The Things They Carried | Analysis

Tim O’Brien was a man of innocence who simply did not fit into the “war scene.” He was a slim, young, dainty, academic man and a soldier at the same time, dealing with atrocities in Vietnam, such as seeing his own friends die and actually killing a man himself. In the story The Man I Killed, O’Brien described in detail the gruesome outcome of how he killed a young Vietnamese man. Throughout the writing, O’Brien repeated the details of the death over and over. The impact from repeating himself is great because “words make a difference.”

O’Brien started off directly describing the death of the Vietnamese man, including the young man’s open wounds, tattered clothing, and delicate facial features. Throughout his description, O’Brien never actually spoke. He described horrific details using first-person narration: “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole (pg. 124).” These explicit details give you the impression that you are experiencing the scene firsthand. Your stomach starts to churn with uneasiness about the horror described. The writing literally puts you at the scene as an observer of the true nature of war and its gruesome truth. War from this point of view is truly tragic.

O’Brien then ventured further. He taunted you into feeling empathy for his enemy, as he imagined what the man’s life was like before his death. ” He had been born, maybe, in 1946 in the village of My Khe near the central coastline of Quang Ngai Province, where his parents farmed, and where his family had lived for several centuries, and where, during the time of the French, his father and two uncles and many neighbors had joined in the struggle for independence. He was not a communist. He was a citizen and a soldier (pg. 125).” O’Brien described the soldier as though he actually knew the man. The wrenching queasy feeling you experience this time is caused by the portrayal of the Vietnamese soldier’s innocence. You are soon reminded of O’Brien’s life and similarities shared between the two men. He compels you to feel guilty about what he did to this man.

Towards the end of the story, O’Brien started to repeat the vivid details of the Vietnamese man’s death. This time, though, he portrayed a different feeling. “The star-shaped hole was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out at the center of the star (pg. 126).” He described not only the gore, but also included some surprisingly serene details within the massacre scene. “The butterfly was making its way along the young man’s forehead, which was spotted with small dark freckles. The nose was undamaged. The skin on the right check was smooth and fine-grained and hairless (pg. 127).” Where he once described death, he began to show life. “Along the trail were small blue flowers shaped like bells. The young man’s head was wrenched sideways, not quite facing the flowers, and even in the shade a single blade of sunlight sparkled against the buckle of his ammunition belt (pg. 128).” O’Brien still used grisly details, but depicted the scene this time as one with underlying beauty. “The one eye did a funny twinkling trick, red to yellow. His head was wrenched sideways, as if loose at the neck, and the dead young man seemed to be staring at some distant object beyond the bell-shaped flowers along the trail (pg. 129).” From what was originally a morbid scene, became more of a natural place of beauty and tranquility, transformed only by his choice of words. Even after the death of the Vietnamese man, the beauty captivated in the scene made it less disturbing.

O’Brien stated in the book that a true war story isn’t a good war story because of the facts; it is a good war story because it made you experience what they experienced. In this story O’Brien did just that. He brought you with him on his journey into war. You sensed his reluctance and fear. You sensed his guilt to the point where you actually felt guilty and a bit nauseous. Then he transformed the scene, embellishing it with tiny new details. You could see the beauty in and around the dead man as he lay there. O’Brien changed your whole experience with his words alone.

O’Brien suggests in the story that the enemy soldier could be viewed in different ways. The man was, at first, an emotionless adversary with a gun. But when O’Brien killed the soldier, he began to doubt his own humanity. His friends made the moment even more gut wrenching. “Oh man, you fuckin’ trashed the fucker. You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like shredded fuckin’ Wheat (pg.125), Azar exclaimed.” Kiowa, another friend, came to his rescue. “Just forget that crud. No sweat, man. What else could you do?” Each man reacted differently, but were all affected deeply by the traumatic event.

O’Brien struggled with the whole concept of war. He began to see his enemy as a human being and couldn’t really come to grips with what he had done. The war itself was the true adversary in his mind. It was destructive to all the men who participated. They coped with the horror in their own ways, trying to justify their actions. But deep down, the men were unable to truly communicate their overwhelming feelings brought on by the atrocities of war. O’Brien continues to be haunted by his shameful memories to this day.