The Weight of War

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.