The Animal Within

They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts…no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage…a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet.

-The Things They Carried, p 14

As I read this passage, it struck me how mindless and animalistic the soldiers seem. O’Brien describes them having a “dullness” about them, even a dullness of “human sensibility.” With descriptions like these, the company does not seem to be fully human. Yes, they may appear to be human; their “anatomy” is completely normal. Yet psychologically, they were anything but human. Slowly but surely, they begin to lose their sense of who they are. They begin to lose human emotion and replace it with simple, physical motion. As they march on, they lose their “conscience and hope.” They lose themselves.

Love and War (Stream of Consciousness)

In his wallet, Lieutenant Cross carried two photographs of Martha. The first was a Kodacolor snapshot signed Love, though he knew better…At night,sometimes, Lieutenant Cross wondered who had taken the picture, because he knew she had boyfriends, because he loved her so much, and because he could see the shadow of the picture-taker spreading out against the brick wall…He would always remember the feel of the tweed skirt and the knee beneath it…He remembered kissing her good night at the dorm door. Right then, he thought, he should’ve done something brave. He should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long. He should’ve risked it. Whenever he looked at the photographs, he thought of new things he should’ve done.

-The Things They Carried, p 3-4

The above passage is the second time that O’Brien follows Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’ stream of consciousness in the chapter. O’Brien alternates between Lt. Cross’ thoughts and matter-of-fact, objective descriptions of “the things they carried,” in which he also includes several references to Ted Lavender’s death without actually describing the event. Lt. Cross’ thoughts are explored in order to contrast between the facts and statistics of the Vietnam War, which too often are the only details the people know of the war, and the actual experiences and memories of those who fought in the war. While the reader is kept well-informed of the neutral and detached facts, he is at the same time given access to the facts that truly matter to the author: the lives of the men who fought.

At first, O’Brien keeps the two disparate ideas separate, dividing the objective from the subjective. After a few pages, however, O’Brien merges the two, beginning with an objective account on page 8, and then continuing into a description of events within Lt. Cross’ company. Fusing the two ideas together, he overlays Lt. Cross’ stream of consciousness onto the tangible facts of the war, culminating in a depiction of Ted Lavender’s death, which had been hinted at from the beginning. With this transition, O’Brien sets a tone for The Things They Carried, a matter-of-fact, yet emotionally-charged tone. Lt. Cross’ stream of consciousness preludes the reflections and emotions which will likely follow within the novel.