The Things They Carried

Masculinity, Mortality, and Memory

Note: There are few books written that allows the reader to write a paper just because of the strong impact it leaves behind after its completion. This was not an assignment, but I felt it necessary to write a reflection of what these men carried.

Men are enforced to adhere to society’s definition of what is “being a man,” also defined as masculinity. Men are an enigma encrypted in a language different from the female mind; men still have a heart, a soul, and feelings with the same emotional abilities a woman possesses. The role of man has been defined by society, and this is what governs the role of man: no tears, no fear, and no display of emotion. Nothing but a solid concrete block defines the heart of an invincible man. O’ Brien’s The Things They Carried proves this well-known philosophy incorrect regarding man. O’ Brien incorporates this in his writing by exposing the great sensitivity and emotional complexity of man. In this novel, man learns through war that emotional burden and lack of emotional expression can be their greatest enemy. Through this book, man learns what properly should define masculinity. Sometimes a little love and emotion can prove what really molds a powerful man. O’ Brien’s writing reveals the uncertainty of why there is war, and why people die for war. Through the journey of the senses, and the power of human memory, these soldiers learn how to carry the burdens of war.
These soldiers suffered immensely through their emotions. Many men experienced remorse and blame over the death of a fellow comrade like Kiowa. Tim suffers immensely because Kiowa is lost in the sewage field. The haunting memory of Kiowa’s loss produces extensive brutality on the soldiers. These soldiers carried the memories of the men that they killed like the young mathematician with the star-shaped eye wound. Many times killing them just because they are required to out of proving themselves courageous. “ They carried all the emotional damage of men who might die, grief, terror, love, and longing. Those intangibles had their own mass… they carried the common secret of cowardice”(O’Brien, 21). These men suffer because they do feel and they do possess the ability to mourn and suffer. These men have to fight because “society” defines them to do so. Men’s emotional ability to suffer is the same to a woman’s, and they only reason they must fight is because their role in society is to do so. “ Men killed and died and died because they were embarrassed not to”(O’Brien, 21). These men must fight in a war to prove that they are truly a man and are strong enough to be considered “a man”. Later, they find out that courage doesn’t truly define a man, writing and expression fights harder than killing and fighting.
Men fight not because they are brave, strong, or fearless, but because they are programmed by society to do so. They fight so they don’t get the term “woosy” or unmanly. These soldiers are like programmed robots on a battlefield. These soldiers are programmed to shoot, to hurt, and to die. These men are afraid; they fear with all their hearts, but they fight to so they can live up to the term “masculinity.”
These men truly portray emotion and fear about death and dying. They are afraid what death is like, and start seeing themselves as simply pieces of meat. “ I start seeing my own body as chunks of myself. My own heart, my own kidneys… I can see the goddamn bugs chewing tunnels through me” (O’Brien 225). These men do not understand why they are out on the battlefield, but they see themselves as dead hunks of meat rather than living soldiers.
These soldiers also carry the heavy question of why there is war. “ You could blame war. You could blame the idiots who made war. You could blame God” (O’Brien, 177). The soldiers do not understand who created war and why they must fight in it. Human beings are gifted with the ability to use compromise and words rather than war. If we are so superior over the animal kingdom, why do we solve conflicts through the same animalistic attack system that animals use? Animals defend by blood and force, and so do “powerful human beings.” If we are so strong intellectually, why do we use war and not compromise? It is a question that not many know the steadfast answer to. War is a wasteland; war has very little purpose to these men out there. “ Kiowa got lost in the rain. He was folded with the war; he was part of the waste” (O’Brien, 153). These men who lost their lives died for war, a meaningless waste that swallows up the gift of precious lives. “ This whole war, you know what it is? Just one big banquet. Meat man: You and me. Meat for the bugs” (O’Brien, 223). The soldiers begin to see that war has no purpose but only cruel ways of proving an opinion, and sacrificing lives for the ability to prove a point of right or wrong, winning or losing.
This burden of weight concerning “why is there war” makes many of the soldiers to escape more weight carried through the senses. It is amazing how powerful memory connects to the senses. “ Various sounds, various smells… tasting the field in his mouth…(O’Brien, 171). Scent and sounds carries powerful holding to memory. These men greatly recall the scent of the “excrement field,” the scent of blood, and the sound of injured soldiers, and torrential rain. These burdens from the senses lodge themselves into the memory of man. These “senses” create memory of war in man, another heavy burden they remember. It is peculiar how small unimportant objects stay heavily remembered in the soldier’s mind. “ Those boots were one of those details you can’t forget, like a pebble, or blade of grass. You just stare and think, dear Christ, there’s the last thing on earth I’ll ever see (O’Brien,199).
Those small items were the last things seen by Tim when he was injured by bullet shot. Tim recalls those same boots when he sees them again at the end of the novel. “ I looked down at those boots: I remembered them from when I got shot”(O’Brien, 198). The power of memory and the recalling of small insignificant items prove to be of great weight and importance to the human mind. These memories tie in with great emotional impact. Like the man Tim shot with the star- shaped eye, he remembers that star shaped eye more than anything else. A small detail, but that defines the entire memory. It is the power of the human brain that stores certain visual or sensual details. The senses continue to define the weight of the war for Tim. Tom numerous times remembers in immense detail the man he killed. These men also start to feel how delicate they are as man, and that they aren’t strong and invincible, but rather feeble and delicate to something as small as a bullet. “ I felt it happen like a genie swirling out of a bottle. I was half in and half out. There were indications of a spirit world” (O’Brien, 214). This torturous weight-bearing memory is of Tim balancing on the brink of life and death. His spirit was trying to escape the horrors of war, but there was something horridly scary about the life after death. All of these memories, fears of death, and definition of masculinity through society help fully represent the weights of the soldiers that they carried.
So fully defined are the weights of the soldiers, but what helps these soldiers carry all of these burdens? These burdens are alleviated through the art of story telling. These stories allow these men to escape war, and to dream about their family and life at home. For Tim, he writes for his beloved Linda to keep her alive when she passed on from a brain tumor. There is a whole parallel that connects Linda to the soldiers lost in the war. The way Linda is portrayed in death mirrors the way the soldiers appeared in death.
“ Her arms and face were bloated. The skin at her cheeks was stretched out tight…”(O’Brien, 242). This parallels to the soldiers in death: “ They were all bloated…”(O’Brien, 243). This connection between the death of both Linda and his comrades gave him reason to write these war stories. He could bring Linda back through his writing. He could make her kiss him, hold him, and love him. Linda was alive when he wrote. The same goes for his comrades. They come back alive again when Tim writes stories when they were alive. He begins writing about Linda when he was nine. “ At nine I practiced the magic of stories” (O’Brien, 244). He realizes through writing, “ It is Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story” (O’Brien, 246). He keeps his childhood and his love alive through his writing.
The soldiers all carried immense amounts of burdens on their backs. Many of these men remained unsure of why they were fighting, dying, and suffering for war. These soldiers kept themselves alive through exposing their emotions openly through their war stories and writing. These men overrode the false tag of masculinity to relate to each other and help survive and stay strong as a unit. Without this realization, there would be the death of the soul, death of the mind, and death of humanity. And that alone, would be of weight too heavy for these men to carry.