Tim O'Brien Response #2

My response will be to the story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. This story struck a chord with me because of how it showed a more personal side of every character. It had a way of showing in a small way who that man was. Whither it was Jimmy Cross’s picture of Martha, or Kiowa’s grandfather’s hunting hatchet (O’Brien, p 1-3). All those small artifacts gave each man an identifiable soul. The things they were forced to carry were no less important either. It was a way of making their burdens known.

The normal army gear was a physical burden, but it also symbolized the burden they each felt from what they were doing. The personal effects the carried was a tie to their old lives, and a reminder of what they wanted to go back to. Having these personal insights into each man from outset of the book was a masterful tactic by O’Brien. In essence it made me believe that on some small level I knew those men. It was this, I think, that made the laughs I got and the little uncomfortable feelings down in my stomach more intense. I’ll admit when I opened this book I had no clue what I was getting myself into, and less than a day later when I had finished reading every story with an attention bordering on obsession I was stunned.

This is the story that I think made or broke the book for me. If I hadn’t begun to think of the men in the story as real human beings, but as just characters in a story. I don’t think it would have been as enjoyable. In the end when Jimmy Cross put aside his love for Martha to make himself a better platoon leader. I felt like I knew how hard it was for him. Because in a small part I had felt how intense that love was.


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