In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien opens with the titular short
story about the physical weight of all the weapons and equipment that the
soldiers in this anthology must carry through the battlefields of Vietnam.
While this first story also begins to discuss the psychological “weight” that
the soldiers must carry as well, the rest of the stories pile it on, so to
speak, and add to this “weighty” theme. One could interpret many of the short
stories in this book as more entries into the list of “things carried.”
“Spin,”
the first story of substantial length after “The Things They Carried” (I think
of “Love” simply as a continuation of the first story), is full of examples of
this emotional baggage. O’Brien portrays several incidents during the war,
culminating with his greatest burden of all, the man he killed. This event is
discussed in much more detail later in the book. The next story delves further
into O’Brien’s psychological torment before he went off to war. He describes
his anguished attempt at dodging the draft and fleeing to Canada, before he
realizes the “weight” of his actions and decides to stay in the US and report
for his service.
After
this point, O’Brien begins to discuss the “heavy” psychological burdens carried
by his fellow servicemen. Some stories fit into this theme better than
others—the story about Rat and Curt Lemon is a perfect example of this, while
Rat’s story about Mary Anne doesn’t quite fit into this mold. However, all in
all, I am reading this collection as a cohesive narrative about the hidden—and
not so hidden—cost (or weight) of war.
