him the delicacy of canned peaches and his girlfriend’s pantyhose. The men also carry infection, disease, and the land itself in the particles of dust and mud. They carry fear. They carry the weight of memory; they carry ghosts. They carry the burden of being alive; they carry “all they could bear, and then some.”

Each man likewise carries within himself a longing for escape from the senseless and terrible reality of war. Some make their escape through sleep, as Kiowa does. Others manage to survive through daydreams, like Lieutenant Cross, or through drugs, like Ted Lavender. Every man waits for the blessed moment when a plane, or “freedom bird,” will lift him above the ruined earth, the sordidness and death, his own shameful acts, into the lightness of air and the promise of home. The phrase “Sin loi! . . . I’m gone!” echoes in their real and imagined nightmares.

One of the central themes in "The Things They Carried" is the contrast between illusion and reality. On a broad scale, this is exemplified by the idealized image of the brave wartime soldier. While the soldiers in "The Things They Carried" are not depicted as cowards, they are portrayed as ordinary men who fear death and dying, and are also terrified of being perceived as cowardly:

They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide . . . they carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.

The war itself is, in part, perpetuated by America's need to uphold a myth—to never appear cowardly, even if it means engaging in a senseless conflict to maintain that image.

Another illusion is the sense of safety and comfort provided by the items the soldiers carry or "hump." On the surface, each man carries objects that offer different forms of reassurance against their individual fears. For instance, Lavender carries tranquilizers because he is afraid of dying, and Jimmy Cross carries a pebble, symbolizing his love for Martha. Collectively, they bear heavy equipment, such as the twenty-eight-pound mine detector. However, the comfort these items provide is deceptive, as none can offer genuine help in critical moments. Lavender's tranquilizers, meant to soothe him if he were shot, are useless against his sudden and senseless death, likely leaving him with no time to feel anything. Meanwhile, Jimmy Cross holds onto his love for Martha, a college student in New Hampshire, as a balm for the wounds of war. Yet, this love proves illusory in many ways. He understands that although Martha signs her letters "love," "'Love' was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant." Martha is so disconnected from the war that she cannot even address it, merely advising Jimmy Cross to "take care of himself" in her letters. The pebble she sends him is laden with irony in its significance. For Lieutenant Cross, the pebble is heavy despite its small size because it symbolizes his unreciprocated love for Martha and his longing to leave Vietnam. However, for Martha, who has few worries and no understanding of Cross' burdens, the pebble "seemed weightless."

Ultimately, not even the fantasy of Martha's love can distract Jimmy Cross from the harsh reality of the war he is trapped in. Jimmy attempts to use thoughts of Martha to fend off the brutal images of war. However, he realizes that his daydreaming and lack of focus may have led to Ted Lavender's death. This realization compels Jimmy Cross to concentrate even more on the war he initially tries to escape.

As a unit, the soldiers collectively hold onto the somewhat misguided belief that the items they carry will offer them the protection they desperately seek, both physically and emotionally. They lug around the heavy mine detector, despite it being "a strain on the lower back and shoulders, difficult to manage, and often ineffective because of the shrapnel in the ground, but they carried it anyway, partly for safety, partly for the illusion of safety." Therefore, even the physical burden is deceptive, concealing the much heavier emotional burden the soldiers endure.

War and Love
Readers might anticipate the story to explore the tension between war and peace. However, O'Brien's central message in this story and his other works is that the true connection lies between war and love. For instance, Lt. Cross believes that his love for Martha prevents him from adequately fulfilling his duties to his men. He literally thinks that because he prioritized love over war, Ted Lavender's death is his fault. O'Brien suggests that love is intrinsically linked to the experience of war. In a 1994 article for the New York Times Magazine, he explains: "Intimacy with death carries with it a corresponding new intimacy with life. Jokes are funnier, green is greener. You love the musty morning air. You love the miracle of your own enduring capacity for love."

O'Brien also asserts that love was a driving force behind his decision to go to Vietnam. In the same article, he admits: "I have done bad things for love, bad things to stay loved." Reflecting on his reaction to being drafted, he writes: "I thought about Canada. I thought about jail. But in the end, I could not bear the prospect of rejection: by my family, my country, my friends, my hometown. I would risk conscience and rectitude before risking the loss of love."

The Individual and the Collective
A key theme in all war narratives, particularly Vietnam war literature, is the interplay between the individual soldier and the collective unit. Military training aims to transform individuals into a cohesive group, a platoon, by fostering both intense loyalty to and reliance on each other. Well-trained soldiers understand that their survival depends on the actions of their comrades, and they are also willing to risk their lives for the group's sake. In "The Things They Carried," Lt. Cross's platoon demonstrates collective action in various ways. They share the burden of carrying essential equipment and draw lots to determine whose turn it is to search the tunnels.

However, collective action in wartime has a dark side. The official language of war often uses collective nouns like "troops" to obscure the involvement of individual soldiers. For example, hearing that Alpha Company suffered "one casualty" is more palatable than knowing Ted Lavender was shot in the head on the way back from relieving himself. O'Brien's narrative directly addresses this theme by juxtaposing the plurality of the platoon with the individuality of its members. They are all legs and grunts, bearing heavy loads and supporting each other, yet in their private thoughts and the personal items they carry in their backpacks and pockets, they remain singular men with their own hometowns, girlfriends, fathers, and mothers.

Storytelling: Fact or Fiction
Much like other Vietnam War literature, ''The Things They Carried'' is deeply influenced by the author's personal combat experiences. However, O'Brien is insistent that the fiction within the book should not be mistaken for factual recounts. In an interview with Michael Coffey of Publishers Weekly shortly after the book's release, O'Brien asserts: ‘‘My own experience has virtually nothing to do with the content of the book.’’ The title page clearly labels it as ''a work of fiction.'' Despite this, the book is dedicated ''to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa." O'Brien himself served as an infantryman in Alpha Company and was stationed in Quang Ngai province from 1969 to 1970. When questioned about this in an interview with Martin Narparsteck in Contemporary Literature, O'Brien elaborates: "What I'm saying is that even with that nonfiction-sounding element in the story, everything in the story is fiction, beginning to end. To classify different elements of the story as fact or fiction seems to me artificial. Literature should be looked at not for its literal truth but for its emotional qualities. What matters in literature, I think, are the pretty simple things--whether it moves me or not. Whether it feels true. The actual literal truth should be superfluous."

O'Brien clearly wants readers to grapple with the line between fact and fiction. What is crucial to him, as he explained at a conference on Vietnam War literature, is the "power of stories, whether they're true, or embellished, and exaggerated, or utterly made up. A good story has a power ... that transcends the question of factuality or actuality." At the beginning of the final story in The Things They Carried, O'Brien discloses why he shares these narratives: "Sometimes stories can save us." Providing a deeper insight in an interview with Publishers Weekly, O'Brien states, ‘‘If there is a theme to the whole book it has to do with the fact that stories can save our lives.’’