The Things They Carried Interpretation

The Things They Carried is a story that tells the activities of a platoon fighting in the Vietnam War while focusing on what items they carried around with them. Many of these were things they needed for the war, necessary supplies and weapons. Other items they carried seemed unimportant and unnecessary for a war but these were the things that were portrayed as the most important. When reading over this story at first it may appear that these little extra things the soldiers carried were insignificant. After all they weighed very little in comparison to the weapons that “weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 with its full twenty-round magazine” or the extra magazines the soldiers carried “adding on another 8.4 pounds at minimum, fourteen pounds at maximum” (1205). In comparison to these, along with the many other heavy weapons the soldiers had to carry, the small trinkets they carried around with them may seem to be insignificant to the reader. These small trinkets, however, are what add the most weight and bring the most burdens to these soldiers.
Tim O’Brien, the author of this story, seems to focus much of the story around the physical weight of the objects the men carry. As he lists the different weapons and machinery carried by each soldier he gives its weight. But when he tells of the other things they carry by choice, premium dope, condoms, a diary, comic books, an illustrated New Testament, and a hunting hatchet among these, he does not list their weight. Is this because their weight is insignificant compared to the other things they carried or because the weight, or importance rather, of these objects could not be determined by simply placing a number on it and calling that its weight. It seems as though O’Brien is eliciting to a much greater weight that these items carry. Not a physical weight, but an emotional weight. These all remind the soldiers of other things and other places. These things allowed the soldiers to escape the full reality and the monotony they were stuck in while fighting this war. Perhaps O’Brien neglects to include the weight of these items because their weight is incalculable.
O’Brien also discussed the intangible things that added to the weight of these soldiers. He tells of Jimmy Cross, the platoon leader, carrying the “responsibility for the lives of his men” (1204) and the “unweighed fear” (1205).
One of the central themes of this story is the weight these soldiers were under and how much weight many of the soldiers in combat face. O’Brien uses the heavy weight of the machine guns and other weapons to impact upon us the physical weight but he also uses the “peculiar little odds and ends” and the intangibles to allude to the tremendous weight they bore internally (1207). “They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity” (1210). This quote gives us a glance at the capacity of this weight, of having all these forces bearing down on the soldiers. When reading this story we shouldn’t simply read over this and continue but rather it is crucial that readers stop here and contemplate what this really means. How impossibly heavy it would be to carry the atmosphere and to carry gravity. O’Brien discussed the soldiers fighting and “hoping not to die” then soon after he describes “it was the burden of being alive” (1212). The soldiers could not escape. They didn’t want to die yet they were burdened because they were alive. “They carried their own lives” (1210).
We are able to sense the heaviness of all these things as we read about the men daydreaming while on guard. It says “they were carried away by jumbo jets… the weights fell off, there was nothing to bear… it was all lightness… they gave themselves over to lightness, they were carried, they were purely borne” (1214). The soldiers would imagine that they were taken away from the place they were at, away from the destruction and burdens. They were simply free and light. That’s all they wanted. Was to be light. For the weights to be lifted. Not just the physical weights but the emotional weights as well.
Another thing that suggests the unimportance of the war weapons the soldiers carried is the fact that every time O’Brien listed on of these war supplies the soldiers carried he would explain why they carried this. As if it isn’t obvious that these are needed in fighting a war and staying safe while doing so. An example of this is, “Because the land was mined and booby-trapped, it was standard operating procedure for each man to carry a steel-centered, nylon-covered flak jacket, which weighed 6.7 pounds, but which on hot days seemed much heavier. Because you could die so quickly, each man carried at least one large compress bandage, usually in the helmet band for easy access. Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons were wet, each carried a green plastic poncho that could be used as a raincoat or ground sheet or makeshift tent. With its quilted liner, the poncho weighed almost two pounds” (1203). O’Brien does not, however describe the purpose behind carrying the little things they carry. This is partly because there is no functionality to them but also because their purpose to the soldier cannot be summed up in a simple description. These things that they carry mean so much to them, these things seem to be their identity. As they are far away from their home, in another world it seems to them, these things serve as their identity and as a reminder of who they are outside of this war. O’Brien emphasizes that these little things were necessary for these men to carry. Maybe not necessary for fighting the war but necessary for their survival.
As you read The Things They Carried it is important that you not only look at the physical weight of the items they carried but that you also evaluate the weight behind the other things they carried including their thoughts and memories. As O’Brien says “grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (1213). Each of these things added to the burden of the soldier. I believe one of the things O’Brien was trying to convey in this story is just how incredibly pressured and encumbered these soldiers were; to deal with this destruction and death and fear while being still so young. It’s important that as we read this story we see that under all this pressure they still continued. Each day they began again. Not so much out of determination and perseverance but more out of fear and embarrassment. Not for “dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor” (1214).