Death (Apostrophe)

“Right then I started to cry. After a moment Linda stopped and carried her water bucket over to the curb and asked why I was so sad. ‘Well, God,’ I said, ‘you’re dead.’

“Linda smiled. It was a secret smile, as if she knew things nobody could ever know, and she reached out and touched my wrist and said, ‘Timmy, stop crying. It doesn’t matter.’ ”

-The Things They Carried, p 225

In case we have not noticed, The Things They Carried, being a novel about war, is fraught with death. It seems that one cannot read more than twenty pages without another soldier and comrade being shot or blowing up or drowning in mud. It is this horrific pattern of death which gives O’Brien’s apostrophe in this passage so much power. In his imagined conversation with Linda, O’Brien does not talk to just her. He cries over all of his fallen comrades—Ted Lavender, Curt Lemon, Kiowa, Norman Bowker, Monty Phillips—as well as Linda.

It is in this moment that the plot comes to its climax. After describing so many deaths, O’Brien finally is overcome with misery and grief. Yet in that moment, his perception is altered. He learns that in the end, “it doesn’t matter.” Yes, death happens. It happens for everyone, and that is why in the end, weeping over those in the past does nothing. The only thing to do is just to live life as best we can without those who have gone before us.

Getting By

“ ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Those dumb jokes—I didn’t mean anything.’
“ ‘We all say things.’
“ ‘Yeah, but when I saw the guy, it made me feel—I don’t know—like he was listening.’
“ ‘He wasn’t.’
“ ‘I guess not. But I felt sort of guilty almost, like if I’d kept my mouth shut none of it would’ve ever happened. Like it was my fault.’
“Norman Bowker looked out across the wet field. ‘Nobody’s fault,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s.’ ”

-The Things They Carried, p 168

It is interesting to observe the different coping mechanisms that each member of Alpha Company utilizes when faced with harsh realities of war. Some, such as Lt. Cross, feel immense guilt and resolve to become tougher to the cruelties of battle. Some, such as Rat Kiley, release their emotions violently and cathartically. Some, such as Henry Dobbins and Norman Bowker, keep their emotions within—in the case of Bowker, too much within.

Still others, such as Azar, employ perhaps the strangest coping mechanism: they turn traumatic experiences into humor. Instead of displaying grief and bitterness, Azar simply laughs and jokes death off. While most of the company view Azar as cold and unemotional because of this, in truth Azar could be viewed as the most affected by these events. He is so affected that is unable to bear it and is driven to create distractions through humor. Yet even Azar reaches a point where his humor is unable to distract him from the terror of war. In the end, few can escape the trauma of war.

A Load to Bear

“This is why I keep writing war stories: He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him—afraid of something—and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him.”

-The Things They Carried, p 125

Well, this passage certainly produces ethos to the max, eh? In these two chapters (12-13), O’Brien unloads a tremendous emotional burden. There a couple ways by which he confesses to the reader his actions in an almost cathartic manner. In the first chapter, he repeats gruesome details about the corpse nearly to the point of exhaustion. His repetition indicates that he clearly is still affected by the memory to this day.

In between these details, though, O’Brien does something that is remarkably haunting. He vividly describes the young man’s appearance and goes on to meticulously describe an imagined life for this man. Truthfully, O’Brien describes this man more vividly and personally than he does any of his comrades. By giving this corpse a life full of emotions, of love and fear and duty, he humanizes this young man more than the Americans. By the time O’Brien actually describes the man’s death in the second chapter, the reader almost sympathizes more with the man than with Alpha Company. O’Brien unloads his guilt and shame on the ready, and, by doing so, shares it with us all.