Tim O'Brien:
The Things They Carried

“A true was story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie” (O’Brien 68-68).

            When reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, I receive no feeling of uplift or rectitude, I feel no sense of sorrow or sadness, no happiness, and no anger, when reading The Things They Carried, I feel disbelief and bewilderment. The stories that Tim has presented us with take us into the utter reality of war; they offer an illustration we never thought we would get a glimpse of without being in attendance. The imagery and depiction in these stories is incredible. He has a way of making the reader feel involved and connected to the soldiers exposed in his writings.

            In the short story, On a Rainy River, I, as the reader, became closer in a sense to the utter reality of war and the feelings and emotions an individual faces when they determine they are approaching danger. In this story Lieutenant Jimmy Cross gives the reader a more extensive look into his own journey where previously he spend much of his time telling the stories of his fellow comrades and the things they were facing and taking part in. This story is about Lt. Cross before he set out to war. The things he did and the emotions he felt when he found out he was going to be drafted. He starts this story by mentioning that this was his first time presenting anyone with it, he felt embarrassment and shame at the time and didn’t have the courage to share these events until now. This shows the reader a sense of how important these episodes were to the writer, and how close to the heart he held them. It makes me realize how hard it must be to share many of the events that happened while at war or in the procedures of it.

            “Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are now.  Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (O’Brien 38). These stories told by O’Brien are questionable. But that disbelief is what makes them so admirable, and so true. When I read How to Tell a True War Story I found myself examining if what I read was the same as what was written. These aspects are what make the stories war stories. I think Tim O’Brien has an indescribable way of sharing his experiences and the experiences of fellow soldiers. He puts into perspective the challenges that so many men and women face everyday and the absurd things they witness. I am grateful to gain such a deep mental vision through these readings. 

   

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Print.