“We sat quietly for a time. There was no need to talk, because we were thinking the same things: about Morty Phillips and the way luck worked and didn’t work and how it was impossible to calculate the odds. There were a million ways to die.”
-The Things They Carried, p 187
In reality, The Things They Carried is essentially a compilation of anecdotes. The anecdote about Morty Phillips is a prime example of the basic style of the entire novel. Like the other anecdotes, the tale carries a conversational air, as if O’Brien is talking directly to the reader. Yet the story discusses events that seldom would appear in any normal conversation. In describing Morty’s bizarre death, O’Brien simply emphasizes once more a harsh reality of the Vietnam War: death could come in countless ways. People often view death in combat as the only way that soldiers can actually die in a war. Yet in many cases, the deaths caused by other circumstances make up a substantial portion of overall war casualties. O’Brien utilizes this anecdote to illustrate how dangerous war in general is—not just the battles, but life within the war.
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