No Comments Written by Ronald on January 30, 2008 – 9:59 pm

I did this for my summer reading project and thought the book was excellent, so I’m hear to share the novel “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’ Brien. I think this novel was excellent, and really put you in the story, as if watching a movie rather than reading a book. Heres my book report project I did for it.

The Main Characters:
The Soldiers and Platoon:
Tim O’Brien – The narrator and main character of the book, and also the author. He mainly tells the story than include himself in it a lot.
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross- Another important main character. He is the platoon leader, was in a junior in college, and he blames himself for the death of two soldiers.
Kiowa- Was a religious Native American Christian, and friend of Tim ‘O Brien. He carried stuff from his culture, like moccasins. He died later in a sewage.
Azar- A young sort of sick minded soldier, who likes to engage himself in very brutal attacks and acts in the story, he though late helped Tim get revenge on the new medic.
Rat Kiley- He was the medic in the platoon; he took care of Tim when he got shot. But he eventually goes crazy and cannot take anymore of the war, so he shoots himself in the foot to leave.
Henry Dobbins- The machine gunner, who was dumped by his girlfriend but wears her stockings around his neck. He believes in good luck items. He was very nice and friendly.
Norman Bowker- a member of the platoon who is haunted from his memories of it. He later hung himself in his hometown in Iowa at a YMCA.
Mitchell Sanders- He is another soldier in the story; he is depicted out to be a
player.”
Ted Lavender- He had carried a stash of weed, until he was shot in the back of his head. He died very early in the story.
Dave Jensen- He was good friends with Lee, when they were fighting over a stolen knife. He signed a “pact” with lee, to kill each other if they ever ended up in an a situation where they were about to die, or handy capped. When Lee had his legs blown off he didn’t kill him, even when asked to.
Lee Strunk- A good friend to Dave Jensen, he carried a slingshot, but had his legs blown off, he later died away from where he lost his legs.
Curt Lemon- One of the soldiers who faced a horrible death. He was blown to bits by a booby-trap. He was a good friend of Rat.
Bobby Jorgenson- was the replacement medic after Rat shot himself. He was scared and did a lousy job, so Tim wanted revenge against him once he didn’t help when he was shot.
Other Important Characters-
Linda- Tim’s childhood love, she died at nine from a tumor caused by cancer. He later explains how she always appears in his dreams even to today. He also recalls remembering going to her funeral.
Kathleen- Tim’s daughter.

Summary of “The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien”
The Things They Carried is an excellent book by the author Tim O’ Brien. In the novel he tells stories based off his personal experiences from “The Vietnam War.” It’s an excellent book, and very well written and depicts every scene well, like watching a movie. The story starts out with the narrator describing lists of items the soldiers carried on a daily bases. Later he introduces the characters and the items they carried. All the characters are part of Tim’s platoon and they play important roles in each of the stories. All characters have their chapters, their struggles, and stories to tell. Some die, some live. The novel depicts the reality of war, and how gruesome it can be. In one part Tim explains war stories, that the ones that sound true aren’t true but possible, then there’s the stories that sound true and probably was true. He goes on telling a story about four soldiers that go down a trail, a grenade slides out, one soldier jumps on it and takes the blast, but it was a killer grenade so everyone dies anyway. It’s not how Hollywood would depict the story but it’s how something like that would really happen. Some live, some died, and others blame themselves for whatever happened during the war.

Although most of all the stories Tim tells takes place during the Vietnam War, the soldier’s personal lives are revealed in the beginning and on through the story, and he also has his personal-personal experiences included in his life after and before the war. You learn that a lot of their personal lives have to do with their way to responding to things. For example, when Ted Lavender dies, the platoon leader Jimmy Cross blames himself for it. Even after the war he still blamed himself for the deaths of every soldier that died in his platoon. The reason why he was so hard on himself about the deaths of his fellow platoon members was probably because he often daydreamed and thought about a girl he had a crush on in college. The Things They Carried just doesn’t mean the physical things they carried it also means the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and nightmares they carried.

The Things They Carried also showed the lifestyle of a soldier in Vietnam. An ordinary day in War can turn into and Ordinary in Hell. Or like the situation where Curt Lemon was blown into a tree, it was a Tragedy. Curt Lemon possibly faced the most gruesome death in the novel. His body parts were hanging from the tree he was blown in to. Another tragic death was the death of Kiowa. Kiowa was a friend to Tim so his death was little more important to Tim then Lemon’s, who was less of a friend, compared to Kiowa. The story of Kiowa’s death is the cause of another, but in retrospect. When Tim received a letter some years after the war from Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker could not handle the pressure he felt from Kiowa’s death, he blamed his death completely on him, and he took it hard. Norman Bowker later hung himself in a YMCA in his hometown. This to me showed that some left Vietnam War, but parts of it they carried home with them.

The Things They Carried shows the epic and triumphant scenes from stories of Vietnam War, some difficult to believe, some saddening, some epic and great. It even shows the cowardly, the sick minded and weak stomach soldiers of war. No matter who they were, they all carried something in and from war. Even after their death what they carried was written about. The stories and scenes from this novel by Tim O’ Brien can come to eye openers to many, to have to process these true situations in our American history can be so hard for many, as it was to me. The Things They Carried, gave me something to carry with me my whole life, the knowledge of history that shows me how to persevere with determination and hope.

My personal favorite part of the novel:
In the novel “The Things They Carried,” there were many scenes and chapters that captivated me. But there’s only one scene that I liked the most. Even through all the epic parts in stories throughout the War. None of them got to me like the last chapter and scene were Tim talks about his childhood crush. To me this scene connected to me, because I’ve lost a lot of people that I loved, but I’ve never known how to correctly show emotions towards death. Without showing remorse I miss the people who had passed in my life, whether old or young. Reading that last section, I could instantly relate, I to once attempt to dream people back, but I could never do it. Dreams are so uncontrollable, but I love how Tim O’ Brien explained the excitement he got from being seeing Linda in his dreams. The way he described it as if it were almost impossible to decipher the difference between his dreams and reality. It was somewhat, somewhat… touching.

Well anyways in this scene he explains that Linda was his childhood love when he was nine. But tragically she died from a tumor that formed from cancer at the age of nine. He told how he remembered her funeral, when he went up to see her body lying in her casket he was in disbelief, it was hard for him to believe that his friend, his friend he loved had died. Her body was puffy, rather than when she was alive she was very slender. He thought that they had pumped her too full of formaldehyde or embalming fluid. He wished it where all a dream and that in reality that she was still alive, but he was confronted with the fact that she was indeed dead.

So at night he would go to bed, and create dreams in his mind to bring her back to life. It was something similar to self-hypnosis. In every dream, she appeared waiting for him. In the dreams they played and had fun, and he described the dreams as if he were actually talking to her spirit. Sometimes he would have questions come up like, “How does it feel to be dead?” She would reply, “Do I look dead?” To me it was almost scary as to how she responded as if his mind comprehended more than a self generated version of Linda, as if she were actually there. Me, I could never do anything like that. So I kind of admired Tim’s way of doing this in the story.

Later on he tells that in his dreams, everyone that died close to him are in them, all of his platoon members and everything. I thought that sort of symbolized something, maybe peace. Still in the end he talks about Linda, to have remembered someone that long is amazing.

After reading this book I researched dreaming to learn about it, I found it interesting. So I guess that would be mainly why it’s my favorite part. It shows the human mind to be extremely powerful.